Week 7; Layout plans and Ideas

Bilingual or Separate Welsh E-book

One thing that caught my attention during the visit was creating more opportunities for bilingual Welsh/English speakers, and how there may be a big gap in the market. As a Welsh speaker myself and having had a totally Welsh education it is something very personal to me. This was also made stronger by being able to chose a significant Welsh person, Aneurin Bevan.

        I had initially intended to create a bilingual e-book but after considering this I realised that the amount of text would be doubled. Also, children who attend welsh education during KS1 are often not able to read English so there's no point combining the languages. This lead me to want to create two e-books, one Welsh and one English, using the same illustrations and layout in both, simply changing the text. As most people in the university or in the NA will not be able to read the welsh, I will check the language and grammar with one of my old Welsh teachers from school through email or a meeting.

The Cover

For the cover I have included some iconic British symbols that will be brightly coloured and exciting to grab the attention of children and teachers. These symbols will be illustrated by myself using black ink and coloured using gouache. This will make it feel more authentic and give a nice rich texture. The colour theme throughout will be browns as backgrounds to symbolise old paper, with reds and yellows ect for richness. Along the bottom of the page will be the logos for the NA and the University of Worcester. 

Back Cover 

The back page will include information about the e-book. I will place the text within an old photo frame illustration just to give an effect and fill the page with something more interesting. The main body of text throughout the e-book will be typed for the quickness of creating a Welsh and English version. I would like to chose a swirly old-looking font to fit my theme but this perhaps isn't a good option for young children who may still not be able to read easily. For this reason I would need to research deeper for my font type. 

Spread 1 - Starter

During the suggested starter activity sheet, the tasks chosen are mainly brief oral ideas or quick notes and therefore needed to fill the rest of the spread with some imagery or interesting things. I decided to create profiles for each of my significant 3, using a photograph placed in a frame to show what those people really looked like, with their bodies illustrated and painted. The profiles will be used to support the first task on this spread. The second addition to the spread is a timeline on the right hand side showing the dates these people were born in relation to other historic events they may know about, such as the first man on the moon. 

Spread 2 - Main

I chose the task to become an expert, so I needed to design a layout in order to break up the text in an obvious and interesting way. This made me think about what materials might have been available during their period of time. For example when looking at Aneurin Bevan's documents at the Archives, a lot were on old lined paper with printed text, so this would be a useful format to carry to educate the KS1 pupils. To fill the page a little more and to keep the pupils focused I have included 'Match the Item' section that will have different artefacts belonging or related to an historical figure that they must try and match after reading or having listened to the information. 

Spread 3 - Plenary

This spread also only has a small task to include and therefore I will fill the page with a map and on the map will be 6 or so items they can try to find. The map will be a combination of areas of all three of the significant people. I will try not to make the map to intricate or difficult, as it is only a filler to be done if some have finished early.