My Favorie Summer Reading Book

My favorite summer reading pick from this year's ninth grade summer reading list was The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It's about sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who accidentally becomes a contender in the annual Hunger Games, a grave competition hosted by the Capitol where young boys and girls are pitted against one another in a televised fight to the death. And the best news is that Book # 2, Catching Fire is available and Book # 3 (the final one!), Mockingjay is coming out on September 1st!

Mepham's Class of 2010

"Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!"
- Dr. Seuss

Learn, Create, Share @ Your Library!

Libraries are chock-full of tech toys like CDs, DVDs and computer games, and they're a great place to get connected to homework help, research resources, gaming, music, the Web and more. Stop by your school library or visit our Website during Teen Tech Week, March 7 – 13!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Every year, many students come in to the library requesting a biography on Dr. Seuss. We hand them a book on Theodor “Ted” Seuss Geisel. Then we get the question: “Who’s this?” This is Dr. Seuss, and he wasn’t a real doctor. He was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts, to German immigrant parents who made their living brewing beer. Before his mother married, she worked in her father’s bakery and would recite the baked goods in a chant to the customers. As a child, when Dr. Seuss could not fall asleep, his mother would recite these chants to him. Later Dr. Seuss would credit his mother “for the rhythms in which I write and the urgency with which I do it.” Dr. Seuss attend Dartmouth College where he became the editor in chief of the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth's humor magazine. When caught throwing a party, he was fired as editor, but still contributed as “Seuss.” This is the first record of his using the pseudonym Seuss, which was both his middle name and his mother's maiden name. For more information on Dr. Seuss check out his biography or visit his interactive Website.

Have You Inked Lately?

Teen Ink is a national teen magazine, book series, and website devoted entirely to teenage writing, art, photos and forums since 1989. According to their Website, students must be age 13-19 to participate, register and/or submit work. This magazine is distributed through classrooms by English teachers, Creative Writing teachers, Journalism teachers and art teachers around the country. Teen Ink magazine offers some of the most thoughtful and creative work generated by teens and has the largest distribution of any publication of its kind.
Teen Ink has NO staff writers or artists; they depend completely on submissions from teenagers nationwide for their content. They offer teenagers the opportunity to publish their creative work and opinions on the issues that affect their lives - everything from love and family to teen smoking and community service. They have published more than 45,000 teens.
So, what are you waiting for? This is another great opportunity to have your work published.

Writing Contests

Every year several Mepham High School students have their work written published, whether it be poems, essays, short fiction pieces, etc. How do they get published? They simply enter writing contests. We have an entire webpage devoted to writing contests taking place all over our country. How do you get to the writing contests page on our Website? Go to the W.C. Mepham High School Website, click on the "Departments" tab at the top of the page, and then click on "English," next click on "Student Resources," finally click on the link for "Writing Contests." Hardcopies of all contests are available in the Learning Center (Room 203). What are you waiting for? If you have a piece of writing that you think is worthy of publication submit it TODAY!

Image Source

Wordle

According to the Wordle Website, "wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends." I created the wordle above in a few minutes. Try it for yourself!