You may have noticed on the covers of magazines 1 and 2 are pictures of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and on the website you will find an introduction to Shakespeare with a prose version of Macbeth by Jane, so that youngsters can develop an idea of the story line and characters before going on to study Shakespeare's version in full. So the cover of magazine 3 should indicate that on the website in this module's section is an introduction to Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales.

By the way, most of the illustrations in the magazines and on the website were drawn by Sally Cadogan, our resident artist. If you have intelligent children, you will be aware that they often have more than one talent and some will aspire to be excellent artists as well as great communicators. Sally's work will, I hope, inspire them to greater things.

We start in this module with famous quotations and the magazine carries on where the website leaves off as usual, providing challenges to while away those rainy evenings.

The history of surnames continues with the emphasis on the connection between surnames and place names. I don't know about intelligent children, but I find this information most interesting.

Story writing continues with bringing characters together. Katie points out how characters must be believeable and how the author must know the characters better than anyone else. Developing a few possible story lines from which to choose one is a good starting point for story writing.

Slang looks at the sayings in everyday conversation that we all take for granted, but many would say do not form part of standard English.

Verbs takes us into the grammar section with an emphasis on tenses and auxiliary verbs. Most important to watch the website movie first.

Serious poetry for this module covers the last part of war poetry and the war poets are discussed on the website with corresponding exercises in the magazine.

Fun poetry includes a discussion of text poetry and how shortcuts are used to express ideas as they are with normal text messages. This is the one exception we have to the rule of encouraging intelligent children to always write in good English. I am sure you will agree that there is too much of this shorthand stuff in emails, text etc and we should be encouraging well written English wherever possible. But 'text poetry' - difficult to see how you can get away without the odd shorthand!

Next the game of 20 questions is described, followed by another type of cryptic clue and corresponding crossword.

Starting a school or club magazine is always a favourite amongst those wishing to improve their communication skills and use their intelligence to create a publicaiton that may be read by a larger audience. Katy takes you through the essential steps to producing a magazine that is interesting and capable of being read by many people with a common interest in their school or club.

Further drama activities are descibed on the website and these are followed up with some interesting word exercises.

'Mr Young, Tracy's Been Sick' is a true story to illustrate how to punctuate speech. But I must issue a health warning - not for the faint hearted!

The history of spelling continues with the spellings of foods. Great exercise in editing a passage.

The fun page covers strange signs and insults. 'I'd like to ask you stay and have a drink, but I'm afraid you may accept.' (What's the world coming to?)

And again, the tricky crossword. Gets me thinking and I wrote it!!!!!