Encouraging Mentor Text

 

     Another recurring theme in my research was the student's  abilities

 

to use mentor text when writing.   Research suggests good writers can

 

be mentors to students and show them all kinds of new possibilities

 

for their writing when they get to know those mentors well (Ray &

 

Cleaveland, 2004).   Cameron, Ashley and Brianna were able to take

 

what they had learned in my mini-lessons and use mentors in their

 

writings.  They just needed a nudge to get it started.  In conferences it

 

was obvious that all three needed some teaching points on how to get

 

that started.  

 

Cameron

 

          Cameron started in the first conference, Video 1, with explaining

 

to me how he was going to share with his readers what the word scout

 

meant. 

 

           Cameron:  Yeah, I’ve got that covered.   I’m going to like bold the

 

word, or just put it in a circle on the page so it’s a fact. 

 

           Me:  I think that’s a great idea.  Do you have a mentor text  you

 

could use to help you with this idea that you have?

 

           Cameron:  No, I don’t think so. 

 

           Me:  Let’s see if we can find one for you.  There are several ways

 

authors go about teaching us new words, facts or definitions. 

 

           Cameron:  I remember one way is to make the word darker so

 

they know it’s a word they can find in the back.

 

           Me:  Exactly.  You could also do it like the author Nicola Davies

 

and write the facts throughout the story in a different font on the

 

same page as your narrative writing. See. 

 

           Cameron:  I like that. 

 

           Together we found books that used fun facts in their narratives

 

so he could use them as his mentor text.  

 

           In the second conference, Video 2,  we talked about dialogue

 

and how when the his players in his book are speaking, he needs to

 

use quotations and commas. 

 

Cameron:  I know I should put ah, what’s that called ah, I know I should

 

put what’s it called, it shows that they are speaking, but I always do my

 

book and finish before I go back and put the text and stuff.

 

           Me: Do you know where to put your commas, exclamation

 

marks and quotations?

 

           Cameron:  Not really.

 

           Me: Can I show you?

 

           Cameron:  Sure.

 

           Cameron is a student that has a hard time admitting he doesn’t

 

know something.  I could tell he knew he needed quotations,

 

commas and an exclamation mark, but had little idea of where they

 

should go or what they were called.    I found two mentor texts for

 

Cameron that had dialogue and yelling in their writing just like he had

 

in his.  He was able to use the text to help with his own writing.  Using

 

these mentor texts has brought him to the next level with his writing. 

 

Brianna and Ashley used mentor texts in different ways.

 

Brianna

 

          Brianna got her idea for her narrative piece through a mentor

 

text I had shared with her earlier in a conference.   Video 3 shows her

 

sharing that idea with me.

 

           Brianna:   The story I’ve been writing about is about a little girl

 

whose house got burned down and all their money was still left in

 

their house….instead of living on the streets….they lived in the zoo.”

 

           Me:  That sounds like a book I have shared with you before?  Do

 

you remember the name?

 

           Brianna:  Yes, it was Fly Away Home. 

 

           Her mentor text she recalled was, Fly Away Home, by Eve

 

Bunting. Rather than garnering ideas for what to write about from

 

their reading, students are learning to take their own important topics

 

and then look to texts to learn how to write well about those topics

 

(Ray, 1999).

 

            She explained, that Fly Away Home was a book about a boy and

 

his dad who lived in an airport.  I was happy to see that Brianna had

 

used what I had taught her in a previous conference to help her with

 

her own narrative writing.  On any given day in classrooms across the

 

country, children read as writers, enjoying the play of language and the

 

pleasure of reading, but also digging into mentor texts to analyze how

 

authors use words to convey ideas, communicate information, and

 

construct narratives (Hicks & Sibberson, 2015). 

 

Ashley

 

          Ashley used mentors as a way to help her with her illustrations. 

 

During a conference with Ashley I could see she was having problems

 

with her picture. 

 

           Ashley:  I want it to be zooming in on the characters and have

 

them yelling.

 

           Me:  Let me show you a picture where the Illustrator James

 

Warhola zoomed in on a dog looking through a window.  If you want to

 

be like James Warhola you could do something like this in your book. 

 

What do you think?

 

           Ashley:  Yes, I’m going to try it.

 

           Photos 1 and 2 show pictures of the earth Ashley ended up

 

drawing and the picture I was able to share with her in our

 

conferences. During reflection she was able to talk about how the

 

author used the strategy we called zoom in.  Ashley’s picture wasn’t as

 

elaborate as the illustrators, however, she was very proud of it and it

 

was very creative.  She had drawn the picture of the earth and coming

 

from the earth she wrote the word, AAAAAAAAAAA!  Her story is a

 

mystery.  She explained to me that she loves reading mysteries and

 

wanted to use what she knows about them and write her own

 

narrative.  At this stage of her writing the main character can’t find her

 

headphones and is yelling and “the whole world can hear her”.  We

 

found several other mentor texts in our conferences she was able to

 

use for this craft in her writing. 

 

          All three students could be found using mentors after

 

conferencing.  Photo 3 shows all three using mentor texts as they

 

write.  It was exciting for me as a teacher to see my students using

 

these books and finding new ones each day in our class library.  They

 

had taken this simple thing, looking at books through a writer’s eye

 

and flourished.  Once you begin to study the craft of writing you will

 

find the more you know, the more you see.  Lots of things that I notice

 

in texts, lots of things that make me stop and reread them, are

 

noticeable to me because I’ve seen them before in other texts.  Being

 

able to connect various crafting techniques that you see to other texts

 

you know is one of the most significant understandings about learning

 

to write from writers (Ray, 1999).