Category Archives: Literacy and English

Creative Partners, Literacy and English

Summer Reading Challenge

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Mythical Maze Holiday Fun at Your Library

Get ready to lose yourself in the library with the Mythical Maze Summer Reading Challenge 2014!

Children aged 4 to 11 years are challenged to read six library books over the summer holidays, with a special Bookbug category this year for 2-3 year olds.

Join up at your local library and collect an amazing starter challenge pack. There are stickers and rewards along the way and a certificate and gold medal on completion!  Connect to the Mythical Maze website (www.mythical-maze.org.uk) where you can read, share, create and take part in interactive games.

The Challenge runs from Monday 30th June to Sunday 31st August and children can sign up at any Fife Library from Monday 23rd June.  Those who sign up by the 14th July will be entered into the prize draw to win some mythical prizes, and everyone who completes the challenge has a chance to win an author visit to their school.

Look out too for the programme of mythical summer events and activities in libraries over the holidays.  Details can be found at www.onfife.com or ask at any library.

Literacy and English

Latest from Scottish Book Trust

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Read your way around the world for Brazil 2014!

We’ve journeyed around the world to bring you a book in translation from every country competing at this year’s World Cup in Brazil – there’s even adownloadable office sweepstake available so your colleagues can read a book from the country they draw.

A book from every country at World Cup 2014

Celebrate this year’s World Cup in Brazil by reading a book in translation from the country you’re supporting. We’ve picked a great book from every country at this year’s tournament.

Win bookish home decor!

Submit an embarrassing photo of yourself from your family’s archives for a chance to win some very cool bookish home decor in our Scotland’s Stories of Home competition. Simply reply to this eNewsletter with your photo attached.

We want your real-life stories of home

Is there a story you always think of when you think of home? Write and submit it to Scotland’s Stories of Home and you might just see it published in a book, and distributed around the country for Book Week Scotland 2014.

6 new Scottish books to take on holiday

We’ve scoured the summer release schedules to serve up some sizzling summer reads for your sun-lounger – or damp caravan / midge infested tent if you’re staying in Scotland for the summer.

What does it mean to be human?

The Humans by Matt Haig was a top pick for World Book Night 2014. Find out what our panel thought of it on Book Talk. Also, explore memory, poetry and Scottish history in our latest interviews featuring ‘Scotland’s most controversial historian’ Michael Fry.

Where’s the most romantic spot in Scotland?

Tell us where Scotland’s most romantic spot is and you could win the entire Outlander series from worldwide bestselling author Diana Gabaldon – including the new and final book in the series, Written In My Own Heart’s Blood.

Scottish authors confess all…

Read our Author Confessions interviews for insight into the lives of Scotland’s authors, how they deal with bad reviews and whether they would ever throw a book at a celebrity.
Literacy and English, Primary schools

Commonwealth Games – Glasgow 2014

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Teaching primary? Check out our Commonwealth themed Seasonal Poetry Links over on Making Makars – all the ingredients you need for a great topical lesson. If that inspires you, have a look at our list of sporty poems. Ah, sport: reading about it is so much easier than doing it, no?
Literacy and English

Workshops: Supporting Young Storytellers & Story Pockets‏

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young storytellers
Supporting Young Storytellers

Fri 30 May | 10.30am (6hrs) | £36 (£30 Network Members)
Children and young people can find their own voice and confidence in communicating through storytelling. In this skills-based workshop, storyteller and teacher Beverley Bryant puts these developments in a practical context and points the way forward. Ideal for all those working with older children and young people.
Programme

This workshop will be delivered by teacher Beverley Bryant and student Elinor Thomson, allowing participants a unique perspective on storytelling for young people in Scotland today. Both facilitators are enthusiastic advocates of the power of storytelling to enhance, and even in some cases transform, the lives of young people.

Firstly, hear about the increasing opportunities for young storytellers, within the school curriculum and beyond in the wider community. Beverley and Elinor will then go on to offer practical suggestions for helping young people to gain the skills needed to find, recall and tell stories. There will be opportunities for participants to step into in the shoes of young storytellers, if only briefly, reminding everyone of the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Later in the day, the group will begin planning experiences for young storytellers to develop their craft and consider creating/ finding further opportunities for young people to share their stories.
Aims
  • To reach agreement on what is meant by storytelling to ensure both adults and young people fully understand the term.
  • To explore the current opportunities and challenges facing young storytellers and those wishing to support young storytellers.
  • To explore the ways in which a young person might find their own voice, using tried and tested methodologies and hearing from an established young storyteller.
  • By working together, to begin to develop a plan for supporting young storytellers in one-off visits and over longer term projects.
  • To suggest a range of support materials.
Facilitators
Beverley Bryant is a Principal Teacher of Literacy in the English Department of Woodmill High School in Fife, where Storytelling has been embedded in the curriculum for some time. She runs an extra curricular Young Storytellers Group for three local high schools where pupils from S1 to S6 enjoy working together to become young storytellers themselves. This year the group was delighted when one of their young storytellers was voted Best Newcomer, 15-18 years category, at the annual Young Storyteller Competition in Birmingham. More recently, they were delighted when another of our young storytellers was voted Young Storyteller of the Year in the Scottish competition for 16 years and under.

