How to Start Using Mentor Texts in Your Classroom

Quickstart Guide

At each step of the process in this post, I will stop and show you some things I consider when I plan for that part of the lesson. These considerations come from the questions and experiences from teaching the mentor text routine to sixth graders. I teach these lessons to students with third-grade level reading and eleventh-grade level reading in the same room. I have coached teachers that have ranged from 4th grade to 10th grade with this process. The results are the same, but you may have to adjust the strategies for your content and level.

These considerations are not meant to be overwhelming, but I want to share what has worked for me along the way. I have also broken them down in terms of estimated time. When I was doing mentor text work daily it took 5-10 minutes each day because of the routine that I chose to implement in my room. One single mentor text lesson taught alone might take 20-25 minutes.

This quickstart guide walks you through everything you need to get started with teaching mentor texts in your classroom right away. There are 7 key elements to teaching mentor texts. At the end of this post, download the free template to get started with a book of your choice! You will also have access to my mentor text work. This includes 180+ slides and sentence frames featuring 55+ books.

  1. Identify Skills to Teach with Mentor Texts

The skills that you teach will depend on your goals. The most common goals are either

1.) teaching grammar not in isolation using mentor texts and

2.) teaching writer moves using mentor texts.

The following breakdown is an example grammar plan for the year. Your grammar plan might look different depending on your curriculum, and what you are assigned to teach. Your department might even have its own grammar sequence. If you are starting from scratch, please feel free to use my grammar outline for a given year for a mentor text sequence.

Recommended Reading

Patterns of Power, Grades 1-5: Inviting Young Writers into the Conventions of Language by Jeff Anderson and Whitney La Rocca is a great place to start if you feel completely lost with grammar and conventions.

They will give you sample routines and even example mentor sentences from a variety of books. I love the Grades 1-5 version for elementary and middle school; however, there is a middle school and highschool version as well.

MARKING PERIOD 1: FIRST SIX WEEKS

Implementation: One sentence only

Week 2: Simple sentences, subjects/predicates (NOUNS, VERBS, ADJECTIVES, PRONOUNS)

Week 3: NWEA Testing

Week 4: Action verbs (NOUNS, VERBS, ADJECTIVES, PRONOUNS)

Week 5: Helping Verbs (NOUNS, VERBS, ADJECTIVES, PRONOUNS)

Week 6: Linking Verbs (NOUNS, VERBS, ADJECTIVES, PRONOUNS)

MARKING PERIOD 2: SECOND SIX WEEKS

Implementation: Two to three sentences -start moving to gluing mentors

Week 1: Compound sentences (NOUNS, VERBS, ADJECTIVES, PRONOUNS)

Week 2: Past tense

Week 3: Present tense

Week 4: Future tense

Week 5: Inserting adjectives

Week 6: Capitalizing and formatting titles

MARKING PERIOD 3: THIRD SIX WEEKS

Implementation: Two to three sentences-glue mentors

Week 1:Pronouns

Week 2:FANBOYS Conjunctions Week 1

Week 3:FANBOYS Conjunctions Week 2

Week 4:Quotation Marks

Week 5:Inserting Adverbs

Week 6:A vs. An

MARKING PERIOD 4: FOURTH SIX WEEKS

Implementation: Quickwrites

Week 1:Its vs. It’s

Week 2:There, Their, They’re

Week 3:I and Me

Week 4:Because vs. Cause

Week 5:Than vs. Then

Week 6:Affect vs. Effect

MARKING PERIOD 5: FIFTH SIX WEEKS

Implementation: Quickwrites

Week 1:Commas with an introductory clause

Week 2:Commas in a series

Week 3:Commas in dates

Week 4: THAMOS Conjunctions Week 1

Week 5: THAMOS Conjunctions Week 2

Week 6: SWABIS Conjunctions Week 1

MARKING PERIOD 6: LAST SIX WEEKS

Implementation: Quickwrites

Week 1: SWABIS Conjunctions Week 2

Week 2:Complex Sentences

Week 3: Semicolons

Week 4: LEFT OPEN ON PURPOSE

Week 5: LEFT OPEN ON PURPOSE

Week 6: LEFT OPEN ON PURPOSE

I left some open space in Marking Period 6/the last few weeks of the year because inevitably there will be weeks that get away from us. Testing will happen. Snow days will happen. This list is merely a loose plan of where I hope to head by June at the end of the year.

2. Find Good Mentor Texts with Engaging Passages

Check out Book Lists/Recommendations Here

The best-kept secret to narrative mentor text work is that finding books to fit your scope and sequence is far too easy. All published fictional works of literature at the middle-grade level and young adult reading level have examples of compound sentences, pronoun usage, possessive nouns, and commas in a series (Just some skills to name a few). The hard part is deciding which passages will make kids WANT to read the books. Book choices are to reading appreciation as mentor text work is to writing like an author. Because if kids want to read the books, they will want to write like the author. Here are some of my favorite posts with passages already pulled:

3. Introduce the Mentor Text with a Book Talk

Step 1 is all about the book talk! I make sure I have copies of the book available for students. You can have anywhere from 1 to infinity, but it does get dicey and frustrating when students want more books than what you have available. I have created waiting lists in past years when I had more students than copies. My dream would be to have all the copies that students could ever want available someday. I am not sure if this is ever going to be a reality, but hey, I can dream. Because I had 5 classes, a good goal is to have at least 5 copies on hand to lend to someone each hour. This would create the lending cycle for all hours of those classes.

