Renowned literacy consultant and author, Leah Mermelstein, shares about her “We-Do” approach to collaborative writing with children. Leah unpacks “We-Do” Writing for listeners - describing its three instructional strands (language conventions/composition/application) alongside corresponding types of writing instruction (interactive writing/write-aloud/writing process) and levels of support (share/guide/apply). Leah also offers clarity among competing literacy theories based on her most recent research.
Leah’s Published Writing:
Leah’s Social Presence:
Leah’s Research & Recommended Resources:
Get solutions from Schoolutions!
#solutionsfromschoolutions #schoolutionsinspires #schoolutionspodcast
Renowned literacy consultant and author, Leah Mermelstein, shares about her “We-Do” approach to collaborative writing with children. Leah unpacks “We-Do” Writing for listeners - describing its three instructional strands (language conventions/composition/application) alongside corresponding types of writing instruction (interactive writing/write-aloud/writing process) and levels of support (share/guide/apply). Leah also offers clarity among competing literacy theories based on her most recent research.
Leah’s Published Writing:
Leah’s Social Presence:
Leah’s Research & Recommended Resources:
Get solutions from Schoolutions!
#solutionsfromschoolutions #schoolutionsinspires #schoolutionspodcast
Schoolutions –S1 E10: Collaborative "We-Do" Writing: A Solution for Shaky Independence and Finding Clarity Among Competing Literacy Theories with Leah Mermelstein
[00:00:00] Olivia: Welcome to Schoolutions, where listening will leave you inspired by solutions to issues you or others you know may be struggling with in the public education system today. I am Olivia Wahl, and I am thrilled to introduce you to my guest, Leah Mermelstein. Leah taught kinder, first and third grade in New York City and Massachusetts for the beginning four years of her career.
[00:00:24] Olivia: She became a Staff Developer for Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, and spent time in that role from September, 1999 to June, 2003. Soon after she sparked her own career as an educational consultant with Read-Write-Connect, Incorporated, and she has been in that role for 18 years. Leah, welcome.
[00:00:46] Leah: Hi Olivia.
[00:00:47] Leah: I am so excited to finally talk with you.
[00:00:51] Olivia: I want to make sure I shed light on the amazing professional works that you've crafted over the years. They've impacted my career in many, many ways. I know that you first shed light on the intersection of reading and writing with your book, Reading, Writing Connections in the K-2 Classroom: Find the Clarity and Then Blur the Lines.
[00:01:08] Olivia: That was way back in 2005. I was a first-grade teacher and it was a game changing resource for me. I started considering all of the ways I needed to tie my reading and writing conversations with six-year-olds together, and I immediately saw impact on how they were building those connections and then transferring the work to independence.
[00:01:35] Olivia: The next book you wrote that rocked my world was, Don't Forget to Share: The Crucial Last Step in the Writing Workshop. That was published in 2007. I was a literacy coach at that point and also consulting all over the country. We both know the share is neglected often at that wrap of a workshop because it's just that.
[00:01:56] Leah: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:56] Olivia: It's the wrap.
[00:01:57] Leah: Yep.
[00:01:58] Olivia: We run out of time. So that book speaks volumes to holding the sacred space for coming back together. And it also reminded me of the communal nature of the workshop model. You helped me rethink how to nurture independence in your book, Self-Directed Writers: The Third Essential Element in the Writing Workshop.
[00:02:19] Olivia: That book pushed me to reconsider what I thought and believe children can do by themselves and always ask children to have a try. Your most recent book that was published last year is what we're going to be focusing our conversation around today. “We-Do” Writing: Maximizing Practice to Develop Independent Writers.
[00:02:40] Olivia: This book is not only a refreshed vision of immersion, gradual release, and collaborative writing. It also directly speaks to two problems of practice that teachers all over the world face daily when they're trying to teach their writers. The two problems I'd love for you to speak to are shaky independence and competing theories of writing.
[00:03:06] Olivia: Before we jump to that though, I'd love to ask you, who is an inspiring teacher in your life?
