Mentor Texts: “Has Snowboarding Lots Its Edge” by Christopher Solomon. The New York Times, 16 January 2013. “A Sports Star’s ‘Crash,’ Then The Search For A New Normal” by Ian Buckwalter. NPR, 4 July 2013. “Snowboarding”. Essayforum.com. “The Power of Snowboarding” by Jordan. ThisIBelieve.org, 15 December 2010. Writing Technique: Choosing a form for an idea […]
Tag: Mentor Text
Mentor Text Wednesday: Using Pixar’s Up to Teach Scene and Summary
Mentor Text: Up. Dir. Pete Docter. Pixar, 2009. Story is the lifeblood of all good writing. But students don’t realize its power until they are explicitly shown how it works across all genres of writing. An editorial tells the story of an issue. A memoir tells the story of a life. An analysis tells the story of […]
Responding to the Writer, Not the Writing
Lucy Calkins’ wisdom about teaching the writer (and not the writing) continues to reverberate decades after the publication of her book The Art of Teaching Writing. Yet many of us do not teach in a way that promotes writers. I know because I was one of them. In the past, I taught writing one composition […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: An Article About Peyton Manning to Teach Supporting Evidence
Mentor Text: “Better With Age” by Chris B. Brown. Grantland.com. 30 January 2014. Writing Technique: Supporting an argument with evidence Background: Truth be told, I am not a sporty girl. Athletic metaphors in the writing classroom do not come naturally to me. Thus, whenever I see one of my favorite cultural institutions write about sports, […]
Guest Mentor Text Wednesday: The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha
Today’s MTW post is from a guest, Jennifer Isgitt of Empathic Teacher, whose blog we follow and love! I originally caught this post on her blog and begged to use it for Mentor Text Wednesday. Workshop Genre: Poetry Background: I first learned about The Book of Awesome from my friend Amy, who presented about nonfiction mentor texts at the TCTELA conference […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: Editorial
Mentor Text: Sumter, Kyler. “Solutions for School Stress: Schedule the Workload Better”. The Huffington Post. 17 December 2013. Web. Workshop Genre: Editorial Background: I love using this editorial with students since it is written by a fellow member of their tribe — a sixteen-year-old high school junior. In addition to showing them a living, breathing […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: Carol Sherman-Jones’ “A Lesson Not Learned”
Mentor Text: Sherman-Jones, Carol. “A Lesson Not Learned.” I Thought My Father Was God. Ed. Paul Auster. New York: Picador, 2001. 52-53. Print. Writing Workshop Genre: Memoir Background: When asked which mentor text had the biggest impact on their thinking and writing in our memoir genre study, most students credited “A Lesson Not Learned” by […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: “Scary New World” by John Green for The New York Times
An Introduction to Mentor Text Wednesday Welcome to our very first Mentor Text Wednesday! Mentor texts are powerful in the hands of writers — they engage our students, they motivate our students, they guide our students, they inspire our students. We know they work. But finding mentor texts is a time-consuming task for teachers. I […]
moving writers 