In my other post, “Middle-Grade Narrative Writing: Using Mentor Texts to Describe Setting (Snapshots)” I explained how a teacher could use examples or passages in mentor texts to help their young writers add details, description, and imagery to their narrative writing. This ability to “see” or visualize the imagery is called making a snapshot. Snapshots were first introduced to me by the way of Barry Lane’s The Reviser’s Toolbox. Characters really have five areas of focus when it comes to description: thoughts, feelings, actions, appearance, and speech. All of these areas can afford opportunities for students to learn how to do snapshots.

In review, a snapshot is a moment in narrative writing when you stop to describe a person or place in detail. There are many different writing moves to do this technique; however, the gist is the same: stop to inform your reader what the imagery is in your writing so they can become part of the reading experience with you. When you are designing a lesson on snapshots in either setting or character, I first like to start with adjectives and describing things my students know a lot about. Then, we can move on to the more abstract ideas of the imagination. The bridge between simple adjective description and more sophisticated writing resides in the use of mentor texts. I also like to practice all together in a whole group format using pictures. I love Nearpod for this type of practice because students can share adjective word ideas, and you can track whole group class participation. It is also pretty cool whole group collaborative writing. In the post, I will outline four different strategies for helping you to introduce snapshots for character description to your students with a variety of middle-grade mentor texts. I use mentor texts in my classroom to teach grammar, provide book talks to my students, and in writing instruction. Students then mimic the style of published authors and use their writing as a guide to help set up their own writing.