Assist Young Writers To Plan, Not Overplan

 

Over many years I have found myself frequently reminding young writers that it helps if you know in your head where and when your writing piece will end before you commence writing. You can stop off anywhere along the way, but at least know where you’re ultimately heading. It’s easier to plot a story if you have a sense of direction. It represents the most basic form of planning.

Planning essentially begins with the rehearsal of broad ideas. Rolling words and phrases around in your head, telling your story to yourself and others assists in the formation of solid ideas. It crystallizes thought. Writers are storytellers and often tell their stories many times before they write. Young writers need to know this important fact. Talk is a powerful ally of the writer. Classrooms that foster quality conversations around writing intentions greatly assist the inexperienced writers to identify and enact writing intentions.

It is important to confront the entrenched view of writing that decrees that you merely identify your topic and immediately commence writing. This practice has been a hallmark of schools for generations. Assisting young writers to enact a range of pre-writing strategies helps set the writer up to be successful. It helps them identify a process for their writing project to follow. 

Sometimes a writer feels a strong need to just get started. That's okay, but there is no need to always go straight into composition. Ideas frequently benefit from being afforded time to more fully develop before the drafting begins. 

Planning should provide support to students with their writing.  A brief outline may help students shape their writing piece.  If the writers wishes to write a narrative, dentifying characters, setting, the conflict/ these elements that can be briefly sketched out. It’s a map of their writing intentions. Armed with such considerations the writer can more confidently launch in the actual writing. Mindful conversations around these elements is also most important,

It continues to concern me that in some classrooms planning all too often morphs into something so incredibly detailed that the importance of the writing gets sacrificed on the planning altar. 

Detailed planning for all is the dominant practice in some classrooms. I firmly believe this type of over-planning acts as an impediment to the development of quality writing. 

Detailed story planners often become impediments to writing. All the energy required for the actual writing is frequently exhausted in the lengthy planning that precedes it. This approach carries the risk of leaching all the spark and spontaneity out of the writing. It results in writing being delivered to the page, practically dead on arrival.  The voice of the writer is lost somewhere in Planning Land!

Too often we witness the disillusionment reflected in the faces of student writers. –exhausted and appearing as energized as limp lettuce leaves!

Why do student writers with five years experience in the structure and development of narratives need to spend a number of workshop sessions planning their piece? Any gaps in their narrative writing will become apparent when they actually write. Such samples inform where the teaching emphasis needs to be focused.

I recently worked with a teacher who had what amounted to an epiphany regarding the ‘over planning’ taking place in his writing classroom. He had just watched his students engage in a writing lesson that required them to write a flash draft. They were asked to identify the following elements as part of their planning for writing:

-An interesting character

-A setting

-Something that might happen that was somewhat unexpected. 

They talked, they shared ideas and then after about five minutes they were released to write.

The writing task was approached with enthusiasm. The volume far exceeding normal output for these students. How do I know this? The teacher later informed me of this fact. ‘The difference was quite stark,’ he declared. ‘Their writing today was so different. The quality and the volume. I think I have been asking them to over plan and they have been giving me writing that is mostly formulaic.’

By using the flash draft approach room was left for surprise and discovery. The writing certainly contained surprises. It had the power to surprise the reader- in this case, the teacher of these students. 

We need to adopt a flexible approach to planning. Sometimes a writer just needs to be released to write. The teacher’s role might be to get out of the way.

On occasions planning can be used to assist a writer to gain perspective and direction for the writing. There will always be a number of students who would benefit from the scaffolding planning a piece of writing provides. Differentiation is the key.

Our teaching role might be to assist the writer to find out what it is they want to achieve as a writer. How often does a student writer say, ‘I know what I want to write about, I’m just not sure how to begin.’

‘Well, let’s look at the ways other writers approach introductions and leads.’ I say. ‘We need to do some investigating and see what we can discover.’

However we approach planning, flexibility is the key. The writer needs to understand they can change their mind and alter course from the original idea. We must offer students a range of planning possibilities from which to select, as suits the needs of the individual student.

• Storyboarding
• Drawing
• Talk before writing
• A combination of tasks
• Story mapping
• Reading, researching, making notes
• Rereading older pieces of writing

When teachers look closely at the writing students produce; when they understand how writers operate, the forward planning they undertake endeavours to focus on the point of need for each writer. 

The instruction that grows from such planning occurs on several levels- whole group, small group and individual. The planning doesn’t limit the young writer’s choice, nor deny them opportunities to add to their growing repertoire of craft strategies.

Planning must aim to build upon prior learning and move the student forward. For this reason alone, examining writing samples and conference notes are critical to effective planning. This is planning that sets high expectation for teaching and learning. Planning that disregards such important considerations places arbitrary limits on the student writer. 

When teachers plan using rigid guidelines, it has the effect of limiting the growth of writing. Curriculum guidelines are just that. They are guidelines. They are open to interpretation. To translate them so rigidly, does the student no great service. A packaged view of curriculum does a disservice to teacher professionalism and restricts agency in the classroom.

Planning must take teaching to the edge of possibility, rather than impose doubt and uncertainty. Uncertainty borne out of a lack of understanding about what writers need –and when they need it.

'The worst version of school is where teaching becomes curriculum coverage and learning becomes work production for credit. Because those things are not teaching or learning, yet so much of how we set up school pushes things in that direction.'

Ilana Horn

Some Considerations:

• Have I used the formative and assessments identify the current needs of my writers?
• Can I describe my vision, focus, objectives, and student needs?
• Is my plan for teaching aligned with standards, objectives, and guidelines?
• Is there a balance of teaching strategies, learning strategies, and authentic tasks that engage and meet the needs of diverse learners?
• Have I developed plans, methods, and processes?
• Have I sequenced the learning clearly?
• Is planning just about writing structures or is it also about, purpose and audience?
• Have I Identified resources I need to support my teaching?