[00:03:13] Leah: Oh, there are so many inspiring teachers. It's hard to choose one. I think who I'd say, because of what we're talking about today, because we're talking about shaky independence, I've been really thinking and been inspired by Professor Pearson, um, on his Gradual Release of Responsibility Model.
[00:03:32] Leah: He along, um, with a few others, came up with that model, I think in 1983 and has continued to think about it. I was lucky enough to talk with him in the writing of my book and he wrote a really recent article taking a look at how people are using the gradual release now, and he talked about three things that really spoke to me, that inspired me both as in the Gradual Release and just as being a great teacher.
[00:04:01] Leah: And one of the things he spoke about is he wished he had talked about the Gradual Release starting with “you do.” The idea that when we watch children, whether they're reading or they're writing, we watch them. It helps us to figure out what kind of support they need.
[00:04:19] Olivia: Indeed. Yes.
[00:04:20] Leah: Yeah, and I know you've written about that as well. So, he spoke about the importance of watching children first. Before we jump into, give them support to watch them. The second thing he talked about, which I know you agree with as well is he really spoke about, as he's watched this gradual release of responsibility model, giving kids the right amount support, he's noticed that there is too much modeling and too much jumping kids to independence and not enough time in that “we do” phase of doing it together. Which as I talk about the “We-Do” model, it's something I, I know you believe in and I believe in wholeheartedly. That for so many reasons of meeting kids in that “we do” - writing collaboratively, reading collaboratively.
[00:05:04] Leah: And then the third thing he said, which I think speaks to all of this, is the idea that as he's seen the Gradual Release in schools and teachers using it, he's really hoping that teachers can use it with more flexibility. That they never created this to say, we all begin by modeling, and then we share the work, and then we guide, and then they do it.
[00:05:24] Leah: It's all about watching the kids and making sure that we give them the support they need to be successful. But not too much support that we're rescuing them.
[00:05:33] Olivia: So, Leah, you just sparked something in my mind. It's fascinating because I have many colleagues that consult with math content. Lucy West, Toni Cameron, we've always talked about….
[00:05:45] Leah: Oh yes.
[00:05:45] Olivia: …flipping the gradual release on its head and, right?
[00:05:48] Leah: Yes! Uhhuh Uhhuh.
[00:05:50] Olivia: How can we have children give it a go, try a concept, and we carefully observe what are their strengths? What are they using, but confusing and need some coaching around and what is absent from the repertoire that they do need modeling around, right?
[00:06:08] Leah: Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm
[00:06:09] Olivia: Um, I think one of the hardest aspects of that work is you really have to have a strong content background to know what you are looking for. Right?
[00:06:18] Leah: Yes.
[00:06:19] Olivia: And so, what I appreciate so much, you do name the two issues of the shaky transfer to independence because children are not lingering long enough with that collaborative phase of “we do.”
[00:06:32] Leah: Yep.
[00:06:32] Olivia: Right? But you also name for us as readers, the need to find common ground between the reading and writing theories that are out there in the universe.
[00:06:42] Leah: Yeah.
[00:06:42] Olivia: And I feel like “We-Do” Writing marries both of these notions. So, I'd love for our listeners, not only to hear about the shaky independence and how we're addressing that, but also over our conversation better understand that it's not about reading wars.
[00:07:01] Olivia: It's about finding common ground. Right? Moving from that adversarial stance to say what do we believe to be true? What is best in all of the different arenas out there? So, Leah, talk to listeners. What is “We-Do” Writing? Why did you create that model?
[00:07:18] Leah: I created that model for exactly what you said before, those two big problems that I was seeing in my work.
[00:07:24] Leah: I'm by nature, a problem solver. So those two problems I saw were that shaky independence that not all children had equal access to becoming an independent writer. And that teachers were feeling overwhelmed because they were hearing all these competing theories, which really, like you said, weren't competing.
[00:07:41] Leah: So, I wanted to create a model that would help teachers see that you don't need to change everything you're doing. It may be a rebalance of what you're doing, and that we owe it to children to ensure that all children have equal access. So, the “We-Do” Model is not a curriculum. It can help you create a curriculum.
