This past Tuesday I spoke at the 8th Annual Pennsylvania Writing Institute, which is held at Millersville University. Since school begins at the end of August here (in Pennsylvania), I spent a great deal of time talking about routines so my audience could spend some time reflecting on their existing classroom routines and consider implementing new ones.
With a conversation about routines comes my mention of plan boxes. I explained that a plan box is a tool that helps students self-manage their independent writing time. I believe plan boxes a crucial classroom management tool since they help teachers ensure that students are going to use their independent writing time wisely at the conclusion of a minilesson. To that end, I explained that plan boxes should be checked by the teacher before the students leave the rug. I feel plan boxes should be checked so that teachers know if their students understood the minilesson. In addition, checking plan boxes help teachers help kids make smart choices about how they’re going to fill their writing time, which prevents the hollers of “I’m done.” Furthermore, plan boxes allow you to target kids who might need extra assistance before they ever leave the meeting area.
And then I broke the “bad” news to the teachers. I told them it might take them three to four weeks to help their students get good at creating meaningful plans (if they had never been exposed to plan boxes in prior writing workshops). I reassured them that the time they would spend training their young writers to create plan boxes in the first month of school would be worth it since their students would be able to settle down, get to work, and would accomplish more during workshop time for the rest of the year. “Don’t give up on plan boxes if it feels like the kids are having trouble formulating meaningful plans after a week or two. You’ve got to stick with this idea, show them that planning is important, and know they will be able to plan ahead better as they practice creating plans for themselves with each passing day. After all, there are many adults who cannot plan ahead effectively. This is a higher level skill we’re asking children to do, as writers, so we’ve got to give them time to get good at it.”
At the end of my presentation, I asked the teachers to create up to three writing workshop-related goals for the 2011-12 school year. As I circulated around the room, I came upon two teachers who were thinking about implementing plan boxes. One of them asked me, “Is there any more about this in your book?” There is, so I pointed her to the pages on plan boxes in Day by Day, which she had already read. As I flipped to the first page of the plan box discussion she stated that she didn’t remember it, but noticed she marked the discussion about plan boxes with a sticky note. She looked at the sticky note and got very embarrassed because it said, “Looks like this would take a lot of time.” She apologized, which I told her she really shouldn’t do… she had nothing to apologize for! I reiterated to her that she was right; plan boxes are time consuming. However, I promised her that it would be worth the time it would take to teach her fifth graders how to do them in September. With a little convincing, she decided to make implementing plan boxes one of her 2011-12 goals.
Have you implemented plan boxes with your students in writing workshop? How long did it take for your students to get proficient with creating plan boxes? Do you think plan boxes are worth the time they take to implement? Please leave a comment.
TWO WRITING TEACHERS 
When I taught 2nd grade, my first few weeks of Writer’s Workshop was spent talking about Genre, Audience and Purpose (Author’s). Of course we did this during reading and writing. After a few weeks I introduced them to “GAP”. They would write at the top of their page what their Genre, Audience and Purpose was. This was helpful as I conferred. I moved to third last year with about 1/2 my class and read about Plan Boxes in your book. It was a very easy and natural progression for my third grade group. It really facilitates the thinking and planning process AND is a great tool when conferring. I think it is a valuable tool and well worth it!
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I teach 7th grade LA and will be implementing writer’s workshop this year. How do you think 7th graders will do with plan boxes?
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Tracey: I think it will be very helpful for them. SAS
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I have never used plan boxes before, but I think I might try them with my 4th graders this year. I am wondering, with reluctant users, if maybe a small dry-erase board may motivate them. With some children, anything that needs to be put down on paper is a chore and adding one more step to writing may be simply too much.
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I think you can try the dry-erase boards Beccy, but you will want them to wait on erasing the boards ’til the end of workshop time so they can go back and reference their plan if they forget what to do next.
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I had never heard of plan boxes until this year. Between your book and Aimee Buckners, I am intrigued. I’ll be implementing them in my 3rd classroom. I’m still trying to figure out how I’ll present it and what my focus lessons will look like.
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Hi Stacey!
I started implementing plan boxes when you posted about it a few years ago. I was automatically hooked and knew that this would be a great tool for many of my writers to use. I found it especially helpful for some of my special ed students. Even if they had to verbalize it with me first, it kept them focused throughout the period and it gave them a nice starting point in our conferring sessions.
I love having my writers use them at the end of the period as well, to set them up with homework. When they get home, they know exactly where they left off and what their plans are for that night.
It didn’t take my students very long to get used to using them. Maybe a week or two? Being that I teach 6th grade, they’re used to the workshop atmosphere and can quickly follow through with new tools/strategies that I teach them. Some of them take it and go with it and make it their own. Some stick to the basics.
The only downfall I do have is not using it in every unit. I start off so strong at the beginning of the year. One of my goals this year is to use this in more than just a few units.
I found this tool incredibly helpful when you blogged about it a while back. Thanks for always inspiring & motivating us the way you & Ruth do!
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This sounds really interesting to me. I teach second grade. How do you suggest I implement this with my younger writers?
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I think you should try creating oral plans with your students. Have them turn and talk to a partner about how they plan to use their independent writing time. If and when you think it’s developmentally appropriate, you can transition them to written plan boxes.
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I got the idea of plan boxes from you! I started out with oral pair-share partners first as an easier way to dive in – something that all students could do and practice. Plan boxes were excellent as they offer an informal structure to organize thinking. It took forever but what doesn’t when its worth it. Too often we want our students to critically plan or think but don’t give them the time to practice it. Plan boxes offer that and its an easy way for me to see if they’ve got it. And adjust teaching – we have a role in this.
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I started using plan boxes part way through last school year, after reading about them here. I teach 3rd and 4th grade.
I found that my more independent kids LOVED them, got the idea after just a few days, and really made them their own. (Including one student who apparently felt very strongly about the reading-writing connection and would write his plan boxes from the perspective of a what a reader would be looking for.)
Then I had a whole swath of kids who took longer to adjust to them, but eventually got the general concept. We still had some issues with plans being too generic (especially during editing phases), and actually following through, but they worked decently.
But I had a small handful of kids who really struggled to put their plan together, didn’t seem to understand the whole concept even after a lot of reteaching and many one-on-one support sessions, and couldn’t come up with what they wanted to do. These also tended to be my struggling writers, and the physical act of getting the plan box on paper would take sooooo long.
So, I’m not sure exactly what I’ll do this year. For a lot of my kids it was a really helpful tool, but for that small group of strugglers it seemed to suck up their writing time and energy. I think I need to do some differentiation, but I’m not sure yet what form it will take.
I might also take them out of the notebook, like by making a sheet they can fill out and keep in their writing folder instead. My students draft outside of their notebooks, so part of our follow-through problem came from them just closing their notebooks! I think on a separate sheet they’d be more inclined to keep their plan close to hand.
So, the concept of plan boxes has overall been pretty positive and useful for my students, but I have some tweaking to do! (Isn’t that always the way!)
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