We are delighted to share a guest post today from middle school teacher Elizabeth Oosterheert. You might remember her from a post earlier this year! You can connect with her on Twitter @oosterheerte. Ah, spring. It’s that vibrant time when my “garden” of students begins to blossom beautifully, and the seeds planted earlier in the […]
Sometimes we need to scaffold the thinking that goes into writing more than we need to scaffold where a topic sentence goes in a paragraph. Mentor texts can help with that!
In the stack of marking that I took home, promising myself I’d do before Spring Break ended, sits a stack of Of Mice and Men literary analysis essays. As we worked on them, we had a fair number of conversations about what we were doing, and why. We talked about how, often, exercises like lit […]
Mentor Text: Someone Will Come Along: Rogue One, Logan and Hope by Jessica Plummer Writing Techniques: Writing Literary Analysis Essay Structure Background: If, as Stephen King would say, you are a “Faithful Reader,” then you know I’m a bit of a geek. If you’re here for the first time… Hi, I’m Jay, and I really […]
This post explores an alternative approach to literary analysis that might make your students feel more engaged with the writing genre.
Mentor Texts: “In praise of Joanne Rowling’s Hermione Granger series” – Sady Doyle Writing Techniques: Character analysis Applying a critical lens Voice Background: I am re-reading the Harry Potter series with my oldest daughter. We’re reading the gorgeous illustrated editions. This means that we are now on our second go-round with Chamber of Secrets, as […]
Using mentors to teach literary analysis makes sense. Beginning in elementary school, students are engaged in some form of literary analysis. In fact, my second grade daughter, works out her analytical muscles on the regular. Her (amazing) teacher provides her students with plenty of scaffolding and sentence starters. She coaches them with exercises like I […]
How adopting a mentor text approach to writing instruction is actually helping me teach reading comprehension
I’ve written about this before, but this year, Gord Downie, of The Tragically Hip fame has had an impact in my classroom. Long story short, The Hip is largely considered to be Canada’s official band. Their songs, with Downie’s lyrics, are frequently poetic ruminations on our country and identity. In May of last year, Downie […]
Sometimes, when we’re really, really lucky, many of our goals and passions weave together in wonderful ways. In 2016, I decided I wanted to dedicate myself to exploring poetry more deeply, partly for my work with my students, but also, because of what poetry is, and how moving it can be. I also wanted to […]
moving writers 