Mentor Texts

Teaching Writing Through Children's Literature, K-6

Rose Cappelli

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Edition: 2
• eBook ISBN:
  9781003843481
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Classroom Management

In their first edition of Mentor Texts, authors Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli helped teachers across the country make the most of high-quality children's literature in their writing instruction. Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children's Literature, K-6, 2nd Edition the authors continue to show teachers how to help students become confident, accomplished writers by using literature as their foundation. The second edition includes brand-new Your Turn Lessons, built around the gradual release of responsibility model, offering suggestions for demonstrations and shared or guided writing. Reflection is emphasized as a necessary component to understanding why mentor authors chose certain strategies, literary devices, sentence structures, and words. Dorfman and Cappelli offer new children's book titles in each chapter and in a carefully curated and annotated Treasure Chest. At the end of each chapter a Think About It'sTalk About It'sWrite About It section invites reflection and conversation with colleagues. The book is organized around the characteristics of good writing focus, content, organization, style, and conventions. The authors write in a friendly and conversational style, employing numerous anecdotes to help teachers visualize the process, and offer strategies that can be immediately implemented in the classroom. This practical resource demonstrates the power of learning to read like writers.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction to the Second Edition
• Chapter 1 Reinventing the Writer with Mentor Texts
• Chapter 2 Digging for Treasure: Discovering Personal Stories by Connecting with Literature
• Chapter 3 What Are You Really Writing About? Discovering the Inside Story
• Chapter 4 When Writers Use a Magnifying Lens
• Chapter 5 Growing a Narrative from Beginning to End
• Chapter 6 Using Scaffolds to Organize Texts
• Chapter 7 Poetry: Everybody Can Be a Writer
• Chapter 8 Choice, Voice, and All That Jazz
• Chapter 9 Walk Around in the Author’s Syntax
• Chapter 10 A Treasure Chest of Books
• Afterword
• References
• Index