A meeting place for a world of reflective writers.
I live with a three year old. Sometimes he becomes obsessive about a book. He’ll get on a streak and only want the same story read over and over and … Continue Reading Mentor Texts: The Importance of Rereading
I’ve blogged about mentor texts a great deal since we started Two Writing Teachers in 2007. I learned a lot about the way students use mentor texts after spending a … Continue Reading More About Mentor Texts
In Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature, K – 6, Lynne R. Dorfman and Rose Cappelli write, “Mentor texts help writers notice things about an author’s work that is … Continue Reading Back to Basics: Mentor Texts (Part of TWT’s Big Picture Series)
In the midst of pandemic-teaching, I know it can be hard to find the time to create resources, not only for your students, but for the adults in their lives as well. My hope is that this post and others can help you with that.
Here’s an idea for using art to inspire students who are reluctant to use mentor texts. After all, creating something beautiful — inspired by someone else’s work — is something artists, and writers, often do.
Just as we reflect our teaching practices in the summertime, we can rethink some of the mentor texts we use and find new ones to share with students in minilessons, writing conferences, and strategy lessons.
Think you know mentor texts?Some of the advice in this post might surprise you!
In their wonderful new book, Writing With Mentors: How To Reach Every Writer In The Room Using Current, Engaging Mentor Texts, authors Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O’Dell offer every writing teacher a beautifully thought out methodology for carefully curating mentor texts…
Finally! I’ve found a new picture book I can use in opinion writing units of study. Learn more about One Word from Sophia by Averbeck and Ismail in this post. Then, leave a comment on this post for a chance to win a copy of this book.
Using students’ writing as mentor texts builds kids’ self-esteem and lifts the level of writing of every other student in the room.
Do you have students who are interested in math and science, but claim they hate writing or don’t know what to write about in their writer’s notebooks? Here are 10 newer picture books to inspire them to write about their passion.
Get started organizing your mentor texts with four digital tools.
Thinking about your demonstration texts this way can give you some inspiration for multiple ways to teach the same minilesson, to the whole class, or to small groups as follow-up.
The way I felt about starting my first garden is probably how a lot of kids feel during writing workshop when we give mysterious directions to “add more detail” or “grab the reader’s interest.” The language many of us use during writing workshop probably makes perfect sense to adults–but for kids we need to be more explicit. Teaching just by telling is not enough.
The Invisible Boy, a new book that deals with the isolation quiet children can feel, is the kind of book that serves multiple purposes in an elementary school classroom (e.g., interactive read aloud book, teaching demonstration text, mentor text for strategy lessons). Previews of the book and giveaway information come at the bottom of the post.
I love our writing workshop shift from personal narrative to memoir. It comes at the perfect time of year: our notebooks have filled up with writing lists and entries, our … Continue Reading Three “just right” texts to investigate the craft of memoir.
It is important to say the name of the author and the illustrator when you read a picture book.
If you’re planning to launch independent writing projects in your class during the final weeks of school, then you’ll most likely have several students who might want to write a … Continue Reading Inspiring Independent Writing Project Mentor Text (Part 3 of 5)
I love, LOVE, L-O-V-E Ralph Tells A Story (Amazon Children’s Publishing, 2012), which is a story about a boy, Ralph, who has trepidation about writing. (It’s already become a book … Continue Reading An Inspiring Mentor Text, an Interview, and a Giveaway
I’ve been tinkering around with the picture books I’m going to bring when I speak at WordFest later this month. My presentation focuses on using recently published picture books as … Continue Reading My WordFest Mentor Text Stack Is Growing!