My first mentor text of the year is Ghost by Jason Reynolds. A book talk is simply talking about the book in a way that may make another person pulled into the description. The goal is for them to want to read the book or to find something in your description that appeals to them or pushes them away. Readers know what they want to read and what they don’t want to read. This is the most basic level of reading appreciation: the ability to choose. I always cover the opening scene, the opening line, my favorite quote, and what I loved about the book. I also include book trailers. YouTube has hundreds of these for hundreds of titles. I have included the Ghost Book Trailer below my book talk slide. Kids LOVE book trailers. If they are having a hard time accessing the information you are sharing through verbal means, you are helping to appeal to them through visualization. I sometimes will have the author talking, a book recap or reenactment, or sometimes a photo resource to get kids hooked on what may be inside the book.


4. Practice Reading as a Writer and Observing Writers’ Moves

At first, I would have students copy down the passages on the board before we started the routine. In theory, this was fine. However, I thought it was taking up too much time. I want them to look at passages and learn to read them like authors. I made a handout for Monday, and I will continue to help facilitate this process as an experiment on the usage of time. For looking at passages, you can have

1.) Kids copy down the passages in writer’s notebooks

2.) Give them copies of the passages to look at on a handout or glue into their notebooks

Then, this step involves helping kids notice things about the writing. At first, this step is completely foreign to kids. Here are some examples of the beginning of the year noticings I can expect on Monday:

“They both have a period.”

“They both start with a capital.”

“They both talk about world records.”

“The first one is gross.” (Note: This mentor sentence involves nose picking).

These noticings are all expected and valid. Now, the goal of the lesson is for them to notice two main things: 1.) The names of the people are capitalized and 2.) The subject of the first sentence is Andrew Dahl and the subject of the second sentence is Charlotte Lee. If I have to, I will help them see these “moves” in Jason Reynold’s writing. I like to look at it like EVERYTHING else they notice are like sprinkles on a cake. Students have been trained to read for understanding and content. They will always notice what the sentence is about first-not how it is actually written. These “reading like a writer” observations will come in time when students are able to align their observations with the six traits of writing (Voice, Ideas, Organization, Sentence Fluency, Word Choice, and Conventions).

Read More >>

Read Like a Writer: Teaching Tips for The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

Read Like a Writer: Using The Food Group as Mentor Texts

Read Like a Writer: Using the I Am Series as Mentor Texts

5. Model Teacher as a Writer

After kids have seen the passages and practiced observing, they need to see what you have put together. This comes twofold: You are writing with them (So, they should do it, too) and an example is given to help make the task more clear. You can also provide a sentence frame on the same slide. Here is an example with Ghost by Jason Reynolds:

6. Provide Sentence Frames for Scaffolding

I always provide a frame for students to use for their writing.

Think of a frame like a sentence starter or a fill-in-the-blank.

I find that they don’t need the frame as the year goes on, but my striving writers like the support of not being wrong, particularly at the beginning of the year. I show them the sentence I wrote, I offer them a frame, we write an example together, and then they write their own example. In years past, my students wanted to act out their sentences after they wrote them. This acting part of class was hilarious and engaging. I encourage anyone to use this theatrical tool as well. They keep these sentences in their journals with the “writing moves” we went over that week.

Here are some engagement strategies to try if you are losing students:

7. Inspire Kids to Be Authors

I’ve saved the best for last because now is when you let kids loose and they get to write their sentences. I always set a timer for this part, and I walk around the room if students are stuck. When the timer goes off, feel free to open up sharing with the phrase:

Who has a sentence like [insert author’s name]?

OR

Who think they wrote a better sentence than [insert author’s name]?

Now, sharing happens. Celebrate their writing by sharing, listening, and giving kudos.

Decide on a Mentor Text Routine

After observing my mentor text routine and seeing the steps, you may feel intimidated on where to start. The key is to start somewhere and try it. Perhaps you do this with a writing project or when focusing on revision, maybe you jump in and try this once a week. Here are some options when considering a mentor text routine:

  • Mentor text warm-up (All year or a few times a year-a few 5-10 minute lessons)

  • One day mentor text mini-lessons (A 20-25 minute lesson)

  • Teaching writing moves with a project

  • Book study with focus on different genres

Download the Free Mentor Text Quickstart Template

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The Teaching of Writing, The Teaching of ReadingStephanie Hamptonmentor texts, mentor text routine, quick startComment