Dear Trish, I’m sure we’ve all been on both sides of this problem at some time or another. I know I sure have! And as an adult writer who’s been practicing for many more years than the young writers in my classroom, it’s easier for me to diagnose and treat my writing ailments. Although there’s […]
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Best of the 2016-2017 School Year: Mentor Texts for the First Week of School
One of the best ways to show our students the value that mentor texts have for their writing is to let it be the first thing they hear about on the first day of school — to put a mentor text in their hands, tell them that a mentor text is a piece of writing […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: Memoir on Wax
Mentor Text: Coat of Many Colours by Dolly Parton Writing Techniques: Memoir Symbolism Allusion Revision Background: Somewhere along the way, I’m not sure when, the woman I love fell for Dolly Parton. I know it wasn’t a childhood thing, because that’s not really what her folks listened to. But she’s a fan. And I get […]
Ask Moving Writers: Structure
Wow, Brendan, that’s a great question. I can start with a somewhat facetious answer, in that I find a mentor text that the students can emulate. I channel the spirit of Austin Kleon, and tell my writers to be on the lookout for what they can steal for their own writing. I use this approach […]
A Writing Classroom in Troubled Times
Some of you are in the classroom right now. I’m just over two weeks out from those first days with students. It seems, however, that we are teaching in troubled times. Perhaps it is our easy and instant access to media and information, our 24 hour news cycle that makes us much more aware of […]
Best of the 2016-2017 School Year: Structure as Mentor Text: How Can We Organize Ideas Beyond the 5-Paragraph Essay?
It speaks volumes that three of our top ten posts in the 2016-17 school year explore the issue of abandoning the 5-paragraph essay in favor of structures that are more organic and authentic and favorable to our young writers. We have Tricia to thank for sharing all of her thinking around this issue. In today’s […]
Ask Moving Writers: Mentor Sentence Mini-lessons
Hi, Beth! Thanks for asking. As you know, mentor texts can be incredibly powerful tools to help students see the beauty in our language—and studying mentor texts at the sentence level can help students see what happens when we gather the best words in the best order. I almost always use mentor texts to […]
Best of the 2016-2017 School Year: Thinking About Mentor Texts for Literary Analysis
Whether we are teaching poetry or memoir or literary analysis, the requirements for mentor texts are the same: they must be accessible and relevant for students, and they should be richly crafted. And while poetry and memoir texts are ubiquitous, many of us struggle to find literary analysis mentor texts that are developmentally appropriate and engaging […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: Revision
Mentor Texts: Poetry In Action from The New York Times Book Review E.B. White on Why He Wrote Charlotte’s Web, Plus His Rare Illustrated Manuscripts via brainpickings.org Strategies Used: Revision Background: Aside from noting a few things that popped into my Twitter feed, I haven’t done very much work this summer. July is largely mine. […]
Ask Moving Writers: Information Writing That’s NOT “The Research Paper”
Dear Larken, On a recent trip back from Texas, we sat behind a couple of teenagers who were having the most incredibly mature, well-rounded, rich conversation about everything from politics to travel to education. As the plane prepared to land, and their conversation came to a close, the 15-year-old boy said to his new plane […]
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