[00:07:59] Leah: It is something to hold alongside your curriculum to ensure that you're meeting all of your children's needs and that you're using everything from best practices, best research out there. So, it really is the power of three. It's three instructional strands, and those strands are really telling us what to teach kids.
[00:08:19] Leah: What does research tell us about what kids need to learn about writing? And so, there's three instructional strands. There's the language convention strand, which is everything about encoding print on the page.
[00:08:33] Olivia: Yes.
[00:08:19] Leah: So, spelling, phonics, conventions…
[00:08:37] Olivia: Which we’ve been drastically missing for a long, long time.
[00:08:40] Leah: Oh yes, yes. And systematically and methodically teaching those things to our students and thinking about where am I teaching that? Language composition which is all about the beauty of a sentence. Vocabulary, grammar, showing children more complicated sentences, and the purpose of different words in a sentence, how they, how they function to help the readers.
[00:09:06] Leah: And that putting one beautiful sentence alongside another beautiful sentence creates amazing pieces of writing. And so really teaching kids the power of that sentence. I'm focusing on grammar. Focusing on vocabulary. And then finally, the third instructional strand is the, um, writing process. The idea of bringing everything together, showing kids that there's a more complicated process, but there's also a simpler process.
[00:09:34] Leah: If you're writing a note to someone, you go through a pretty simple process of planning, drafting, and reviewing. And showing children how to bring what they're learning about language conventions and language composition together as they bring a piece through the process.
[00:09:50] Olivia: Well, and I know those are the three instructional strands, then the three corresponding types of writing sessions are the interactive writing, the write aloud.
[00:09:59] Olivia: And I want to ask, uh, for my own clarification. I consider write aloud nuanced with shared writing. That's what I have used in classrooms before.
[00:10:09] Leah: Yes, yes.
[00:10:09] Olivia: In instruction. And then you just spoke to the writing process. And that is a third corresponding type of session you'd have.
[00:10:16] Leah: Yes.
[00:10:16] Olivia: So, the power of interactive writing, the power of write aloud and the power of the writing process. Can you speak to those for listeners?
[00:10:23] Leah: Yes, absolutely. And, and all of those are the when, so those are the when will I teach these things? I think of these sessions one as collaborative, we are working together with students. We're in that “we do” phase, we're working together and short. Keeping them 10 minutes tops and interactive writing is not a new concept.
[00:10:44] Leah: I know that you thought a lot about that in your work. It's been around since the eighties. I talk about it in a slightly unique way in the book of really linking it to your phonics instruction so that it's all about working with kids on the language convention. So, I was just in a kindergarten classroom last week and the teacher had been working on CVC words.
[00:11:04] Leah: So, she came up with the message: Pat hit a dog. I know it's not this crazy, unbelievable message, but what they were doing is they were practicing together vowels and the leathers segmenting and blending work they had done so kids could see how what they were learning during phonics instruction directly linked to writing words.
[00:11:25] Leah: So here was their supported practice. Their supported work in what they were learning in phonics.
[00:11:30] Olivia: So, I need to press pause though. I need for listeners to better understand. So, I think what both of us are hoping and dreaming for is that there would be a separate time in the school day for direct explicit phonics, phonemic awareness, phonological awareness instruction.
[00:11:48] Olivia: And then I hear you saying it would be applied or transferred within content through interactive writing. Yes?
[00:11:57] Leah: Yes.
[00:11:57] Olivia: Okay.
[00:11:58] Leah: So that way we're really thinking about. That “we do” phase getting kids to linger longer. Cause what's often happening in these schools I've worked in is that they have a fall next time and then they're saying, my kids are not transferring it.
[00:12:10] Olivia: Yes, I hear it all the time.
[00:12:11] Leah: They're not living long enough in that we do phase. It's not that kids can't transfer it, they can, they just need more time in that we do phase. And one of the reasons why I've named each of them is because each of these are a different kind of way that we share the work with kids, but that we have a laser sharp focus on what we're working on.
