We had so much fun talking to Anna E. Baldwin (@annaebaldwin), a professor at the University of Montana, about writing workshop, mentor texts, and our new project!
Tag: writing with mentors
Building Writing through Independent Reading Projects – a Follow-Up
In January, I reviewed Dan Feigelson’s Reading Projects Reimagined, and I was on fire! I couldn’t wait to take the brilliant-yet-simple idea of inviting students to track an idea of personal interest throughout a book. No more prescribed annotations! No more end-of-chapter questions! No more herding students into tightly-constructed pens of thought built on what […]
Translating Writing With Mentors for Elementary and Middle School, Part II
Last week, we shared our four fundamental beliefs about teaching with mentor texts — beliefs that apply to any students in any classroom, from kindergarten to senior year. We believe that: Real writing is the result of studying real writing Students benefit from studying hot-off-the-presses mentor texts Students need to study multiple mentor texts in […]
Translating Writing With Mentors for Elementary and Middle School, Part I
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 […]
The #writingwithmentors Tweet-a-thon — Let’s Do This!
Thursday is the day we begin our Tweet-a-thon, leading up to the publication of Writing With Mentors on September 3! (You can download a sample and pre-order on Heinemann’s site!) A little fuzzy on the rules of the game? Need a refresher? Here’s the deal: Rules of the Tweet-a-Thon: Between August 20 and September 3, tweet a link […]
Summer Mentor Text Countdown Week 9: The Mentor Text Dropbox
Once upon a time, Allison and I fell in love with mentor texts. Once we taught our students how to use them, they answered every writing question, solved every writing problem. But we hated the hours and hours of time it took to find even one good one. So, we decided to share with each other. When […]
Announcing the #writingwithmentors Tweet-a-Thon!
Friends, we are getting so excited to share Writing With Mentors with you on September 3. Do you remember Oprah’s Favorite Things episodes? Hysterical audience members would load up on exotic goodies gifted to them by Oprah. Invariably, by the end of the episode, the group would hear Oprah’s signature bombastic yawp: “You get a […]
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 […]
