Mentor+Texts


 * Alissa**: It has been interesting to read about constantly going back to a favorite mentor text. I like that idea very much. I feel like I can be more effective when I use a text for several purposes, but also students will become more familiar with the text and be able to make connections. With that being said, I do think that it would be nearly impossible, as well as somewhat boring, to use the same text for everything. I would have to be very careful not to overuse a title.

In response to "leads" we had some good results when we scanned in several different leads from different mentor texts and put them on the SMARTboard. We were able to discuss them in our small writing groups which was very helpful. We also scanned in some "non-examples" and had the students compare. We had them discuss what made some leads "better" than others as well as discuss why some leads work better for some pieces of writing that they do for others.

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Sara: In chapter 3 they talked about territories, the inverted triangle, heart maps, and hand maps. I related this to what we do in kindergarten. We don't call them territories, instead we call them ideas. At the beginning of the year we talk to the students about topics they know a lot about. We give them a graphic organizer with a person and 4 thought bubbles. The students then fill the thought bubbles with pictures and/or words that show us things they are interested in and know a lot about. We keep these graphic organizers in the writing folders where they can easily find them. When the students are in need of a topic to write about they can take these out and choose a topic. Instead of using a inverted triangle or heart map the students narrow their topic down using either a four square, a list, or a web. They come up with 4 smaller ideas to go with the main idea. I have found that this works well for our students, helping them to be more specific about details they want in their stories.

In chapter 4 they talk about revision. This is what we are working on right now. I find in my classroom it is a difficult concept for some to understand. They understand the idea of editing because they are fixing obvious errors. When it comes to revising they have a difficult time even seeing that there needs to be anything added. I like the idea of using senses to add details. We have done some of that but could definitely tie it in with revising.

Overall, I realized frorm reading these chapters that I need to do a lot more writing in front of my students. Not just the morning message or perfect sentences, but show them my processing thoughts and ideas and modeling what it would look like. That will be a very valuable experience for them.

Kelli: In chapter 3, I really liked the heart maps. I think that when students are given choices to write, they need a quick reference to look at when they need to start a piece. Students often take lots of time to think about a new topic, when they have not utilized ideas in an old brainstorm. I think the heart map in a common space (all on the back of a notebook) it would be easy for teachers to have students refer to that spot. I also thought the part about giving students many opportunities to practice writing descriptions, since descriptions are found in every mode of writing.

Here are the questions for next Friday. Chapters 5 & 6

Chapter 5 · Think about ways to help students internalize the narrative scaffold, then use that knowledge to comprehend others’ stories and structure their own. · How can we help students craft powerful beginnings and satisfying endings while writing only snippets instead of long or whole stories? Chapter 6 · How will understanding the various story structures improve your ability to help students with organization?

I think the writing that we model for students will be snippets, and not long stories. I think as we can incorporate powerful beginnings and satisfying endings in what we model, students will be better able to mimic them in their own writing. I know that I learned a lot this chapter about just what are specific techniques for beginnings and endings. I had never really given them a label before. Having a label for the various techniques will help me be more intenional about noticing them and discussing them while reading and modeling them while writing. The same is true for the story structures.
 * Michelle:** I think it is important to be intentional about the stories we ask students to map. There were some suggestions in the book about using books with a very clear beginning, middle and end first. Then having students use these books as a model for their own writing.Then intentionally model books that move kids away from the traps they fall into, like bed-to-bed stories.


 * Sara:** We do work with beginning, middle and end in both reading stories and writing, but I never thought about making them think of a catchy way to begin and end. Obviously this is not something the students could do at the beginning of the year, at least not written. Some may not even be able to do it with their writing at this point in the year, but there are many who could. When reading Chapter 5 it really made me think about the stories I read aloud. They all have a powerful beginning and a satisfying end. This is something that even if my students can't do it individually, I can do it when I model or when we work on a shared writing. For lower level students it can be a task they do orally. Showing students this will help to solve the problem of stories, both oral and written, starting with the popular "I like...".

