We can have a positive impact on children’s reading lives when we attempt to make sure every child’s life is reflected in books AND that every child can understand the experiences of other people by reading books. By doing this, we not only positively impact our students, but we improve our society as a whole.
Category: mentor texts
The Joys of Sharing Expository Nonfiction Mentor Texts with Students + a Giveaway
Consider sharing these six books with your fact-loving students. Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win all six books for your classroom library.
The Quickwrite Handbook, A Review +Giveaway
Linda Rief has collected a treasure of mentor texts and created a guide to encourage you to find your own treasures! Start here, get inspired, and then see what you find when you start looking. It can be as small or big as you want when you begin and Linda gives us all the right tools to get started.
Continuing to think about our mentor texts
While we have to ask ourselves questions about where books fit into our curriculum and how books support mindsets, now, more than ever, we should be asking how the books we use promote social justice and cultural awareness. These questions do not apply only to the books we offer students to read, but also the books we use to teach students to write.
A Few Ways to Empower Writers Using Mentor Texts
It could be said that what sets a writing workshop apart from other approaches to teaching writing is a focus on empowerment. Here are a few ways to empower writers when it comes to mentor texts...
NCTE 2018: Here We Come!
Here's a peek at the dates and times three members of our co-author team will be presenting at NCTE this weekend.
Four Mentor Texts to Nurture the Relationship Between a Writer and a Notebook: Notebooks as a Writers Tool
Writers pause to notice the obvious and obscure moments in life. They preserve their memories in their notebooks by jotting words, tucking away photographs, ticket stubs, and other items that have left an imprint. Each of these items waits inside the notebook until the writer pulls them out and forms them into a story to… Continue reading Four Mentor Texts to Nurture the Relationship Between a Writer and a Notebook: Notebooks as a Writers Tool
Getting to Know Your Writers
The decisions I make from the classroom library to family connections are intentional and responsive to building a community of writers and learning about the students who make up this community.
Books to Begin the School Year
Add six new picture books to your back-to-school read alouds and to your mentor text collection this fall.
After you read through this post, be sure to leave a comment about how you'd use these books in your classroom for a chance to win all six of them.
A Fall To-Do List for Shared Writing in Your K-2 Classroom
Maybe this will be the year I do a lot more shared writing!
End of Year Reflections and June Planning
As we approach the end of another school year, many of us begin making plans for outgrowing ourselves. But what might be some lenses to think through when taking on such a task? I have a few ideas . . .
Student-Written Mentor Texts: Beyond the Fundamentals of Writing Workshop
While many teachers seem knowledgeable about mentor texts and teacher-created texts, it is my hope that focusing on student-written mentor texts will lead more teachers to realize students can be mentor authors, too.

