For the past ten weeks, we have been sharing some of our most popular posts about mentor texts as we get ready to share our first book, Writing With Mentors, with the world on September 3!

(You can order it here or here — an Amazon even gives you a sneak peak inside!)

But, it’s one thing for us to tell you that mentor texts work and quite another for you to hear it from our students.

Maybe you’re still on the fence about this mentor text thing. Perhaps it sounds good, but you don’t see it working in your classroom, in your context, with your students.

Well, let our students convince you.

These students are 8th, 9th, and 12th graders who were all given the same prompt:  Describe how mentor texts have impacted your writing.

Here’s what they had to say:

Thank you so much for joining us this summer in our mentor text countdown! Next week, on August 20, our Tweet-a-thon begins! In addition to sharing and receiving scads of mentor texts, you might also win a copy of http://www.heinemann.com/products/E07450.aspx (you can pre-order it now!)