Mentor Texts to Teach Writing Styles

In order for students to write effective narratives, they need to read good narratives. In this practical book, you'll find out how to use mentor texts to make narrative writing instruction more meaningful, authentic, and successful. Author Sean Ruday demonstrates how you can teach elementary and middle school students to analyze the qualities of effective narratives and then help them think of those qualities as tools to improve their own writing. You'll learn how to: Introduce your students to the key features of a successful narrative, such as engaging the reader, organizing an event sequence, and crafting a strong conclusion. Assess students' writing by evaluating the specific attributes of an effective narrative. Make narrative writing an interactive, student-driven exercise in which students pursue their own writing projects. Use mentor texts to help students learn the core concepts of narrative writing and apply those skills across the curriculum. Encourage students to incorporate technology and multimedia as they craft their narratives. The book is filled with examples and templates you can bring back to the classroom immediately, as well as an annotated bibliography with mentor text suggestions and links to the Common Core. You'll also find a study guide that will help you use this book for professional development with colleagues. Bonus: Blank templates of the handouts are available as printable eResources on our website (http://www.routledge.com/9781138924390).

"Writing With Mentorsis one of the best books I've read on harnessing the power of mentor texts to spur authentic student writing." --Kelly Gallagher, author of Write Like This "Writing With Mentors has transformed the way I think about using exemplar pieces." --Christopher Lehman, coauthor of Falling in Love with Close Reading "I am certain Don [Graves] would have celebrated these wise, kind, and fearless advocates for young writers." --Penny Kittle, author of Write Beside Them In Writing with Mentors, high school teachers Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell prove that the key to cultivating productive, resourceful writers-writers who can see value and purpose for writing beyond school-is using dynamic, hot-off-the-press mentor texts. In this practical guide, they provide savvy strategies for: --finding and storing fresh new mentor texts, from trusted traditional sources to the social mediums of the day --grouping mentor texts in clusters that show a diverse range of topics, styles, and approaches --teaching with lessons that demonstrate the enormous potential of mentor texts at every stage of the writing process. In chapters that follow the scaffolded instruction Allison and Rebekah use in their own classrooms, you'll discover how using mentor texts can unfold across the year, from inspiration and planning to drafting, revising, and "going public" in final publication. Along the way, you'll find yourself reaching every writer in the room, whatever their needs."Our hope in this book,"they write, "is to show you a way mentors can help you teach anything you need or want to teach in writing. A way that is grounded in the work of real writers and the real reading you do every day. A way that is sustainable and fresh, and will serve your students long after they leave your classroom."

How do you choose mentor texts for your students? How do you mine them for the craft lessons you want your students to learn? In Craft Moves, Stacey Shubitz, cofounder of the Two Writing Teachers website, does the heavy lifting for you: using twenty recently published picture books, she creates more than 180 lessons to teach various craft moves that will help your students become better writers.

Helping students put words on a page can be hard enough. "I don't have anything to write about!" they say. And when writing does happen, how do you help them develop these ideas into more effective pieces? A powerful tool to jumpstart writing In The Quickwrite Handbook, master teacher Linda Rief shares 100 compelling mentor texts and shows how to use each one as a powerful tool for sparking successful writing. Each mentor text includes "Try this" suggestions for inviting students to get started. You'll also find "Interludes" woven throughout: examples of quickwrites that students crafted into more fully developed pieces. These mentor texts are curated in four categories: Seeing Inward: How do students view themselves? Leaning Outward: What do students consider when they step outside of themselves? Beyond Self: What do students notice and wonder about the world at large? Looking Back: How does reflection help students grow into more articulate, thoughtful citizens of the world? Quickwrites go beyond writing prompts The pages of this book champion Linda's wise words: "Quickwrites-writing to find writing-are a powerful teaching tool that help students find ideas, discover their voices, and build their confidence as they discover they have important things to say." Quickwrites are more than a set of formulaic prompts. They are opportunities for students to use another writer's words to stimulate their thinking and-through writing themselves-to discover a voice they didn't know they had.

