Array ( [article_id] => 14166 [company_id] => 1 [user_id] => 0 [article_type_id] => 58 [article_seo_url] => sos-missing [details] => Array ( [Title] => SOS Sagas: Missing [Description] => Grip your students with creative writing as they write their own thrilling mini-saga. Tension and suspense will have their writing leaping off the page! [Subheading] => Grip imaginations with creative writing as young writers create their own thrilling mini saga for SOS Sagas: Missing creative writing competition. [Age] => 11-18 [Intro] =>

Tension and suspense will have their writing leaping off the page as your students enjoy creating their 100-word mysterious mini sagas inspired by our free teaching resources such as story starter postcards. Your students can interpret them as they wish, using any time period and narrative techniques they'd like. 

There's also a fantastic video that introduces your students to the activity in just 1 minute! It's guaranteed to create a buzz in your English lesson, whether in the classroom or home learning, banishing boredom and inspiring creativity! 

[Rules] =>

Only one entry per student, there is no limit to the number of entries per school.

Stories can be on the entry form or an A4 sheet of paper or typed.

Stories must be your students' own work.

Ensure that all students include their name and age on their entries.

Mini Sagas must be told in no more than 100 words (the title isn't included in this).

Independent entries are welcome - please provide your home address details instead of the school's.

Where possible, the school to send / upload / email all their students' entries to us

[School Prizes] =>

1st Place Prize: 

£500 resource voucher of your school's choice & The Young Writers' Award Of Excellence. 

Runners-Up

4x £250 National Book Tokens

School winners will be chosen from entries received in the 2019/2020 academic year.

[Student Prizes] =>

Our favourite 5 writers will each win £100, The Book Of Lost Things by John Connolly & a trophy.

 

Student winners are chosen from entries received in the Spring/Summer Terms 2020

[Tips] =>

Your SOS Sagas: Missing competition pack should have landed on your desk by now, and includes:

• Student worksheets
• 8 Exciting Story Starter Ideas
• A Fun Activity
• An Engaging Poster

Plus online there’s an awesome 1-minute video to introduce Missing to your students and further activities to try!

Split students into eight groups and give each group a story starter…

The group has to think of as many ideas as they can for the theme (suggest a minimum of one per person):

E.g.

• The place was empty... Why?
• A child had gone missing from the family home and it was then abandoned
• Because the special door key was lost and no one found it
• The cure wasn’t found in time as a chemical was missing
• As it hadn’t been found for over 1,000 years
• As the shop has shut and I’m lost looking for help
• Gone through a portal to another dimension
• My dog ran off into this place

Now ask each group to write one group mini-saga based on their favourite idea (or they could pass their ideas to a different group who chooses one). Once written each group reads theirs to the class and discusses what they liked and why.

Now ask your students to write their own mini saga based on one of the story starters that inspired them during this activity.

It’s Global Recycling Day on 18^th March. The environment, going plastic free, carbon footprints and climate change are important topics that we know teenagers are concerned about.

They don’t have to be use a story starter we’ve provided as we love originality! Why not use a theme or awareness day, such as Global Recycling Day to inspire your students with the theme of Missing?

E.g.

• Oxygen is about to run out... (missing resource)
• The world was lost without natural resources... (missing resource)
• The water levels kept rising... (missing land, food, somewhere to live)
• Use of plastic carried the death penalty... (missing morals – is this fair?)
• Recycling had a cash incentive... (missing items)
• Turning the old into new... (missing piece, creating sustainability)

As you can see the theme of Missing is fun to interpret and simple to tie in with other subject. What matters to your students and can they convey the missing theme in a mini saga? What a brilliant challenge!

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School Winners

1^st Prize – £500

Awarded to Bishop Luffa CE Secondary School, Sussex
Whose students are published in “Hunted – The Chase”

4 x Runners-Up - £250 National Book Token

The Purcell School, Hertfordshire
Whose students are published in “Hunted – Gripping Tales”

Clifton Preparatory School, Bristol
Whose students are published in “Trapped – UK Stories”

Hampton Gardens School, Cambridgeshire
Whose students are published in “Missing – Future Authors” & “Hunted – Electrifying Stories”

Seva School, West Midlands
Whose students are published in “Hunted – UK Tales”

(Winners were chosen from schools who entered the SOS Sagas series: Hunted, Missing & Trapped.)

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