My word-of-the-year, the thought on which I want to focus my energies and instructional experimentation, is “talk”. James Britton famously wrote that “writing floats on a sea of talk.” I want my students’ writing to float … and then to fly.
So, yes, I want them to write five times as much as I can possibly read and grade. And I want them to talk about their writing ten times more than that.
You and I know this truth. Allison and I talk about our writing for at least five hours for every one hour that we actually commit words to paper. We know how our ideas grow and evolve when we share them aloud. We know that something changes as we hear our writing read aloud to someone else. We know that talking is a critical part of the writing process.
I’ve been searching for ways for my students to talk more about writing this year. With my seniors, we started by formally pitching their ideas for writing.
After a few days of mentor text immersion, my students had a general, fuzzy idea what they wanted to write about. When they arrived in class, I gave them these instructions:
Students immediately perked up, asking so many follow up questions about the world of publishing that I could hardly settle them to write. Why? This was real. They saw the relevance because real writers have to pitch their work, and in our class we act like real writers.
After spending 5-ish minutes jotting down a pitch in their notebooks, students had to pitch their ideas to their editorial board (their tablemates). The rules were:
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Each person shares his or her pitch.
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The Editorial Board should listen attentively and then flood the pitch with questions — gently poke holes in it, ask follow-up questions, point out potential problems. Good editors don’t let you run with a weak idea.
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This conversation should continue until either A) the Editorial Board reaches unanimous approval or B) the writer realizes that substantial reworking needs to happen before their idea is ready for the Editorial Board. Either answer is a WIN.
Students were initially excited-but-trepidatious about pitching their ideas to their peers, and I had to provoke some editorial boards into serious questioning lest they default into, “Cool. Good idea”-rubber-stamping. After talking it out — a process that took between 15-20 minutes total — students had this to say:
“This was helpful because there were some areas where I needed to patch up a bit, and I didn’t even realize it but my tablemates helped me figure it out. Go team.”
“I made my ideas more concrete by talking about it. Other people gave me ideas and asked questions that I’m going to need to answer and build off of.”
“I came up with a better idea with help from my tablemates.”
“Hearing my friend’s pitches made me inspired for other essays I could write in the future!”
“We should do this more often.”
Through this process of real-life pitching, students gained confidence in ideas they already loved, refined existing concepts, and tossed out duds. Students walked into their writing with buy-in from others. As we reflected together, students realized that spending time talking out their ideas on the front end led to revelations they previously had only after completing a piece of writing (usually moments before it was due).
Do your students pitch their ideas to the class? How do you make it work? In what other ways do you use talk to make writing float? Leave a comment below, find me on Twitter (@RebekahODell1), or comment on Facebook.
moving writers 