It's been a decade since Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli wrote the first edition of Mentor Texts and helped teachers across the country make the most of high-quality children's literature in their writing instruction. In the second edition of this important book Lynne and Rose show teachers how to help students become confident, accomplished writers by using literature as their foundation. The second edition includes brand-new "Your Turn Lessons," built around the gradual release of responsibility model, offering suggestions for demonstrations and shared or guided writing. Reflection is emphasized as a necessary component to understanding why mentor authors chose certain strategies, literary devices, sentence structures, and words. Lynne and Rose offer new children's book titles in each chapter and in a carefully curated and annotated Treasure Chest. At the end of each chapter a "Think About It--Talk About It--Write About It" section invites reflection and conversation with colleagues. The book is organized around the characteristics of good writing--focus, content, organization, style, and conventions. Rose and Lynne write in a friendly and conversational style, employing numerous anecdotes to help teachers visualize the process, and offer strategies that can be immediately implemented in the classroom. This practical resource demonstrates the power of learning to read like writers.  

"Heart Mapsis a book that I will use and recommend to teachers for years to come." -Donalyn Miller, author of The Book Whisperer "You'll find yourself relying on this book again and again as a trusted source as you help your student writers craft a writing life." -Jennifer Serravallo, author of The Reading Strategies Bookand The Writing Strategies Book How do we get students to "ache with caring" about their writing instead of mechanically stringing words together? We spend a lot of time teaching the craft of writing but we also need to devote time to helping students write with purpose and meaning. For decades, Georgia Heard has guided students into more authentic writing experiences by using heart maps to explore what we all hold inside: feelings, passions, vulnerabilities, and wonderings. In Heart Maps, Georgia shares 20 unique, multi-genre heart maps to help your students write from the heart, such as the First Time Heart Map, Family Quilt Heart Map, and People I Admire Heart Map. You'll also find extensive support for using heart maps, including: tips for getting started with heart maps writing ideas to jumpstart student writing in multiple genres from heart maps suggested mentor texts to provide additional inspiration "For twenty years I've been a tour guide of sorts for heart-mapping writers," says Georgia. "All you need is paper, pen, an open heart and a willingness to explore what matters to you." It is this freedom, this idea of discovery, that makes heart-mapping so inviting; students find they have a lot to write about both beloved and newly discovered topics. Filled with full-color student heart maps, examples of the resulting writing, along with online access to 20 different uniquely designed reproducible heart map templates, Heart Mapswill be a practical tool for awakening new writing possibilities and engaging and motivating your students' writing throughout the year.

Fun-filled photos inspire kids to write their first opinion essays. What is the best song ever? Who is the greatest sports star of all-time? In this early introduction to composition, little scribes discover techniques for writing persuasive opinion pieces, including how to craft strong topic sentences and choose supporting examples. With full-color photographs and easy-to-follow text, this engaging resource is part inspiration, part lesson plan, and full of fun!

Packed with ready-to-go lessons and tools, this user-friendly resource provides ways to weave together different aspects of literacy using one mentor text. 

"Class stories are valuable, free resources for integrating curriculum, aligning your teaching with standards, and meeting the needs of your particular students."Connie Dierking and Sherra Jones Write the story of a shared event from your classroom, embedding instructional moments. Share with students to tell, tell, and retell. Now combine with your lesson plan and watch a simple story become one of your best teaching tools. That's the power of oral mentor texts! Oral Mentor Textsshows you this simple, effective new way to teach, reinforce, and practice skills and strategies with all your students. These teacher-created stories support a wide range of literacy goals as you: harness the power of oral language to enrich comprehension help writers internalize narrative structures and craft elements support English learners and struggling readers and writers to meet literacy standards, including speaking and listening. Oral mentor texts are a great idea, and Connie Dierking and Sherra Jones make them easy to weave into your teaching with: suggestions for whole-group, small-group, and individual instruction lesson ideas for teaching 34 key literacy skills ways oral mentor texts can turn non-instructional time into teaching time Read Oral Mentor Textsand give your students a story they'll remember every time they open a book or pick up a pen.

