Scottish Book Trust have recently launched our Treasures campaign, and we’re keen to help schools get involved. The campaign invites members of the public to write autobiographical pieces about their treasured possessions and submit these pieces of writing to the SBT website. The best entries will be published in a free book which we’ll be distributing throughout Book Week Scotland 2013.

We’d love to see entries to the campaign from primary and secondary schools, and we’re inviting teachers to submit the top 3 entries from each class for the SBT website. Although the campaign invites autobiographical writing, we can accept fiction entries from schools, to make sure as many pupils as possible can engage with the theme. To help teachers, we’ve put together two resource packs – these are both available HERE. The two resources are:

· Our main Treasures schools resources, which contain a large number of activities designed to help pupils get ideas and content for a piece of writing;

· A Treasures transition pack, which gives a suggested approach to using the Treasures theme as a transition project. This includes a detailed outline of a writing activity, lots of worksheets for pupils and parents to use over the holidays, and a template letter home to parents, as well as useful links.

The Treasures campaign runs until July 31, but of course schools will be able to use these resources at any time to stimulate ideas for a writing (or indeed talking and listening) project. If teachers would like to enter stories from their class, this deadline obviously means that the entries will need to be completed before the summer break.

We hope you find the Treasures campaign and resources to be a useful and enjoyable stimulus for classroom writing! If you would like to get in touch with any questions or to let us know about work you’ve done for the campaign, we’d be delighted to hear from you – please email chris.leslie@scottishbooktrust.com.