Our bookshelves are jammed full with books meant for elementary and middle school teachers. Donald Graves, Nancie Atwell, Georgia Heard, Katie Wood Ray, Ralph Fletcher, the gals at Two Writing Teachers — these are the teachers who have taught us how to teach writing, who continually push us to reconsider what we think we know […]
Tag: mentor texts
Summer Mentor Text Countdown Week 8: Mentor Texts for Literary Analysis
Before Allison and I each began using the writing workshop approach in our classrooms, one of our biggest concerns was the same concern we hear again and again from teachers around the country: we are high school teachers. We must teach literary analysis and the writing of literary analysis. How can writing workshop accommodate this? We […]
Summer Mentor Text Countdown Week 7: Ways to End (or Begin) a Year of Writing with Mentor Texts
We have been sharing Moving Writers’ most popular posts about mentor texts as we move toward the September release of our book, Writing With Mentors. (Want a tiny sneak peek at the contents of Writing With Mentors? Check out our Table of Contents and a couple of reviews on the Heinemann site!) Last week in our Summer Mentor […]
Summer Mentor Text Countdown Week 6 – Mentor Texts for the First Week of School
Are you ready to start planning for the first week of school? We use mentor texts in our classes from the very first day of school. We want to lay down a strong foundation and also some strong expectations that mentor texts will be our go-to source for inspiring our work, giving us how-tos, and […]
Summer Mentor Text Countdown Week 5 – Mentor Sentences to Boost Student Writing
As you saw two weeks ago with our post about using mentor texts for Notebook Time, mentor texts can be large or small. Even a tiny mentor text can have spectacular results for student writing. Mentor sentences can be a great way for both you and your students to wade into the waters of mentor text study! […]
Summer Mentor Text Countdown: Week 4
We are sure that Flannery O’Connor would agree that like a good man, a good mentor text is hard to find. And, like you, we don’t have hours and hours to devote to the search. We need a short-hand, a fast protocol, some never-let-you-down sources. In Writing With Mentors, we devote all of chapter two to how […]
Summer Mentor Text Countdown — Week 3
Our students use multiple mentor texts constantly throughout the writing process — from planning all the way through publication. But our students also encounter daily mentor texts as they play with words and ideas in notebook time, our amped-up, mentor-text-based bell ringer. These mentor texts are very different from the ones we use in our […]
Moving Writer’s Mentor Text Countdown: Week 2
Over the next few weeks, we are preparing for the publication of our book, Writing with Mentors, by sharing our most popular mentor text-related posts over the last two years. This week, we are sharing “Questions to Help You Choose Mentor Texts”. Finding the right mentor texts can be daunting in a world full of words, but […]
Moving Writers’ Summer Mentor Text Countdown – Week 1
School is winding down, and summer is upon us, but Allison & I are just getting started as we gear up for the September 3rd release of our first book with Heinemann, Writing with Mentors. We are working on some exciting things to share with you as we get closer to the official launch! In the meantime, […]
Our Top 3 Tips for Using Your Summer to Plan Next Year’s Writing Workshop
My summer to-do list is LONG. In addition to around-the-house projects that only get done during the summer, trips to take, friends to see, and books to read, I have planning to do for the upcoming school year. I bet you do, too. A lot of writing workshop can’t be planned for — we have […]
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