Teaching grammar can be overwhelming and is often an overlooked part of effective instruction. The Elementary School Grammar Toolkitto the rescue! Now in its second edition, this comprehensive guide makes grammar instruction fun and meaningful. You will learn how to... * Teach grammar in a practical way to help students grow as readers and writers by presenting each grammar rule as a useful writing tool. * Use mentor texts--excerpts from great literature--to help students understand grammar in action. * Promote metacognition along the way so that students become responsible for their own learning. * Implement innovative instructional strategies and tools aligned with Common Core and other state standards. Throughout the book, you'll find step-by-step recommendations for teaching each of the grammar tools to help students meet the Common Core State Standards and other state language standards for grades threee to five, plus classroom snapshots that show you the tools in action, handy templates that you can use in the classroom, and new tips for extra support at the end of every chapter. New!The second edition features revised classroom snapshots and exemplars to showcase successful practices, new visuals, more free charts and activities, and new "Bonus Tips for Support" in each chapter, with extra practices and strategies to use with students who need extra support. The expanded, free annotated bibliography is updated to include contemporary, high-quality children's and young adult literature and gives examples of key grammatical concepts found in each work. These resources are available as supplemental downloads on our website.

The classroom-tested tools you need to get kids excited about learning grammar!

"There is power that resides in outstanding culturally diverse literature--a power that has the potential to engage students in reading and teach them about the art and craft of writing." --Ruth Culham   We dream of a time when all students will be confident, capable readers and writers. When we teach students to read as writers using mentor texts, we awaken that dream and make it real. Imagine the power of providing students with books that show them their faces, their culture, their lives on every page. And imagine how every classroom's collection of mentor texts can grow by adding books that celebrate diversity. In Dream Wakers: Mentor Texts That Celebrate Latino Culture, Ruth Culham focuses her love of children's literature--and her decades of work developing the traits of writing--on books that celebrate Latino life and culture. She provides a wide variety of ideas to teach writing using some of the richest and most beautiful children's books available. Dream Wakers gives you: * An annotated list of more than 120 books with do-it-today lesson ideas for teaching the traits of writing--Ideas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, and Conventions. More than half of the books listed are bilingual or offer English and/or Spanish editions. * Eleven original, insightful essays by renowned children's authors of some of the featured books * A handy reference chart that helps teachers locate books quickly by trait, genre, language, and author/publisher information. Ruth encourages all of us to make sure students of all backgrounds have access to high-quality, culturally diverse texts and recognize the difference those texts will make in their reading lives, as well as in their perception of themselves as a thinkers, learners, and citizens.  

In their first book, Mentor Texts, Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli demonstrated how teachers can use children's literature to guide and inspire student writers of narrative fiction and poetry. Now, they have turned their focus to nonfiction, identifying a wide range of mentor texts and showing how these models illustrate the key features of good writing.   Lynne and Rose guide teachers through a variety of projects, samples, and classroom anecdotes that demonstrate how teachers can help students become more effective writers of good nonfiction. The Your Turn lessons at the end of each chapter use the gradual release of responsibility model to guide and empower student writers. Teachers will find especially helpful the information on how to select appropriate mentor texts from among the sometimes overwhelming offerings of children's literature. Each Your Turn lesson encourages reflection and motivates students to think about what they've learned, the purpose of learning and practicing a skill or strategy, and how they might use this technique in the future. Additionally, An Author's Voice provides encouragement and advice from published authors of children's nonfiction.    One of the most valuable features of Nonfiction Mentor Texts is the treasure chest of books organized according to chapter. This list includes every title mentioned in the book, as well as a host of other titles that teachers can use to help students learn about quality nonfiction writing--building content, organizing text, developing voice, enhancing style, using punctuation effectively--and from which students can draw topic ideas. Lynne and Rose have either read or used all of the featured books in their classrooms and have selected titles that meet the needs of students at varying levels. Teachers will be able to find the just-right book for each student.

Don and Jenny Killgallon's sentence-composing approach helps students all across America develop into more proficient and sophisticated writers. Now, in this powerful worktext, the Killgallons use their highly effective method to help elementary students become better readers and writers of nonfiction. Nonfiction for Elementary School: A Sentence Composing Approach offers varied practice in building better sentences and paragraphs by modeling writing after sentences from well-known authors, including Seymour Simon, Jerry Spinelli, Walter Dean Myers, Roald Dahl, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Bill Bryson, Richard Wright, Jim Murphy, Steve Sheinkin, Laura Hillenbrand, Philip M. Hoose, and many others. Using the activities in the worktext, students- - build strong, complete sentences with a clear understanding of the role of subject and predicate - learn the meanings of words in the context of nonfiction sentences, promoting deep reading skills - practice varied sentence-composing tools to build better sentences - imitate the sentence and paragraph structure of mentor authors from a wide variety of short nonfiction pieces The Killgallons provide the scaffolding students need to build strong sentences and paragraphs, as well as to interpret challenging brief nonfiction texts. With recognizable nonfiction authors as their mentors, students learn skills and build confidence as their reading and writing become more meaningful and masterful. Teacher's Booklet-- guidance for teaching with this particular student worktext, including pacing suggestions and answer key FREE TEACHER'S BOOKLET (DOWNLOAD)