Each year, Beverley uses storytelling to help P7s make the transition to high school. In addition, she regularly delivers skills development workshops for visiting European teachers.

For this workshop, Beverley will be joined by Elinor Thomson, aged 17 and winner of the James Award for Best Newcomer at the Young Storyteller of the Year Awards 2014. She will be offering a young person’s perspective on encouraging and supporting young storytellers.
Book your tickets online or call 0131 556 9579

Please note, if you are a Network Member your discount will be applied at the checkout stage if buying your ticket online. Alternatively you can purchase a discounted ticket on the phone or in person at Reception.
Story Pockets
Story Pockets: Beginning the Language Journey

Sat 31 May | 2pm (3hrs) | £18 (£15 Network Members)
Some of the most precious memories to do with reading are the earliest ones. How we begin to read stories is in itself an important story.

Discover how to help and encourage preschool engagement with books with the Storypockets method in an engaging afternoon session on Saturday 31 May.
Programme

Storypockets is a programme for preschool-aged children conceived by Beth Cross, a storyteller, educator and researcher based at the University of the West of Scotland. The system provides a frame for children to take moments from stories or rhymes and play creatively with them. A simple design combines puppet theatre and a scrapbook that families decorate and build on over their visits to Rhymetimes and at home.

“One of the things that surprised us about Storypockets is that it meant children under three actively became involved in the conversation and told us what they remembered, and what they treasured about the books, rhymes and stories depicted in their Storypockets.”

Read Beth’s blog post on Storypockets on the Scottish Book Trust website.
Inspired by work with Craigmillar Books for Babies, the tool supports a co-production approach to family literacy. Creator Beth Cross shares the approach and shows how it can be used as a basis for regular engagement through sessions and informal interaction.

Begin the language journey with joy and playful stimulus.
Aims
  • To provide an understanding of how storypockets developed and has been part of supporting families and learning.
  • To reflect and share the role early sharing of rhymes, stories and word games has in a child’s life
  • To explore how a place to play with stories helps a child remember and draw together a story of their early learning and the strengths and resources this gives them.
  • To use your own experiences creating a storypocket to think through ways of use and development.
Facilitators

Beth Cross is a Senior Lecturer in Community Learning and Participation at the University of West of Scotland and has been researching the interface between formal and informal learning contexts for the last fifteen years, with particular interest in dialogic methods of exploring learner identities, strategies and trajectories.  She has taught in the areas of social policy and children’s services in England and Scotland and worked with a number of creative interdisciplinary projects that involve visual and dramatic arts in order to expand the modalities for deliberation and participation.
Book your tickets online or call 0131 556 9579

Please note, if you are a Network Member your discount will be applied at the checkout stage if buying your ticket online. Alternatively you can purchase a discounted ticket on the phone or in person at Reception.

43-45 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1SR
Reception 0131 556 9579

The Scottish Storytelling Centre is a partnership project  between the Church of Scotland SCO 11353 and the Scottish Storytelling Forum SCO 20891
CPD, Literacy and English, Secondary schools, Social Studies

Mapping the Nation: representations of Scotland, 1200-2000, conference

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Saturday 26 April (9.00 – 5.00 pm)

A one-day event for teachers of history and literature in Scottish secondary schools exploring the multiple ways in which Scotland has been visualized and represented through cartography, history, and literature. There will be presentations on current projects that can be used to enhance the teaching of Scotland’s rich historical and literary past; and a round table workshop session to explore the potential of future collaborations, with displays of projects, resources, and publications. Speakers include history and literature teachers from universities and schools, National Library of Scotland on historical mapping, National Trust for Scotland on Bannockburn and many more. The event is fully catered and attendance is free thanks to funding from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, but registration is needed via Eventbrite: http://bit.ly/mappingthenationNMS.

Community Learning and Development, Early Years, Literacy and English

Bookbug Week, 19-25 May

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Celebrate Bookbug Week between 19 and 25 May, with a whole week of free, special events taking place all over Scotland for families with babies and young children.

