Leah Mermelstein talks about her book We Do Writing: An Interview conducted by Dr. Sam Bommarito
This blog post is a repost of an earlier blog I did about Leah Mermelstein and her book We Do Writing. Leah is currently doing a FREE book study around this book. I will attend that book study and want to promote it! Contact her at leahmermelstein8@gmail.com for more information and to sign up for the next book study session. The next book study will be on August 9th at 7:00 pm, and Leah will be there!
Here is some information about Leah taken from her website:
I found out that Leah was a staff developer for Lucy Calkin’s project around the same time I did my own 4-year stint learning about writing workshop. I have already purchased my copy of Leah’s book. That is because I plan to resume helping my 3rd grade teachers implement workshop in the fall. BTW- that is because they asked me back. They loved workshop!
Leah’s methods are grounded in the workshop model. What she brings to the table are ways to simplify workshop teaching and to help teachers to help kids write more. Her ideas also help them love writing. During my own training I remember Katie Wood Ray telling us to have kids write more- make more stuff! I know with the help of the ideas from this book, next year my 3rd graders will be doing just that. I highly recommend this book.
Now it is time to have a look at the interview. Here are the topics we discussed. They are time stamped.
1. Tell us about yourself. Tell about how to create simple tools for complex work. 01:00
2. What made you decide to write this book? 04:00
3. Can you share the major parts of the “We-Do” writing model with us? 08:23
4. What research did you lean on while creating the “We-Do” model? 15:10
5. Any final thoughts? 23:00
Here is the YouTube interview:
Here is some additional information about Leah, including several important links:
Link to her web page: Web Page: www.leahmermelstein.com
Link to purchase book: Leah’s Book
THE WE-DO MODEL
Link to join her “We-Do” Facebook group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/3458003700963828
Link to her blog: https://www.leahmermelstein.com/blog
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wedowriting/
Twitter: @MermelsteinLeah
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-mermelstein-042a8a18
My thoughts about Leah’s book/ My upcoming Interviews this summer.
Workshop works (despite what you might have heard on social media). In this book, Leah provides research to support the use of workshop. Most of her book is about how to implement her model of teaching writing. It provides a treasure trove of practical ideas about teaching writing effectively and developing a lifelong love of writing in your students. This is one of my go-to books when teaching teachers about the art and science of teaching.
For the rest of the summer, I will do several blog posts/interviews I think will interest you. Next week Dr. Tom Lawless will talk about the social media’s version of the current state of the reading world. He will give extensive explanations about the whole story behind test scores. It is not at all the same as the story told by some social media pundits. By the way, this story is being told by a former Harvard professor of public policy and a professor who preceded his university career with a 10-year career in the classroom. We’ll also have a guest blog from Jan Richardson, where she tells the whole story of what she has said about teaching reading. Again, it is not at all the story being told by her social media critics. Toward the end of summer, I’ll interview P.D. Pearson about literacy. Again, a chance for you to hear the full story about our progress in literacy. Remember that Pearson is the architect of the widely used gradual release model of instruction and has decades of experience publishing in the top reading research journals in the literacy field.
So- Have a wonderful 4th of July. I’ll “see you” next week.
Dr. Sam (the guy in the middle happily taking flak from both sides)
Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s view and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.