Text Structures from the Masters provides 50 short texts written by famous Americans driven by what Peter Elbow described as "an itch" to say something. By examining the structure of these mentor texts, students see that they too have an "itch" and learn how to use the text structure of each document to express it.Each 4-page lesson includes: A planning sheet that shows the structure of the mentor text Brainstorming boxes  A method for "kernelizing" (outlining) their own essay Student examples

Building on the success of Mentor Texts and Nonfiction Mentor Texts, authors Lynne R. Dorfman and Rose Cappelli now turn their attention to poetry. In Poetry Mentor Texts, Lynne and Rose show teachers how to use poems in both reading and writing workshops and across content areas. Written in a friendly, conversational tone, this practical book explores a variety of poetic forms, including poems that inspire response, list poems, acrostic poems, persona poems, and poems for two voices--versatile forms of poetry that can be used in every grade. Each of these poetic forms has its own chapter featuring five poems with applications for both reading and writing classrooms. Reading connections present skills and strategies to move students forward as readers, helping them to build fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, phonemic awareness, and phonics. Writing connections help students and teachers discover their own voices and grow as poets and wordsmiths as they try out many poetic forms. Poems help students at all grade levels learn to better address complex reading texts, offering them a chance to dig deeper and use higher-order thinking skills. Additionally, Your Turn writing lessons provide a scaffold for seamlessly moving from modeling to the shared or guided experience and the transfer to independent work. The Treasure Chest offers a brief annotation of the poems discussed in each chapter as well as companion pieces that extend and enhance the work of the reading and writing classroom. Poetry Mentor Texts helps teachers across the curriculum guide their students to become not only skilled readers and writers but also more empathetic human beings.

Using mentor texts from a range of high-interest sources and diverse authors can be a real game changer in secondary writing classrooms. Students learn to read like writers, deepening their understanding of quality writing and inspiring them in their own drafting and revision. In this foundational guide, you'll learn the what, why, and how of teaching with mentor texts in small ways as well as large-and discover the power of mentor texts to serve as "writing teachers" alongside you. Allison and Rebekah provide a multitude of annotated examples from professional writers, alongside student samples, to illustrate how mentor texts can teach specific writing skills. Online resources, planning tools, and videos for both teachers and students make A Teacher's Guide to Mentor Textsan instant companion to your lesson plan book.

In order for students to write effective arguments, they need to read good arguments. In this practical book, you'll find out how to use mentor texts to make writing instruction more meaningful, authentic, and successful. Author Sean Ruday demonstrates how you can teach middle school students to analyze the qualities of effective arguments and then help them think of those qualities as tools to improve their own writing. You'll learn how to: Introduce high-interest topics to students to get them interested and engaged in argument writing. Teach students to look at multiple sides of an issue and critically evaluate evidence to construct informed, defensible arguments. Make argument writing an interactive, student-driven exercise in which students pursue their own writing projects. Use mentor texts to help students learn the core concepts of argument writing and apply those skills across the curriculum. The book is filled with examples and templates you can bring back to the classroom immediately, as well as an annotated bibliography which links the concepts in this book to the corresponding Common Core State Standards. Blank templates are also available as printable eResources on our website (http://www.routledge.com/9781138924390).

Becoming a better writer begins with reading well-written books and trying what their authors do successfully. So why not help middle schoolers improve their writing by exposing them to mentor texts written just for them? Culham, Blasingame, and Coutu have selected 150 fiction and nonfiction books by master writers, annotated them, and organized them by trait. Each annotation explains what the book is about and why it's a good model. Twenty ready-to-use, literature-based lessons are also included.