The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy
May 9, 2009
Mentor Texts
I could tell you which writer's rhythms I am imitating. It's not
exactly plagiarism, it's falling in love with good language and trying
to imitate it.
Charles
Kuralt
So.
I look through my writing journals from 30 years ago, and this sentence
pops up repeatedly for a few months. So.
The weird construction was littered throughout one of Annie Dillard's
books, and she was my new favorite author at the time. So.
It became a part of my writing too, at least for awhile.
When any reader skims through their old writing, they are bound to find the
remnants of the phrases, topics, and quirks of the writers they are
reading at the time. When you see a first grader painfully
writing down every word from a favorite book during writer's workshop,
I bet you don't gasp and call them a cheater. You know they
have fallen in love with a book, maybe for the first time. In
their own literal way, they are demonstrating how much the writing
means to them. It's not difficult to teach a young writer the basics of
imitating versus plagiarism; much harder to instill such a passion for
a writer's words that you want every one of them in your own writer's
notebook.
In recent years the concept of "mentor texts" has taken hold in a
powerful way in classrooms, if only because we realize there are so
many ways to harness the learning from writing that makes us pause,
savor, and ponder. The upcoming summer months are a
time for many teachers to bury themselves in reading just for fun, and
then to sort and think through how to use specific texts as anchors for
their whole class throughout the school year. Walk into any
large bookstore with a cafe in July, and you'll almost certainly find a
teacher next to a large stack of new picture books, with a notepad in
hand and a grin on her face, jotting down possibilities for lessons.
This week we're posted some resources for making the most of mentor
texts, as well as the continuation of our series on summer reading
suggestions from some of your favorite literacy experts.
Enjoy!
Brenda Power
Editor, Choice Literacy
Free for All
Franki Sibberson shares mentor texts for teaching students about word
choice in her latest booklist:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/890.cfm
We continue our new month-long series with suggestions from some of
your favorite literacy educators for fun summer reading. This
week, we feature picks from Ralph Fletcher, Shari Frost, "The
Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser), Debbie Miller, and Kathy
Yancey:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/891.cfm
Readergirlz was just awarded a "Reading Innovators" Award this week
from the National Book Foundation. Designed to help teen
girls connect with their favorite authors and other readers, it has
lots of fun features like playlists of favorite tunes from writers:
http://www.readergirlz.com/
Inside the Baby Mind is a fascinating article from The Boston Globe on
how babies focus and learn. There are terrific lessons for
literacy leaders here about why being unfocused and random at times can
accelerate learning:
http://tinyurl.com/css6w9
The Choice Literacy Summer Workshops are filling rapidly, with some
individual sessions already sold out. Openings remain for our new
offerings on middle school reading instruction, word work, nonfiction
in the intermediate grades, and dealing with assessment data. These new
topics are in addition to our popular offerings from last year on CAFE
assessment, struggling readers, literacy coaching, and the literacy
principal in action. You can read individual descriptions and
download registration forms at this link:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department22.cfm
For Members
Only
Jennifer Allen considers ways to be more practical and
playful in introducing mentor texts during study groups with
colleagues:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/869.cfm
Once you've found a text you love, how do you plan lessons from
it? Karen Terlecky takes teachers through the
process of selecting and designing instruction with two favorite texts:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/889.cfm
This week's video from the Choice Literacy Archives continues our
series of room tours to help you think about cleaning up and
re-organizing classrooms for next year. Kelly Yahr shares
design tips from her 1st grade classroom:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/748.cfm
Finally, if you're feeling a little drained, our new Choice
Literacy Cluster on Putting Ourselves in Our Teaching is sure to get
you thinking about ways to make your work more joyful and grounded in
your passions. Contributors include Debbie Miller, The
Sisters, Ruth Shagoury, and Shirley McPhillips:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/888.cfm
That's all for this week!
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