In amongst all of the preparations for the Unwritten Girl’s launch party tomorrow, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve added a study guide to the official website. Teachers can now download this 44 page PDF file to help them use the book in their classrooms, if they so desire.
I have been modelling my book’s website after Kenneth Oppel’s (minus the flash animations, of course; but if anybody has any inspiration to do a flash animation for the Unwritten Girl, you are more than welcome to write me), and I was always impressed with the study guides that existed for his novels, and I thought it would be a good idea if my book had one too. I approached Martha Martin, the person who did such a good job with the Skybreaker study guide, but she didn’t have the time. Instead, she pointed me to a young teacher who did good work, and wanted to add to her portfolio.
So the study guide you see here was the work of one Jacqueline Lavigne. She worked quite hard for this, overcoming even a hard drive failure to get it out to me before the Waterloo launch, and I really like it. I think the questions and the activities are fun and challenging, and if this gets schoolchildren reading my book, I certainly will not complain.
Thanks to Jacqueline for putting this together and doing such a good job. And if you are a teacher of grade 4-6 students, I hope you will consider adding me to your curriculum. If your school is within driving distance of the Region of Waterloo, I am available to do school readings
Interesting Ideas
In the “nature abhors a vacuum” department, Pure Pleasure Madmen Know suggests that, since Stephen Harper seems loathe to speak before the annual Canadian Press Gallery dinner this year, Stephen Colbert should speak in his stead. After Colbert’s speech before Bush and the Washington Press Gallery, this would be a good follow-up.
Web 2.0. Most net-savvy people have heard of this absolutely meaningless phrase to describe the current state of the evolving Internet, with clean web design and interactive applications. Apparently the O’Reilly publishing company, known for its long line of computer and Internet-related books, has trademarked the term and is asking for royalties on its use, even from non-profit companies.
In recognition of the fact that Web 2.0 has officially jumped the shark, I suggest that all Web 2.0 websites upgrade to Web 2.1. Who’s with me?
PC World’s list of the 25 Worst Tech Products of all time is an interesting read. I got a chuckle out of the Apple MacIntosh Portable (1989) that was four inches thick and weighed 16 pounds. Windows Millennium Edition is #4 on the list. I didn’t have the problems with it that others seem to have had, but then I reformatted the C: drive and reloaded the operating system from scratch every six months. Haven’t had to do that yet for my MacIntosh OsX. (Link courtesy the Apple Weblog)