In my classroom, the school year typically comes on like gangbusters. I begin fast and furious as a sort of illusion — more for my benefit than for the students. It’s as though I feel that the faster I tread the beginning-of-school water, the less I’ll feel like I’m drowning.

This year has been very different.

My maternity leave it looming large, and in an effort to stick with the plan I made with my substitute in the spring, I am slowing way down. The result is that we are spending our days doing all of the activities I have always wanted to do to build community .

A couple of weeks ago, Stacey at Two Writing Teachers posted a great idea for using a book of author-inspired art to help students introduce themselves to the class. I decided to take the leap and try it with the added bonus of using it as a means to introduce students to mentor texts.

On Tuesday,  the first day of class, I shared the three illustrations that Stacey shared in her original post. I told students that these, while visual, were still texts that we could study. In fact, they are mentor texts — any text that inspires writing or teaches us something about writing.

I asked them to study these examples and, together, to make a list of “rules” for creating author introduction art:

I wanted students to go through these steps in order to learn how we use mentor texts. What I was surprised to learn was how much my ninth graders really needed these rules in order to create their own author introduction art.  To shift their dependence from teacher to mentor, I redirected all of their questions back to the mentor text.

“Should I use color?” Look at the mentor text.

“How many images do I need?” What does the mentor text tell you?

Students shared their introductions in the form of a gallery walk. As the students roamed and read, I asked them to jot down any questions they had for one another (either clarification or follow-up questions) and to make note of commonalities they noticed among class members.

When we had all had a chance to silently “meet” one another, we had a group discussion — asking follow-up questions, playing impromptu games of, “Does anyone here have a ____?”, “Has anyone here been to_____?”   By the time class was over, my previously nervous freshmen were smiling and talking to one another.

Only time will tell if this activity had a deep impact on my students’ understanding of mentor texts, but it certainly them some important, early exposure to mentor texts. It set the tone that individual study and inquiry — independence — is going to get them further than asking the teacher. And it helped my students feel more comfortable in my classroom.