When reading about the different scaffold types I was happy to see a few that we talk about during our organization unit. Most of our time with this is done discussing how the authors choose to organize their books and I never really had a specific name for the ways. I also hadn't thought to use these different types in students writing. I know they are ways to organize writing and taught the students that, but never had the students actually write these ways...This may not be appropriate at the time of the year that we teach organization, but in our sprial curriculum it could be tried one of the times later in the year when we revisit organization.

I am excited to see how I can revise these skills and lessons to fit into a Kindergarten classroom that is full of a variety of levels of learners.


 * Clara:** After reading about intentional beginnings and ending I realized how important it is to have quality examples for the students to hear and view. It also gave me another criteria for selecting books to read with the students during library time and a different way to discuss the books. It was interesting reading about the Reader's Theater. In library classes we are doing Reader's Theater and we have started with Aesop's Fables. All of the students were excited to participate in the theater and having the part of an animal helped many of the students to become comfortable performing. They will be moving on to writing their Reader's Theater next so I am looking forward to being able to help guide the writers better from suggestions from the reading.


 * Carmen**: I agree with Sara. After reading Chapter 5 I too am paying a closer attention to the books I choose for read-alouds. I never paid close attention to the beginning of the stories or endings. However, now that it has been brought to my attention the importance of having strong, engaging beginnings and satisfying endings, many of the books that we tend to use usually dispaly these characteristics. Hence the reason we probably tend to choose the books in the first place. Exposing students to a variety of texts that show what good writing looks like, will only help students to see what they should be trying to do within their own writing. But as the book stated, before students can begin to work on the beginnings and endings of their pieces, they must have internalized the scaffold of the narrative---the typical format of beginning, middle, and end. This is something that as a primary teacher I must keep in mind, before encouraging my students to take the next step of developing stronger beginnings and endings. I also continue to tell myself how important it is for me to model, model, and model. I am one of those teachers who would rather not write my own stories in front my kids. Why that it is? I am not sure. I would hope that I could write better than a kindergarten, 1st grade, or 2nd grade student. :-D With the suggestions given in Mentor Text, I am confident that with strong literature and modeled writing, I too will see a difference in the writing of our primary students.

I also really like the the seesaw structure as a story to write. Using the story Someday I want to do this lesson with my kids yet this year because I can't wait to hear the things they will come up with to do someday. This pattern also lends itself well to our poetry unit and I want to work on adding in a poem that uses the seesaw pattern. THe book also mentions using reader's theater as a scaffold as something that teaches kids conversation before they really understand how to use the conventions of it. I also see using poems for 2 voices. The kids love reading these and I think some would even be able to write pieces like this on there own. All these ideas are definitely helping me be a more focused writing teacher.
 * Karen:** I have always taught the kids that a story needs to have a beginning, middle, and end, but we very rarely focus on each of these individaully. With the way they broke this down, I feel so much more confident that my students can write a quality beginning and end even though their stories are so short. It has me rereading many of the books that I love to share to focus on the beg. and end.


 * Lynn:** Like others have said I think students need examples of how to write good beginnings and endings and we can model that for them in our writing and use stories to explain this as well. They have to be taught that authors have different types of beginnings and endings that they can choose for their piece of writing. In our book the authors give examples of the different types of beginnings that writers use (snapshot seeting, simile, dialogue, metaphor, etc.). Older students can work on identifying these different types of leads in stories that they read and then they can practice writing these same types themselves. I think that students can practice writing beginnings and endings without writing the whole story if they take an main idea from their treasure chest or heart or hand map and practice writing different beginnings and endings. Students can also use pieces that they wrote previously and revise their beginnings and endings. Like the other aspects of writing beginnings and endings need to be consciously taught as part of the writing process.


 * Kelli:** I have found that even teaching writing catching leads, and satisfying endings, students do not remember how to do this on their own. I think it is a good idea to post short examples around the room or even the section of "choosing the rigth lead," in their writer's notebook. I think students are hesitant to look at these because it may be considered copying. In 4th grade, we try to tell them as long as you make it in your own words for your own story, you can use the same format. One goal I have is to use read alouds more often to model these writing forms. We often create class examples as a large group, or small groups, but I think it would also be beneficial for the students to see this type of writing in pubished works.

