Using Mentor Texts to Support Student Writers

The Northern Nevada Writing Project defines a mentor text as "a published piece of writing whose idea, structure, or written craft can be used to inspire a student to write something original." Mentor texts can be used in multiple ways to support student writers:

• To be studied and imitated
• Help students make powerful connection to their own lives
• Help students take risks and try new strategies

(International Reading Association, 2008).

So how do we avoid cookie-cutter writing products when providing models for writing? We must give students time to: 1) analyze and talk about mentor texts, 2) practice what they have studied, and 3) share their own efforts with peers for feedback. The ACS Literacy Plan includes the use of mentor texts in its "Framework for Writing Instruction at the Secondary Level" (Section 5). Here is a resource from that section that will provide more insight into using mentor texts:

Movingwriters.org is site created by two secondary English teachers to support writing instruction. The site has a collaborative Mentor Text Drop Box Project for any teacher to find and/or add mentor texts. It is a Google folder that you can add to your own Google account in just one click.

Participants from a 2013 Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts Conference named some of their favorite mentor texts:
Thank You Notes by Jimmy Fallon
World Shortest Stories by Steve Moss
Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite by June Casagrand
Six Word Memoirs from SMITH Magazine

I am currently reading a young adult novel called Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar. Despite being entertaining, educators may pick up on how the main character uses "mentor texts" from his English teacher to emulate in his articles for the school newspaper. Check it out!

~Chandra