We were so excited to chat with Brian on an episode of one of our favorite education podcasts, Talks With Teachers! Listen to us talk all things mentor texts here!
Recently …
Mentor Text Wednesday: You Don’t Know Me, But…
Mentor Texts: Excerpts from Nathan Rabin’s You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me Writing Techniques: Writing Memoir Taking Risks Humour Background: Early in the school year, my Grade 12 classes are traditionally neck deep in memoir. Each student is reading one, and we are writing a variety of memoir based pieces. I get […]
Writing in the Wild: Beyond the 5-Paragraph Essay
“What do you think about when you hear the word essay?” A moment of silence. Some confused looks. Others, blank stares. A few, smirks. IT’S LATE AFTERNOON, September, last period. My AP Lang class and I are in the midst of finishing up our discussion of Joan Didion’s wonderful essay, “On Keeping a Notebook.” It’s a relatively […]
3 Simple Exercises to Help Your Students Read Like Writers
Imagine you’re eating at your favorite go-to restaurant, that small table for two in the back corner by the window. You place an order for dinner without the menu. You have been here more times than you care to count. You don’t need a menu! Now imagine that the head chef at this restaurant has […]
Making Writing with Mentor Texts
When writers use what they learn from mentor texts to create tools that invite experimentation, they’re making writing with mentor texts.
The FrankenEssay
I’ve spent the last few years of my career as an English teacher working on reclaiming the word essay. Students, for many reasons, react badly to that word. It’s not just because our assigning of it means they have to do some work, there’s something there. My theory is that a lot of teachers have […]
Breaking Rules Like a Pro
Last week I participated in a Twitter chat hosted by @TalksWTeachers and this blog’s creators: @AllisonMarchett and @RebekahODell1. It was a fast-paced flurry of awesome ideas and thought-provoking questions, but one question in particular kept me thinking the next day. Allison posed the following question: What do you struggle to teach and how might mentor […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: A Metaphorical Op-Ed
Today’s guest post comes from Kelly Pace. Kelly teaches eleventh grade International Baccalaureate English and Theory of Knowledge in Hanover County, Virginia. She has taught ninth through twelfth grades over her eighteen-year teaching career. Connect with her on Twitter @KellyAPace. Mentor Text: There’s a Brock Turner in All of o(UR) Lives I don’t know why I […]
Writing Floats on Talk: Pitching Our Ideas
My word-of-the-year, the thought on which I want to focus my energies and instructional experimentation, is “talk”. James Britton famously wrote that “writing floats on a sea of talk.” I want my students’ writing to float … and then to fly. So, yes, I want them to write five times as much as I can […]
Happy Birthday, Writing With Mentors
This was us one year ago, celebrating Writing With Mentor‘s publication in the world. It’s been a wonderful year as we watched this book work its way into your hands, spoke to teachers across the country, and led workshops on how mentor texts can change your students’ writing. And it’s been an exhilarating fall as […]
moving writers 