This year’s theme is Bookbug’s Big Sports Day, and there will be a whole host of fun story, song and rhyme activities taking place in local libraries and community venues.

Bookbug is Scottish Book Trust’s Early Years programme, which encourages and supports parents to share books, talk, sing and cuddle their children from birth, and helps every child in Scotland to develop a love of reading.

For details of Bookbug Week events in your area, visit www.scottishbooktrust.com/bookbug or ask at your local library.

Competition, Creative Partners, Literacy and English, Primary schools, Secondary schools, Social Studies

Scotland’s Stories of Home

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Scottish Book Trust has launched an exciting new writing project to encourage pupils and teachers across Scotland to write about what home means to them, with a selection of entries to be published in a free e-publication. Scotland’s Stories of Home will run from 23 March – 30 June, and in that time Scottish Book Trust wants to build a written picture of what Scotland means to the children who live here. Is it your house, your home town, your home team or your homeland? Is it your family, your friends or your online community?  Is it a smell, a taste, a sound or a sensation?

Submissions should be personal pieces of writing about real-life experiences and should be no longer than 1000 words. They can be written in a variety of different forms, such as a story, poem, song lyrics, a rap, a letter or even diary entry, and should be submitted via the Scottish Book Trust website. To help school pupils contribute their responses, Scottish Book Trust has designed a resource pack full of activity suggestions, aimed at primary and secondary school teachers and librarians who would like to use the Scotland’s Stories of Home project in their school. The resources are available at scottishbooktrust.com/storiesofhome.

With enjoyment and choice at the heart, these resources will help pupils of all abilities develop writing, research and talk skills while exploring the objects, places or concepts that mean most to them. A selection of pupils’ stories, chosen by a panel of young people, will be published in a free e-publication available to download during Book Week Scotland 2014.

Literacy and English, Primary schools, resources, Secondary schools

Poetry by Heart

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To learn or not to learn?

Memorising poetry has been getting a lot of attention in the press and recital competitions are increasingly popular. If you’re considering this topic with your class or group, our ‘Remember, remember‘ resource sheet can help you get started. It has links to articles discussing why and how we should memorise poems. Plus there are recommendations of where to find suitable poems.

View our Classroom Resources

Poem Posters
“remember…”
To complement the question of learning by heart – and all sorts of other trains of thought around ‘remembering’ – we’ve got a set of 4 new poem posters with quotations from poems by Jackie Kay, Liz Lochhead, John Burnside and Elizabeth Burns.
Are there other quotations you’d like to see as posters? Do, ah, remember to email and let us know.
Art, Art and Design, Community Learning and Development, Creative practitioners, Dance, Drama, Funding, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy and English, Music, Primary schools, Scotland Colleges, Secondary schools, Social Studies, Technologies

Refugee Week Scotland 2014

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Community Celebrations Grant Application
Deadline: 3rd March – 5pm

At the Scottish Refugee Council we have been busy organising a very exciting programme for Refugee Week Scotland 2014! It will run from 16th – 22nd June in venues across the country, and we’d love for as many organisations as possible to get involved this year. The 2014 theme is ‘Welcome’, so we want you to have a think about how ‘welcome’ is shown in your community.

The SRC are awarding grants of £100 – £450 to help small community organisations to organise your own events as part of Refugee Week Scotland 2014. We strongly encourage you to apply and to spread the word to any other organisations or community groups that you think may be interested!

There are two files attached below – an Application Form and Grant Application Guidance Notes. Please read them both before applying! Receiving the grant from the SRC is unfortunately not guaranteed, so to make sure you are in the best position for acceptance, we urge you to read through these Guidance Notes thoroughly.  We are looking for ideas that explore the theme – ‘Welcome’ – and discuss all the different things that this word can mean. For example, your activity could:

–          Explore how welcome is shown in your community

–          Encourage people to share their experiences of how welcome they have been made to feel here

–          Encourage people to share experiences of how they have welcomed life in Scotland

Most importantly, you must demonstrate how your event will appeal to other communities and general public, and how you plan to involve them! The Community Celebration Events are the first step towards wide-scale understanding and integration among asylum seeker, refugee and local communities across the whole of Scotland. We want to know how your event will help this become a reality!

The deadline for submission is Monday 3rd March, 5pm. Please send all completed applications to arts@scottishrefugeecouncil.org.uk

If you need help – we are happy to discuss any ideas and give advice where necessary – just email arts@scottishrefugeecouncil.org.uk.You can also browse last year’s programme for inspiration.
Good luck!

Community Celebration Grant Application Form 2014

Community Celebration Grant Application Guidance Notes 2014 Final