How to run literature projects

Getting the most out of your project

Explore this area to find out how you can develop and evaluate your own extended project, as well as accessing a wide variety of support, including resources, advice, ideas, funding and links to helpful organisations offering a wealth of experience in the literary arts.

Some tips for success

• Commitment!
• Keep your focus on the outcome you want
• Pick up the phone and make connections
• Think about appropriate collaborations that suit your local circumstances
• Prepare the ground and judge the pace - be prepared to be flexible and make changes according to pupil response
• Have the courage to have high expectations
• Start small and specific, then gradually broaden out from there
• Harness technology to add another dimension
• Find ways to celebrate and share the work produced
• Seize the CPD opportunities - open classroom doors, arrange workshops, provide reflection time

Our Thoughts Are Bees

Our Thoughts Are Bees is an invaluable book for writers, teachers or coordinators which gives excellent advice on organising exciting projects in schools, from the author's visit to the long-term residency. It examines the potential impact on young people's lives, and sets out a vision for the future of writing in education.

Developing projects

Download: Developing a Project

Extended projects are major investment of time and money, so it's worth giving thought to some of the matters below - before, during and after a project:

• Planning matters - Why are we doing this? And how will we make it happen?
• Learning matters - What do we want the children to experience?
• Support matters - Who or what can help us?
• Funding matters - Where and how can we get funding?
• Evaluation matters - What have we gained from the experience? How will we know?
• Sustainability matters - How can we build on the experience?
• CPD matters - What is in this for the adults?

Evaluating impact

Teachers, children and creative professionals can all take stock of their experiences before, during and after a project, to help gather information about impact and to consider the ways in which the work of a project might continue to evolve. Asking carefully selected questions is the key.

You might want to ask questions which can be rated, and so enable some quantitative analysis of the impact on individuals, or you may simply want to gather answers to questions which can be analysed in terms of numbers of similar responses, or used to note personal changes and developments, from which broad conclusions can be drawn.

Questions could also form the basis of a journal for professional reflection for the adults involved and so contribute to continuing professional development portfolios.

Qualitative Analysis

This document offers questions for use with children, teachers and creative professionals before and after a project:

Download: How was it for you? Open questions for tracking projects

Quantitative Analysis

These questions allow you to make some quantitative analysis of responses before and after a project:

Download: Questions for quantitative analysis

A Creative Professional Reflects

Another approach to professional reflection can be seen in poet Elspeth Murray's thoughts about a recent poetry project.

Download: A Personal Reflection by Elspeth Murray poet

Finding funding

There are various bodies to which you can apply for grants and funding, depending on the nature and focus of your project.

Download Sources of Funding and follow the on-screen links to a wide range of organisations which may be able to help.

Creative sparks

This selection of short, sparky ideas for developing creative uses of language (with thanks to Tom Bacciarelli, Royal High School, City of Edinburgh) should give you exiting ways to focus on literature even before you've found the funds for a writer in residence.

Snapshot poetry

Take a photo of a favourite object and use it to develop a poem - go beyond the descriptive to explore emotive associations, sense of place, sense of person, symbolism and imagery . . . Harness the children's mobile phones if digital cameras are not readily available!

Advertising challenge

Develop an advert (poster, film, radio ad) for a product/place/poet/poem/author/book/film. Then draw up a marketing brief and enter the Dragons' Den to make your pitch!

Local bookshop links

Get to know your local bookshop and find out about their author events - take a class or a group to meet a writer for a fraction of the cost of bringing a writer into school.

Picture book inspiration

Develop visual, inferential and, ultimately, writing skills by interrogating the pictures and captions in picture books and exploring the way the text and pictures work to engage the reader. Books by Raymond Briggs and Anthony Browne offer good starting points.

Visual narratives

Create a short film or take set of stills and add sound or captions to capture the essence of a poem or text.

Local connections

Find out who is writing in your area now, who has written there in the past, who has written about your area whatever their provenance, and explore these texts and writers with your students. Local book festivals would be a good place to start gathering this information.

Writing competitions

Be selective and allow children to opt in, then offer tailored encouragement to work on these in their own time. The Pushkin Prize, Scottish Book Trust, competitions with a local focus, Foyle's Poets, Paisley University 's discursive writing competition - all offer challenges for young writers.

Harness the arts

Take music, paintings, dance and sculpture as a stimulus . . . Use open-ended prompting and speculation to encourage the children to make associations, or think about the story behind the item/s, to consider what else might be hinted at beyond the first impression. Explore the senses, think about mood, motive, go beyond the real. Then develop a written response.

Get the experts onboard!

Pick up the phone! Arts centres, libraries, arts and book festival teams, theatres, opera - all have education and outreach officers. Many run workshops which can be brought cheaply into schools, or can offer back stage tours or visits or visitors to inspire the children. Don't worry if you are not an expert -you can learn alongside your students.