Bobbi Jo: Like Sara said, In Kindergarten we focus a lot on what the beginning, middle, and ending of a story is. We do a lot of sequencing and writing stories as beg. mid. end (like a timeline). I really enjoyed reading the different ways we can "catch the attention" of the reader by writing a good begining. I think it is important for students to be exposed to a variety of story beginnings and discuss why the author decided on the beg. I think it is also important for students to know that they did not only write one beg. one ending or one title to their book. That they may have written multiple versions and then picked the one they thought was the best. I am excited to try this out next time we create a personal narrative. We just completed the heart map...now we are going to try to narrow down their topic with an inverted triangle. I scanned in the back of some of my favorite books and I am going to have the class vote...or brainstorm possible titles to help them open their mind to new ideas. I am also excited to discuss story starters and give the students that are ready some new ideas to start with when writing. I can also see some really getting into not giving away to much to soon to keep the reader's attention.

When looking at sentence structures...I remember so many times when I first started teaching borrowing the Brown Bear sentence stucture. Like Michelle I really like how we all have the common name for the different sentence structures and when reading a book I can describe the structure and give the students that freedom to try and borrow from the author. One of my favorite sentence structure is that of a journal...we read Diary of A Worm and one of my past students came up with the idea to create an animal and write a diary from the animals point of view. I loved the idea and now do it every year. The kids really enjoy taking on the roll of someone else and writing from a different perspective. I agree with the book that writing in this format is a great way to promote creativity and learn how to write in different formats.

Dawn C. I think that once we are able to name and provide strong models of the different types of writing structure that we find in books, our students will be able to mimic it in some fashion to use it to develop their writing. One of the sections I went to at IRA talked about the importance of doing class books with students before having them do individual writing at all grade levels in the elementary. They were focused on writing stories and non-fiction books as a class in which each student or a small group of students create a single page together. Many of the class books I have seen have been the pattern books where each page is essentially the same. I think that this could be used for this format where you have a few students working on an interesting beginning to a story and have others continue with the story. Even earlier in kindergarten these could easily be done as books that are dictated to a teacher or if they are working as a small group on a strong beginning or ending and the groups were mixed, we could easily have different students using their strengths to get the information down on paper.

I have done the writing of reader's theater in the past with students. I really loved the process and when they were basing it off of a familiar story, they really worked hard on the revision to get the story to sound right. I remember feeling that writing was really strong at getting them to focus on the writing process as on each read, they felt the need to revise something because it didn't quite sound right. It is definitely something I want to go back to and use again in the future. I do see how it would be a great scaffold for those who aren't quite ready to write dialog to see it and hopefully then demonstrate how that can be turned into a conversation with quotations.

Chapter 7 and 8

Bobbi Jo: I loved the idea of reading//, Hello Goodbye//, by Mary Ann Hoberman and contrast two seasons. I can't wait to try this next year! I also really liked the idea to start each sentence of a poem with I wish...Now...or Once....Right now we are in our mini poetry unit. They love to hear the variety of poems and enjoy discussing the feeling of the poem. After discussing different types of poems, my class jumped at the chance to try some of their own. They have been creating color poems, poems that work in the senses, and word poems. I think it is great to expose the students to a variety of types of writing. They really enjoy listening to my favavorites, picking out their own favorite the share, reading the poems I scanned in on the SMART board, and they were very excited to read poems that were by one of the authors I met at the IRA conference. Seeing that signed book, really brought out the excitment..that someone I met really wrote the book!

