Planning Your Work
The importance of planning has always been recognized in the success of writers' work in schools.
Our special edition of
Writing in Education (No. 46) featured a number of articles related to planning, including that by Penny Dolan (focusing on the basic
dos and
don'ts of all aspects of a visit), and managers of several writer-in-schools-schemes describing their particular approaches. The chapter 'Thinking it through' in
Our thoughts are bees is also a useful summary of the main considerations.
As a result of our research programme, we are however aiming to provide some new guidelines about planning, based on what we have learned about what works well - and why. We suspect that too much so-called planning is somewhat half-hearted, and that long-term impact from writers' visits will only be achieved if the way in which writers and teachers plan projects together is taken to a new level.
Watch this space.