I think if you really want to write in a powerful way, you’ve got to read powerful stuff…Ralph Fletcher
I have served as a mentor for new teachers over the years and while I want each of them to grow into the best they can be, I want them to find their own methods and their own voice as they grow as an educator. I provide a framework, a model for good teaching, and hopefully, inspiration. Good mentors can shape who we are and who we will one day become.
In the same manner, mentor texts are an important part of my literacy instruction. I want my students to read and write powerfully and mentor texts serve as a conduit for both. Mentor texts are necessary to teach our students to think deeply about their own writing. Students often need to see someone doing something in order for them to do it themselves. Watching another’s craft gives inspiration, direction and courage to try. Mentor texts inspires us to read and learn more.
Teaching very young children to write requires a lot of modeling, mentoring and a wee bit of rocket science. Getting students to add detail to their emergent writing is a daily mini lesson in itself. Recently, we read Lois Ehlert’s Pie in the Sky. It has a lot of simple sentences describing what the narrator sees in the illustration, but more importantly, it is simply descriptive. Using this as a mentor text has been tremendously helpful to my students. My students even refer to the book by saying they wrote, “Pie in the Sky” sentences. Here are a couple of examples of student work on the iPad. They used their camera to take a picture of something in the room and then they wrote what they saw.
Some of my students were sharing their work with their friends and I overheard a few offering suggestions about making their sentences more like “Pie in the Sky” sentences. Peer editing…in kindergarten.
Mentor texts give our young writers not just a framework or reference, they give them a dose of courage to try writing like the author…not using the author’s words, but courage to find their own words. They can be road maps for powerful writing. They show students what good writing looks like.
Here is a Writing Workshop sample from one of my students recently:
Creating good readers and writers is a critical part of teaching. Mentor texts provide powerful examples for our students. Regardless of what grade you teach, your students need your guidance while they learn to write, take risks and stretch their literary wings.
Today we will do exciting new things…let’s get to it!