In chapter 8 it really reminded me that I need to encourage students to read their work outloud when editing and revising. Doing a mini lesson on reading it out loud to show the class that you are able to hear the mistakes better than when you read through it in your head multiple times. I know I do this as an adult and it really needs to be shown to the students so they can see how to do it for themselves. I also enjoyed reading about adding in specific names for places or things instead of writing generic stories. It discussed using adjectives, color words, and strong nouns and verbs. I know in Kindergarten my class does a really nice job with adjectives (good word choice..spicy words) but we do not spend time discussing the use of strong verbs. I am excited to try this with my class and explore books with strong verbs/nouns and books that appeal to the senses. I also liked how they discused that it is ok to hang the sample work you created as a whole group in the classroom. I tend to shy away from doing this, so I do not have 18 copies of my work. However, I do like how they said that we can borrow ideas and the structure from others. Some really need that visual reminder.
 * Michelle:** I see the lessons in both chapters as ways to help expand children's language and thinking.The heading "Words as Scaffolds" made me think of how we can help students develop their vocabularies by using better word choice in their writing. By being able to explain their thinking more clearly to others, they are really able to think more clearly (and deeply) themselves. By helping students develop their writng, we are really scaffolding their ability to think more deeply.
 * Beth:** I've always been a little frustrated with the lack of endings my students have written - definitely not satisfying. And I've had students collect beginnings of stories, or leads, but never thought to have students really study endings. This definitely gives me a better focus to help the students make their writing better.

I like how Bobbi Jo mentioned hanging sample work (although I'm running out of space), but at least I could make a binder with samples so that students can refer back to the work. I think I need to do a better job of referencing those things that we've done together or competed in mini-lessons because students forget those samples or really aren't sure how to use them as scaffolds. Another reminder to SLOW DOWN my teaching and get more 'bang for my buck' with lessons.


 * Carmen:** One section I found interesting to read was on "Found Poetry." I have never heard of such a thing before. I am personally not a big fan of poetry. I never have enjoyed reading or writing it. But after reading this section, I think my negative attitude towards poetry was because of what I was taught when I was in school. We always did mini units on poetry and the focus was ALWAYS on rhyming or on poems that I didn't have clue what the words/writer was trying to tell me. It just never appealed to me. Hence the reason as a teacher I always dreaded poetry. But taking away the ideas from Chapter 7 and ways to use books to help with generating poetry, my attutide has changed. I like the idea of being able to make a list of words and phrases from the text and then placing them on a page, line by line, in the form of a poem. You then have that option to make it your own by changing the arrangment of the text and revising word choice, while being careful not to change the content of the text or the feelings the orginal writer created. This approach seems to be more exciting and appealing to me. For the younger students I would plan to use this idea and have the students write the phrases on setnence strips to make the phrases easier to move around. This lesson is d efinitely one that I will try next year.


 * Sara:** After reading this section I realized how little poetry writing we actually do in Kindergarten. We do a fair amount of reading poetry, but as for writing it we tend to fall into the group that only does it for special occasions. (We just finished our Mother's Day Poems!) Like Caremen, I have never been a big fan of poetry. I too believe this has a lot to do with the way I was taught in school. After reading this chapter I have a new view on how to incorporate writing of poetry in my classroom. We do a unit on poems and discuss the different types of poems, we even talk about the fact that poems don't have to rhyme. During this unit we read many poems, but don't really write them. I just finished my poetry unit for this year. We discussed different types of poems and made some whole group poems, but when we had students write poems They were all a cinquain. I like the idea of starting out with my class using found poems. This will be helpful for my students as it will take the stress of trying to generate them independently. It will be a great way to start our journey into writing poetry.

When I look at word choice in my classroom I feel we do a good job teaching it for our level. The one thing I really notice with my students however, is that they tend to get into a habit of always using color words. They have a very hard time coming up with other "spicy words" to add in to their writing. When we have them revise their writing for word choice it is almost alway a color word we fing them adding. I really like the part of this chapter that talks about making our verbs and nouns more interesting. It would be a fairly simply task for the students to do yet it adds so much to their writing. Teaching voice in my classroom is a difficult task. It is hard for Kindergarteners to understand that when I say "voice" i don't mean to change how your actual voice sounds. I try to explain that the voice is not of the character but actually of the author and that each author has a different voice or style of writing. A very difficult concept for Kindergarteners.


 * Nancy:** I, too, never really enjoyed reading or writing poetry. If only the information and suggestions from this unit on poetry were available and/or used years ago, I may have a totally different outlook and perspective on poetry today. Poetry, like musical lyrics, often has a natural rhythm and fluidity to it. Reading poetry aloud can be very beneficial to students who experience rate or fluency issues. By using various mentor texts, we, as teachers, can help show the students how to find their own writing voice and express that in their writing of both prose and poetry. On the other hand, incorporating persona writing into poetry may be more confortable for some students who lack confidence in themselves or in their ability/willingness to show their own voice. I'm excited about using the strategies from these chapters with some of my speech students in an effort for them to be able to write poetry, make it their own (either through their own voice or persona), and then read it aloud fluently and with confidence. I can see this as being a big self-concept booster for some students and an outlet for expression of ideas and feelings that they may not otherwise feel comfortable or competent doing.


