SLJ Wk 4 Day 1: Bookworms

Image Attribution 1

DAY 1: BOOKWORMS


Activity 1: Rags to Riches [4 points]

J. K. Rowling is one of the most well known authors in the world. She wrote the Harry Potter series of books. Over 500 million copies of her books have been sold, making J. K. Rowling the world’s first billionaire author.

While she was writing the first Harry Potter book, she was a single mum with very little money. She used to write while her daughter Jessica was asleep. She used her initials ‘J.K.’ instead of her name (Joanne) because her publisher thought that boys might not want to read a book written by a woman.

J. K. Rowling has done many interviews which have revealed things about her as a writer and as a person. One of these interviews was conducted by a very famous television personality, Oprah Winfrey (you can find more about her on Day 3, Activity 1!).

As well as books needing to be engaging and interesting for the reader, it is important that they are engaging and interesting on the cover too. We sometimes say “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” but we often choose books (if we don’t know much about them) when they have an attractive cover!


Image Attribution: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by Gwydion M. Williams is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Image Attribution: Rowling, after receiving an honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen, S.J Hill, CC BY-SA 3.0

For this activity, design a book cover for your favourite book. You will need to think about what needs to be on the cover (the title, author, illustrator), pictures, colour, etc. Please create all of the images yourself (draw or photograph) rather than using images that you find online.

On your blog, share the book cover you have designed.

*Please check out the Eye-Catching Blog Posts page for ideas!




Activity 2: Romeo and Juliet [4 points]

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an author, poet and playwright. He is best known for the plays that he wrote while living in England in the 16th Century. Although they were written a long time ago, they are still popular because they talk about things that are familiar to us - love, revenge, confusion, betrayal, jealousy, hurt, etc. You might have heard of some of his plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear. Many of them have also been made into movies.

Shakespeare wrote his plays in English, however, it is not the same version of English that we have now. In fact, many of the words that we use today, in 2019, weren’t used back in 1600 (and vice versa).


For this activity, we would like you to learn more about ‘Shakespearean English’ - the version of English that Shakespeare used to write his plays. To do this, please write a short recount about what you did this morning in regular (2019) English, and then use this translating tool to turn it into Shakespearean English.

On your blog, share both your English and Shakespearean translation of your recount.

Here is an example:

This morning I got up early when my daughter Laila woke up. We had a delicious breakfast of steaming hot porridge before heading out the door to start the day. It was cold, sunny and clear outside.

This m'rning I did get up early at which hour mine own daught'r Laila did wake up. We hadst a delicious breakfast of steaming hot p'rridge bef're heading out the doth'r to starteth the day. T wast bitter cold, sunny and cleareth outside.