Mentor Text: excerpt from Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
Techniques:
- Imagery
- Building character
Background –
I’m noticing a trend.
Pretty much every preface to Mentor Text Wednesday has me talking about being busy.
Ah, teacher life.
I balance that by escaping into story. I’ve always got a show or two on the go, and a book or three on the go.
And in doing that, I’m often finding things to take into the classroom.
I finished Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel late at night during the first week back from the break. If you’ve seen the accolades this book has racked up, the number of best of lists it wound up on, you won’t be surprised I’m going to recommend it. Headshot tells the story of a young women’s boxing tournament, using the perspective of all the participants to examine the tournament and the boxers. There are lots of moments in this book that would be great to put in front of our writers.
I chose a passage where one of the boxers thinks about the woman at the front desk of their cheap motel.
How we might use this text:
Imagery – One of the most striking things about this book is Bullwinkel’s use of imagery. I honestly feel like I could pull a page at random, and have some wonderful example of imagery to share with writers.
I really like this passage though, because it captures a moment that’s not necessarily advancing the plot, but is a contained little bit that gives us some imagery. We get to see something through the character Izzy’s eyes. Maybe because we work with young people, and Izzy is a young person, I like this choice. The imagery we’re seeing is filtered through her perception, the perception of a young person. I like the idea of using this model, and then encouraging our writers to use a similar model, to present an image through what draws their “eye.”
Building Character – In this passage, and throughout the book, Bullwinkel uses the eyes of her characters to show us the world as they see it. Maybe it’s because I’ve been developing some lessons around worldview, but this gives us, I think, a really good way to model building character. Because we’re seeing the woman at the front desk through Izzy’s eyes, we get some insight into how Izzy looks at the world, which reveals things about her character. If we had our students doing a similar activity, describing someone, or something, through their character’s eyes, getting them to think about who their character is as a result.
Perhaps this passage stuck with me because I’ve really been thinking about building a collection of character building activities. Vignettes like this one serve that need very well, and could be used to develop a character in a larger piece, or as a standalone exercise.
Do you have any good passages that you use to help your writers develop character? What are your favorite character building activities for your writers?
Leave a comment below or find me on Twitter @doodlinmunkyboy!
moving writers 
toto slot