 * Clara:** Like Carmen I think of writing poetry and that it must rhyme. I like the idea of using the scaffold approach for writing poetry and I think it would be helpful for our students and that they too might enjoy reading and writing poetry more. When I told the intermediate students we were going to read some poetry most of them were not happy about it. But, when I put the poetry books out and had them pick a book and then a poem from the book to share with the class their comments were interesting. In our discussion they found that they picked their poetry book the same way they pick any other book they want to read. They picked their book by the subject-humor-sports-school-pets. The students enjoyed reading their selected poems and most of them wanted to share a second one. I think they would have a positive attitude writing poetry using the ideas we read about.


 * Karen:** I also have an interest in teaching more poetry writing. A few years ago I read a teaching poetry book for first grade by Reggie Routman. I used her strategies at the beginning of that school year and found that my students wrote a lot more and had more interest in writing. One of the reason she said to teach poetry at the beginning of the year was becuase it didn't need conventions and therefore was less stressful for beginning writers. Since that year I have touched on what I learned in that book, but haven't followed it completely, because of curriculum and group planning. I knew it was a good idea, but I also didn't always want to be the teacher who "knew better" than the group and always went and did her own thing. Hopefully through this book it will help get others on board with teaching more writing through poetry and putting off learning about conventions for a couple of extra weeks. I love some of the different forms that they suggest that still give students a template, but the template isn't quite as rigid as traditional poetry. I can't wait to give a few of these template to my kids this year to see what they think and then really dive into it in the fall.

Kelli: I can relate to Carmen's post. I have never thought/heard of "Found Poetry" before, and I have always been a little hesitant to teach poetry units. I like to find ideas and activities that are very concrete and easy to explain. I like the idea of finding words and phrases in published pieces. I think the students would really be able to understand the use of powerful language, this activity would also help with everyday writing in all genres. Many students struggle with creating powerful descriptions without just listing everything in one paragraph. The activity with the found poems would help show that descriptvie words in short phrases can be very helpful to exaplin your thinking. I also think about teaching the rhyming part of poetry, thinking it would be easiest for children to understand. By teaching, from the start, that not all poetry rhymes, it may start to appeal to more students.


 * __Chapter 9__**

I loved the word splash activity and I am excited to try it as a way to review nouns, verbs and adjectives in the next couple of weeks and then to spur some writing ideas. I have to say, this book actaully has me excited to teach writing again!
 * Karen:** I had always shyed away from the idea of using the author's syntax in the past. I think this comes from hearing for years and years that I need to write things in my own words and use my own voice, thus I didn't want to teach kids to copy or even encourage them. This brought me back to thinking about the classbooks we write in the beginning of the year based on repetive stories. The kids are so proud of these "books" even though they only added one word. I am starting to think that the more important part of my job as a primary teacher is to foster kids who love to write and then focus on the conventions and others ways to make their writing better. If writing is a chore for a first grader, what will it be for that same child as the writing gets longer and more defined as he/she gets older?

Beth: The authors state in the first part of the chapter reminding us of that gradual release of responsibility - about how it's best to use the mentor text, imitate it yourself, do it in shared writing, have the kids try it and then come back again and look more closely at what the author did. I think that is the key - revisiting to see how/why the author did what she/he did.

I've realized from attempting some ideas in the classroom, that the text I use has to be very familiar with the students in order to be effective. Again I am reminded to slow down when teaching which will give students more time to reflect and make the strategies their own. I also think we should look at doing more author studies in general. Using the same types of texts will help students understand better the kinds of things we want them to be able to do.


