Leah Mermelstein: The Power of Write-Alouds

First Your Mouth, Then Your Hands: The Power of Write-Alouds
by Leah Mermelstein (2010) introduced me to a wonderfully useful tool: Write-Alouds.

 "During a write-aloud, you and your students compose a piece of writing together around a shared topic - a topic/story/idea about which the students have the same or almost the same knowledge as you do....The goal of the write-aloud is not mechanics (that's the role of shared/interactive writing) but composition."

This practical piece describes the rationale and role of write-alouds in the context of writing workshop, and includes a "snippet" of a write-aloud that Leah Mermelstein conducted in a classroom in which she and the students planned the development of a character in a story.  The piece also includes helpful advice on ways to integrate write-alouds into instruction.