[00:12:31] Leah: So, in interactive writing, all the words coming out of my mouth are about phonics, are about spelling, are about conventions. Then in write aloud, all the words coming out of my mouth. It's still collaborative. Um, I'm still working with the children, but all the words coming out of my mouth are about vocabulary, are about grammar, and kids are practicing these sentences out loud.
[00:12:55] Leah: They're constructing them together as a class, so it's not one child saying, I have this great idea. We're constructing it together as a class, and then we're practicing it. I was in a fourth-grade classroom last week and they were starting their persuasive essay unit and they were doing a class piece about zoos and the power of zoos. And so together, and they spent time coming up with their topic sentence where they thought to themselves, it wasn't one child raising their hand.
[00:13:24] Leah: They said, what's the topic? Well, the topic was zoos. The key idea was that they educate people and then we said, because it's a topic sentence. What other words should we use? So together they came up with zoos, educate people in a variety of ways.
[00:13:40] Olivia: I think too Leah, it's critical that write aloud or what I may deem shared writing is based on shared class experiences as often as it can be.
[00:13:48] Leah: Yes.
[00:13:49] Olivia: And I think especially for bilingual students, students with needs, having an actual experience that's been lived together in that communal nature, it gives them that vision for what they're trying to craft and describe or explain.
[00:14:05] Leah: Absolutely.
[00:14:05] Olivia: Right?
[00:14:06] Leah: Yep, absolutely.
[00:14:06] Olivia: So, I think that's another aspect of that. Can you speak to the writing process?
[00:14:11] Leah: Absolutely. A writing process is a, another collaborative writing, 10 minutes Where the kids are bridging what they're learning about language conventions and language composition as they bring a short piece, a paragraph, a few sentences through the writing process.
[00:14:27] Olivia: Ah, okay. Nice.
[00:14:27] Leah: Yeah. And for each of those, there could be varying levels of support. Um, I could be doing those as shared experiences. Often whole group, usually shared experience, shared topic. I could be doing that as a guided group. I could do guided read aloud. Often small groups, still shared experience.
[00:14:47] Leah: Or it could be applied where kids are applying what they're learning to a unique topic.
[00:14:52] Olivia: I think language that I've used, uh, in the past with teachers is: Is it in need of most? Is it in need of some?
[00:14:59] Leah: Yes.
[00:15:00] Olivia: Is it in need of one? And so again, it's in need of most. It would be the whole class doing that work together if it's in need of some guided.
[00:15:08] Olivia: Something I appreciate with your books always is your expert voice. When I'm working with teachers in classrooms or thinking of my own practice, uh, and with students, I always have your voice bouncing around in my mind. And I'd love for listeners to hear about your writing and your research and one point that came out that you, you think is vital for listeners to hear about.
[00:15:33] Leah: I think probably the most important thing I learned from writing the book was it really helped me to dig into the reading research. Strange, because it's a writing book actually, not so strange, but I really dug into the Simple View of Reading, The Scarborough Reading Rope, and more recently, Duke and Cartwright's Active View of Reading. And all of that research around the reading and what best practices, what most recent research tells us that students need with reading to help me make the “We-Do” model of writing.
[00:16:05] Leah: In Cartwright's active view of reading. She talks about word recognition. They have three strands. Their first strand is word recognition, which is really the language convention strand. They talk about language comprehension as the second strand, which is the language composition in my strand and the third strand they call bridging, which is bringing everything together, which is my writing process strand.
[00:16:30] Leah: So, to really be able to lean on that research, and what I hope that does also is it makes teachers' lives easier. I'm recommending teachers use the, the Active Reading Model alongside the “We-Do” model because if you're using both, it makes your life easier as a teacher. And it helps kids to learn more because they're learning in similar ways across reading and writing.
[00:16:52] Olivia: And you, you do quote Randy Bomer. It was on page 45 in your book.
[00:16:57] Leah: Yes.
[00:16:57] Olivia: Because I'm continuing to hear educators all over the world. There's never enough time.
[00:17:02] Leah: Yes.
