Mentor Texts - Rachael Rydquist
This week the context of my article is based upon interest expressed to purchase a set of mentor texts for a PLT to use to teach specific skills/strategies in writing and reading. I have done some research into quality texts to support the teaching and learning across a range of areas. I am wondering if it would be worthwhile creating a space where we could store these texts and start to create a resource bank of activities for each book that teachers could easily access and add to. I would love to hear your thoughts.
What Are Mentor Texts?
Mentor texts or anchor texts are books that can be used as an example of good writing for students. Students can use the writing in these books to improve their own writing. Ralph Fletcher explains that mentor texts are, "...any texts that you can learn from, and every writer, no matter how skilled you are or how beginning you are, encounters and reads something that can lift and inform and infuse their own writing. I'd say anything that you can learn from - not by talking about but just looking at the actual writing itself, being used in really skilful, powerful way." When teachers work with students, they read the text and work on reading strategies while throughout the read. There are often multiple opportunities for a range of reading strategies in a qualitymentor text. However, it ismost effective to focus on just one strategy when reading with students. There are so many great ways to play with language and books are sucha perfect way toexpose kids to what we can do.
/ Voices in the Park / Anthony Browne / An amazing children's book which teaches children all about perspective in stories by retelling the same story 4 times, through 4 different characters./ Crickwing / Janell Cannon / Descriptive Writing- Adj./Verbs
/ Boris ate a Thesaurus / Neil Steven Klayman / This book is GREAT for teaching synonyms! Lots of smiles and laughter...
/ One Tree Named Steve! / Alan Zweibel & David Galcow
/ Seriously, Cinderella Is So Annoying! / Trisha Speed Shaskan / A great way to teach points of view in writing...and not to mention, it's funny!
/ Velma Gratch and the way cool butterfly / Alan Madison & Kevin Hawkes / Word choice, alliteration, showing VS telling ...
/ The Little Red Pen / Susan Stevens Crummel / Personification
/ The Woods / Paul Hoppe / Inferences
/ It’s hard to be a verb! / Julia Cook / Perfect for teaching vivid verbs
/ Around the House the Fox Chased the Mouse / Rick Walton / To teach prepositions
/ A Pig Parade. It’s a Terrible Idea! / Michael Black & Kevin Hawke / To teach persuasive writing and the main idea!
/ Someday / Eileen Spinelli / To teach similes
/ Big Words For Little People / Jamie Lee Curtis & Laura Cornell / To teach inferring
/ Cowboy Camp / Tammi Sauer / To teach sentence fluency
/ Joe Bright and the Seven Genre Dudes / Jenkin Hopkins / A great book for teaching genres
/ Pictures From Our Vacation / Lynne Rae Perkins / Visualisation
/ I Wanna Iguana / Karen Kaufman Orloff / To teach persuasion
/ Henry’s Freedom Box / Ellin Levine / Activating prior knowledge, asking questions, prediction
/ Chameleons Are Cool / Martin Jenkins / Mentor text for how to make informational writing more engaging
/ The Stranger / Chris Van Allsburg / Synthesising, inferring, making connections
/ Book Speak / Laura Purdie Salas / A book with a poem for nearly every occasion in the writers/readers workshop
/ Punished / David Lubar / Figurative language, puns, palindromes, anagrams