From Talk to Text: Launching Writing with Conversation

This week, many teachers and students are gearing up for a new school year—a fresh start and a chance to reimagine how we launch Writing Workshop. As I prepare to coach teachers through their own launches, I think back on how my approach has shifted—from imagining a quiet writing classroom to embracing one that hums with conversation.

A Story

For years, I believed in that ideal of a quiet classroom. Every August, I’d pour my energy into setting routines and defining what writing was “supposed” to sound like. But something in me always resisted the idea that focus had to be silent.

I began paying more attention to what writing sounded like during a mini-lesson’s active engagement or whenever partners got together. That writing sounded glorious; it sounded like stories flowing back and forth through an invisible string connecting two students.

I recognized what that was—when I get excited about an idea, all I want to do is talk to someone about it, and through that interaction, my idea flourishes. Writing classrooms should buzz.

With that in mind, in August of 2024, I wrote a launching unit that teachers in Kindergarten through 5th Grade could implement, centered on the power of conversation to fuel writing. I restructured a typical Writing Workshop session to include a “Talk” component in the mini-lesson. 

The How

My teachers were curious, but hesitant about the idea:

“How is that different from the Active Engagement?”

The Active Engagement component of a mini-lesson is a brief moment for students to practice the technique a teacher just demonstrated, which may happen independently or in partnerships. There’s no guarantee that both partners will get to talk, and when managing time, teachers often pause them before they have a chance to speak further. Imagine if, instead of cutting them short, we allow for a conversation to take place.

“Wouldn’t that take too long, taking time away from writing?”

Sure, but only at first. What I want you to envision is how an idea that is spoken out loud and shared with a peer can feel like hot cake straight from the oven— before they sit in front of a piece of paper, they can already smell and taste a story’s flavors. There’s a reason we encourage students to rehearse before they write. What I always wonder is, how much time do we invest in teaching what this rehearsal truly looks like?

Luckily, the teachers I work with trust daring ideas. They went along for the ride and reported back as their students opened up about their lives. Page after page, those notebooks showed early signs of increasing volume and interest in capturing ideas for potential stories, poems, and comic books. Those students who used to struggle with generating ideas found comfort in the conversations with friends and were able to compose a few sentences about a topic they had just discussed with someone.

Hot from the oven—from their buzzing chatter to the page.

This week, as I meet with teachers across grades to help them plan their first writing lessons, they ask, “Will we use the same ‘conversation’ unit from last year? Kids loved it!” I nod and say, “Yes, let’s dive in!”

Tips for Planning Sessions that Focus on Talk

• See if you can squeeze a few launching days at the beginning of the year for this type of workshop before teaching Unit 1.
• Start your mini-lessons with storytelling—tell them a story you’ve also written as an entry in your notebook.
• Connect your story to a concrete teaching point. Writers need to hear the what and the how. 
• Know that most of the time from the mini-lesson will be spent in conversations.
• Set up a system where students can engage in conversations smoothly. Consider letting them get up and move to a place where they’re more comfortable.
• Circulate to listen in and support the reciprocity in their conversations. There should be a back-and-forth to “bake” the idea.
• Be mindful of time. Even though we’re intentionally making room for conversations, we still want them to write for a few minutes right after. Once you know every student has had a chance to rehearse, pause the conversations and Link to independent writing.
• Offer feedback at the end of the session. Help draw the connections between “talking the writing” and how the ideas are shaped through that process of rehearsing.
• Plan to gradually decrease the conversation time, to fall back into a typical Writing Workshop structure, making sure independent writing gains more and more minutes.
• In future units, consider key mini-lessons where you can incorporate this type of “talk” to maximize idea generation and revision.

A Thought

We all know this to be true: writing isn’t a solitary act, and when it is, it’s a lot harder to have the flexibility of thinking students require to stretch themselves and explore new topics. Let’s make room for “noise” in our Launching Units and beyond. The hum of voices, the bursts of laughter, the pauses when a student leans in to listen—those are the sounds of ideas taking shape.

Let them talk. Writing will follow.