 * Carmen:** I am with Karen on this one. Using author's syntax was always something that as a student I was pushed away from and even in my college classes it was never recommended to have students use the author's writing. It was considered copying and not an original piece. But I too was also thinking about Karen's comment in regards to the "books" we have the Kindergarten and 1st grade students complete at the beginning of the year. Like she said, they add only one or two words and and it makes them excited about writing. Since writing seems to be struggle for our primary students this year, we definitely need to take a look at how we are teaching writing. Are we moving too fast? Are we pushing them into the traits of writing they are not ready for yet? Mentor texts has helped me look at writing in a different way, has helped me to find ways I should try and teach that subject, and what I can do to excite children to want to write. Once I have mastered those areas, the conventions and "nitty gritty" of writing will follow.

Bobbi Jo: Like Beth...I thought a lot about what the author said about the gradual release to students. I think many times we are thinking about presenting this great lesson and fitting it into our busy schedule, that we are not allowing the students that chance to watch us imitate it and participate in a shared writing experience before we expect them to be able to try it out. I know that I will model what I expect and then let the class try it out, forgetting that we should create the writing as a group first. I think that the students would really gain a lot from the shared writing experience and have an opportunity to discuss and generate ideas within a group setting. I also really liked the idea of the word splash (I think that was what it was called) Where students were generating nouns, adjectivies, and verbs based on illustrations. I think generating a list as a large group is a great idea and a great resource for the students to use when creating their own writing.

I agree with Karen and Carmen on using author's syntax and the thought of using the author's writing as copying. I also always take down the work that I shared with the class, so they wouldn't copy my work too. After reading the Mentor text, I see using pieces of writing in a different light.

Dawn C.

I know that the conversation about slowing down the pacing is a conversation I have had multiple times with a few of you. We have so many things in the curriculum and wonderful ideas to teach that we move on before they students have a chance to internalize it. So many times we walk out of a conference of some sort with the need for us to "SLOW DOWN." I know that in recent readings and presentations by Katie Wood Ray, Tony Stead, and Lucy Calkins, it came out very strongly that immersion in a study of a writing genre should be a 3 - 4 week activity. Our mini-lesson would then focus on things to support that specific study. If we want student to write a story, poem, non-fiction report, etc., they need multiple opportunities to try it on their own to figure out how it works for them.

I just had a bit of an a-ha moment in terms of the whole philosophy of letting the students use the author's syntax as a strategy than thinking of it as copying. Many times when teaching a new lesson or concept, a teacher will have the book or resource that they are using open and available to glance at while teaching. The next time I teach the lesson, I will have reflected on it and deleted the parts that didn't work for me and added something of my own. Each time, I teach the lesson it will be a little more mine, but that seed of an idea still comes from the book or resource I used. Why not allow our young writers the same opportunities to write, reflect, and make it their own. As long as they aren't copying straight word for word and the expectation is there that it is a piece of writing relevant to them, why now allow them the same sort of supports we allow ourselves.

SARA: When reading this chapter many things came to my mind. The idea of slowing down when teaching writing is a great idea. We are so focused on what the curriculum needs us to teach and what is next that we often bypass some important lessons. I like the idea of copying the author's syntax. Like found poetry it is less intimidating for the writers and they can more easily feel success. I also need to focus more on shared writing. I am good at modeling before asking the kids to do something, but then move right in to them doing it independently. Again this tends to be an issue because of our hurry to teach what needs to be taught. Later in the chapter it talks about studying conventions by doing an author study, teaching interjections, using various punctuations, and studying grammar. I really like the idea of the word splash and the author study to notice uses of conventions. I do however feel that I need to wait to teach these until the students get an idea of what a sentence is and has some experience writing setences using examples from authors. The class books where they are each writing one word to a sentence stems are always an enjoyable thing for the students. More of this will help to build their desire to write instead of forcing them to write when they really aren't interested in it.

Maureen: So sorry about the lack of questions. For those of you who have not responded to the last chapters. Here are some things to think about.

Chapter 8 · Concentrate on how this chapter can expand word choice, voice, and style by focusing on language structure and conventions?  Chapter 9 · This chapter is loaded! Think about how to embed grammar instruction in writing as well as how to sequence lessons.

For those of you who have finished reading the book. Could you please give some general thoughts of curricular integration.