Reading and examining mentor texts with students is a powerful literacy strategy. Before I bring a book into our writing workshop to use as a mentor text, I try to read it to students for enjoyment and comprehension during a different part of the day. Students need to have an opportunity to enjoy and talk about the content of a text before they are asked to examine it closely and use it to learn about writing. I will model and explicitly teach students how to read a book as writers. I plan to explain to students that people use books for many purposes – for fun and enjoyment, to learn about a new topic, and also to learn how to write. In the classroom, I will model how to read and examine the writing. We will discuss how we notice things like author's word choice, exciting characters, how the author introduces a problem, the types of words that an author uses, punctuation marks, and so on. We will be able to use these books to guide us through our narrative, opinion and informative writing units. Eventually, my goal is for students to seek out their own mentor texts. I really want to show students that they can use their own independent reading to grow as writers. AdditionalIy, I might have students keep a list of interesting words they find in the books they read, so they can later use those words in their own daily writing. Lastly, I plan to encourage students to share their findings with the entire class. I am hoping that these rich children's books inspire my students to want to read and grow as young writers!
About my class
Reading and examining mentor texts with students is a powerful literacy strategy. Before I bring a book into our writing workshop to use as a mentor text, I try to read it to students for enjoyment and comprehension during a different part of the day. Students need to have an opportunity to enjoy and talk about the content of a text before they are asked to examine it closely and use it to learn about writing. I will model and explicitly teach students how to read a book as writers. I plan to explain to students that people use books for many purposes – for fun and enjoyment, to learn about a new topic, and also to learn how to write. In the classroom, I will model how to read and examine the writing. We will discuss how we notice things like author's word choice, exciting characters, how the author introduces a problem, the types of words that an author uses, punctuation marks, and so on. We will be able to use these books to guide us through our narrative, opinion and informative writing units. Eventually, my goal is for students to seek out their own mentor texts. I really want to show students that they can use their own independent reading to grow as writers. AdditionalIy, I might have students keep a list of interesting words they find in the books they read, so they can later use those words in their own daily writing. Lastly, I plan to encourage students to share their findings with the entire class. I am hoping that these rich children's books inspire my students to want to read and grow as young writers!
Read more