[00:17:03] Olivia: And I wanted to just speak to that quote: More time is a meaningless idea when you think about it. How could there be more of time? Time just is what we are really complaining about is our difficulty in controlling and choosing what to do with the time we have.
[00:17:19] Olivia: And Leah, I love that, you know, this is 10 minutes. It's not going to take hours in our day.
[00:17:26] Leah: Yes.
[00:17:19] Olivia: And those 10 minutes are worth gold because it's the direct impact on building stamina with independence and transfer. Right?
[00:17:34] Leah: Absolutely.
[00:17:35] Olivia: I think something that I heard you mention earlier with Pearson's thinking most recently is that balanced literacy is not a checkoff of, I took on my read aloud.
[00:17:46] Leah: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:46] Olivia: I took on my shared reading.
[00:17:47] Leah: Yes.
[00:17:48] Olivia: It's much more seeing those components as structures that are flexible and really based on the needs of our students at that time. And so, I appreciate you pointing that out in the book as well. You know, we make time for what's important, right, in our day.
[00:18:03] Olivia: Cause I know many learning communities have the gift of having you be part of pushing that work forward? What does that look and feel like with the application of the “We-Do” writing model?
[00:18:14] Leah: Yeah, it's been really interesting now going into schools with this book under My belt and how it has shifted my work in schools and I think it's shifted my work in schools, um, in three ways.
[00:18:25] Leah: The first thing is I, I wanna go back to something you said about, about teachers and the idea of making teachers' lives easier. Teachers can be amazing teachers and not have it overtake their personal life. The “We-Do” model has really helped me to show teachers how to be good teachers, but to still be able to leave school and do other things.
[00:18:46] Leah: So that's been, and, and, and teachers matter tremendously. The two other big things I have, um, learned from this is I find that my curriculum work is much more, where in the past it was focused on writing time. I would go in and, and I would help teachers come up with learning targets. For their writing workshop or their writing time.
[00:19:05] Leah: And now the curriculum work is much more encompassing than that. We are thinking about those learning targets, but we're thinking about how do those learning targets go into interactive writing and to write aloud and to writing process. Where's the phonics instruction, where's the grammar instruction?
[00:19:22] Leah: And so, we're really thinking about all these things, not in silos, but that all of these are really connected. So, I feel like I'm doing a better job, I hope of having a more inclusive writing curriculum. And then the second thing is I hope that the “We-Do” model is giving teachers more ideas on how to work with kids during that writing time or writing workshop.
[00:19:45] Leah: I think in the past it was always the one-on-one conference, which is super important, but now teachers are pulling kids together for a guided interactive writing. For kids who still need additional practice with what they're learning in phonics. Or they might be pulling a group of kids together for a guided write aloud, and so there's other ways to work with kids during that writing time.
[00:20:05] Leah: The one-on-one conference is fabulous. But not the only way.
[00:20:09] Olivia: Leah, my, one of my favorite things about reading your books is that you create a beautiful visual of how everything becomes woven together. And you've done that even long, long ago with Reading, Writing Connections, and I feel like this book last year, it was bringing that all back.
[00:20:28] Olivia: It was a perfect way to circle back and say, you know, we, there are connections in everything we do. But this, the word you just used is it's encompassing and that is exactly what it is.
[00:20:38] Leah: Yeah.
[00:20:39] Olivia: Every day we are a day smarter than we were the day before, hopefully crossing our fingers and toes.
[00:20:44] Leah: Yes, yes!
[00:20:45] Olivia: Right? And I feel like everything you hope for us as educators, you are modeling that when you're going into schools and then the, the students are transferring because you are making those connections for the adults. So, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to have this conversation. Yesterday as I was rereading your book, I texted at least five colleagues and said, do you have Leah's book?
[00:21:09] Olivia: How can you not have Leah's book? You must! And there, they're district leaders because this, it, it's a fresh perspective that I appreciate so much. So, you are a gift. Thank you so much for taking the time to share.
[00:21:22] Leah: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
[00:21:24] Olivia: Take care.