Mentor Texts

As we begin to discuss Writer's Workshop more and more, you might begin to hear the term Mentor Text or Touchstone Text being used.

This is text that serves as a mentor for the writing and can be a picture book, chapter book, teacher writing, student writing, article, etc.

For example, if you wanted to teach about strong adjectives you might read Piggie Pie, which is filled with vivid descriptions.

If you wanted to teach voice, you might read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, which has many examples of voice.

I am starting a mentor text collection at each school. A bin of books that can be used as mentor texts will be placed with the Good Habits, Great Readers materials.

However, any book can be used as a mentor text, and I'm sure that your shelves and Trophies Anthologies are filled with them!

For more information about mentor texts visit this website or Writing Fix.

Guided Reading Workshop

Here are some links that might be useful.

Hamilton Township Curriculum Documents (includes Trophies DRA Levels, guided reading rubrics, useful websites, etc.)

2009 Draft Standards

Mosaic of Thought Teaching Tools Website

Reader's Theater Links

Florida Center for Reading Research (great for student centers!)

Good Habits, Great Readers Database (click subscribe)

Harcourt Trophies Website (check out teacher resources - you will need a password)

Leveled Book Lists (leveled by guided reading level - see correlation chart here)

In addition scroll through the blog to find any other interesting links related to literacy! :)

Got Books?

Are you looking for new books? Come on, you know Barnes and Noble is your happy place.

The Cybils for 2008 have been announced.

I didn't know what that was either. The Cybils are the children's and young adult bloggers' literacy awards. Books from many genres are listed, include easy reads, graphic novels, and middle grades fiction.

If you'd like to know more about how the books are selected, click here.

Enjoy, but don't send your credit card bills to me! :)