Choice Lit Topic: Mentor Texts
It’s all about the right book at the right time, given to the right student or used in the right lesson . . .
Here is where we gather all those suggestions from our contributors for using mentor texts, including lesson protocols and scores of video examples.
Results
Nonfiction Read Aloud
Sean Moore reads nonfiction aloud to his second-grade students. This is the first video in a two-part series: Here are some tips for nonfiction read-alouds, based on Sean...
Nonfiction Read Aloud – Part 2
Here are some more tips for nonfiction read-alouds, based on Sean Moore's reading of Plants That Eat Animals: 1. Use nonverbal cues to focus students. Sean uses quick...
Mentor Texts for Nonfiction Writing
Beth Lawson and I met for the first time in mid-August at her school. She was organizing her classroom for teaching, and we talked about some of the changes she...
Scaring Up Better Narratives Part I
Just before Halloween, Aimee Buckner leads a lesson on brainstorming topics in writer's notebooks using the mentor text Some Things Are Scary. In this first installment of a three-part series,...
Scaring Up Better Narratives Part 2
Just in time for Halloween, Aimee Buckner leads a lesson on brainstorming topics in writer's notebooks using the mentor text Some Things Are Scary. In this second installment of a...
Previewing Nonfiction
Most of my own nonfiction reading is connected to my life as a teacher. My professional reading of books and magazines about literacy education takes up much of my nonfiction...
Scaring Up Better Narratives Part 3
Aimee Buckner leads a lesson on brainstorming topics in writer's notebooks using the mentor text Some Things Are Scary. In this final installment of a three-part series, Aimee continues to...
Making the Reading-Writing Connection with Genre Studies: The “Must Have” Lesson
In many classrooms today, teachers use genre studies as a springboard for teaching writing. Depending on the genre being studied, every student has to write a fable or a personal...
Mentor Texts for Organizing Writing
One of the things I like about the Sunday paper is the coupon section. When I'm finished cutting up the paper, there are coupons strewn all over my kitchen table....
Rethinking Mentor Texts
I know. That title kind of makes your heart skip a beat, doesn't it? Imagine how I felt when I read it in a National Council of Teachers of English...
Choosing Mentor Texts for Reading
In this quick take video, Aimee Buckner explains her criteria for selecting mentor texts for small-group, individual, and whole-class instruction.
Seedfolks: Connecting Community and Literature
I had my first anxiety dream about school starting last night. It was the first day of school, and I was late. Not just 5 or 10 minutes late. I...
Injecting Writing into Everything: Cover-up Stories
When you read the word cover-up, what comes to mind? Roswell, New Mexico and U.F.O.s? A political scandal? Misappropriated funds? I'm using the term "cover-up" as literally concealing the illustrations...
Quick Take: Selecting Mentor Texts for Writing Instruction
In this two-minute video, Aimee Buckner explains how she selects mentor texts for writing, as well as the importance of using writing by students and teachers in lessons.
Punctuation Study with Third Graders
[Writers] deliberately choose certain marks because they know these marks signal us to inflect our voice in a particular way, emphasize a word or phrase, or slow down. We know...
Using Mentor Texts in Study Groups: Play and Practice
What we have to do is be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions. Walter Pater I often find myself in information overload, with so many new...
Planning to Teach with Mentor Texts: Two Examples
Much has been written in recent years about how teachers should find a couple of good mentor texts that they love and just use them repeatedly, for a variety of...
Picture Books for Shared Reading
Last week I was reading Shari Frost's article, Whatever Happened To Mrs. Wishy Washy? when I began to think about the Big Books that have been loved in my room over the...
Choosing New Books for Comprehension Strategy Studies with Young Children
The books I have chosen for reading comprehension have been amazing journeys that we've taken as a class. I thought I would use the books just to help to learn...
Thinking About 5th Grade Read Alouds
It's that time of year again -- the time when I sit down at my diningroom table, surrounding myself with books I have read recently and some old favorites. And...
Biographies Off the Beaten Path
We had a set of biographies in our elementary school library when I was a child. I can still remember exactly where they were on the shelves. I read several...
