Mentor texts aren’t just for English class. If mentor texts are meant to inspire writing and teach us something about our writing, then they should exist in every genre. And they should exist in every classroom where writing happens. It can be challenging, though, to wrap our heads around mentor texts in the content areas. […]
Tag: writing workshop
I’ve found some mentor texts…now what?
You’ve collected some awesome mentor texts to support your writing study. You’ve photocopied them and passed them out. Then what? How do we connect students with mentor texts in a way that will actually help them write? What are the first steps? My students have been immersed in a mentor text writing study for […]
Two Writing Workshop Calls to Action
Hi, friends. We’re back. Our little project is safely in the hands of our publisher, and we are so happy to turn our attention back to the blog. Ever since NCTE, I have been thinking about the challenging realities so many teachers face in their classroom. Not only poverty, not only discipline issues, not only lack […]
Mentor Text Round-Up: Year-End Lists
As I’ve trolled my Twitter feed in the days after Christmas, it seems that everyone is publishing their year-end lists — bests, worsts, most-shockings, favorites. I started thinking about what a fun mini-study this could be, especially when we return to school at the beginning of a new year and the end of a first […]
“Where Do You Find Mentor Texts? How Do You Select Them?”
We loved seeing so many of our Twitter and blog friends at NCTE this weekend! Yesterday, during our presentation about technique-driven studies, two of the big questions that emerged were: Where do you find mentor texts? How do you select them? Our criteria: To select mentor texts, we begin by visiting our usual haunts (listed […]
All Writing, All the Time — My Plan for Semester 2
Maternity leave has given me a huge gift — the excuse to teach all writing all the time when I return to school in January. That might sound daunting or boring (writing every day? five days a week?), but for me it’s an enormous mental relief. Let’s be honest: the absolute most challenging part about […]
Mentor Text Monday: Engaging Students with HUMANS OF NEW YORK
Mentor Text: Humans of New York — blog and book by Brandon Stanton Also: LIttle Humans —book by Brandon Stanton Writing Techniques: Effective interviewing Fusing images and text Concision & drilling down to the essentials Background: While I’m off, I am dreaming of the mentor texts and units of study that will fill my second […]
Note-taking Possibilities in Writer’s Workshop
I think most of us will agree that we’d like our students to keep a record of the lessons we teach in workshop each day. They need something tangible to look back at as they progress through each study. And in a perfect world, they’d want something to take with them at the end of […]
Writing Instruction When You Aren’t There
I am not at school and won’t be for the next couple of months. Instead, I’m home snuggled up with this: Because of my impending maternity leave, much of my summer planning time was spent pondering a tough question: how do I maintain intentional, quality writing instruction when I’m not there to instruct? This is […]
Reader Mail, Part 2: How Do You Plan for a Year of Writing Workshop?
We love reader mail! On Monday, we began our answer to Cassie’s brilliant query. Here is the second part of our answer: How do we build our workshops & the lessons that go in them? When we first started writing workshop, we religiously referred to a chart on page 13 of Write Beside Them: “Writing: […]
moving writers 