Whenever I – or really any of my Writing Project colleagues – present to teachers, inevitably the topic of mentor texts comes up. For many teachers, the concept is a completely foreign one. Others may have heard the term, but in reality only have a hazy idea of what we’re talking about. And usually zero idea how to use a mentor text.
So What Is a Mentor Text?
Mentor texts are an invaluable part of teaching students how to write. Simply put, a mentor text is a text you can learn from. More specifically, you can learn how to be a good writer by analyzing said text. Kids can learn the craft of writing by analyzing texts to uncover the author’s craft moves, then imitating those moves in their own writing.
Honestly, any text has the capability of being a mentor text. Good texts. Bad texts. There’s always something you can learn, even if it’s what not to do.
Using a Mentor Text as an Author
Let me show you how I turn any romance novel I read into a mentor text that helps me improve my own manuscripts.
As Thanksgiving break draw to a close, I panicked, thinking about all the items on my To Do list I’d left virtually untouched. Sure, I’d worked on my IAWP magazine design, but without the final articles, I was stuck at a standstill. And I’d created a couple of new TpT resources. Granted, not the ones I’d intended to make, but still. It was something.
But what I didn’t do was a lick of writing. My fourth romance manuscript is still, as I write this, gathering virtual dust languishing untouched on my computer’s hard drive. Nor did I read any of the books I’d eagerly planned to read. Including the Hunger Games prequel my co-worker lent me.
Instead, on the last Saturday before returning to school, I grabbed this book below, determined to at the very least, tackle one measly task from that damned To Do list.
I dove headfirst into the storyline, devouring every line in less than 24 hours. Beyond the deliciously romantic plot, as I read, I was aware (in a good way) of how the author, Tessa Bailey, used words I’d long since forgotten. Since I’m around 9 and 10-year-olds all day, can you blame me?
Immediately, I started comparing my use of language and similes (non-existent) to Tessa’s. I hate to admit it, but my writing certainly fell short under my scrutiny. Words like: quelled, hoisted, spawn, expelled, and pandemonium littered the chapters like glistening jewels, while my own word choices were probably a lot more pedestrian at best.
Normally, I keep a running list of brilliant turns of phrase and words I encounter, thereby forming an ongoing inventory of verbs and adjectives I vow to use in the future. Whether I actually do or not is beside the point. Collecting a menagerie of words has become a game I play.
But word usage and language is only one way of using a mentor text. Sometimes, the details are delicately, expertly layered, causing me to stop and look closer. Take this passage, for instance.
Read that first paragraph. We immediately know which character’s perspective we’re in (Beat’s) and the time of day and season. All that in just one sentence. Then the author throws in sensory details. The sound of jingling bells. The sight of the lights. The smell of cinnamon and sugar from the bakery. Then she tops the paragraph off with the main character’s emotions and thoughts which influence his next actions.
Mentor Texts in the Classroom
This is the magic sauce that my students are often missing when they write. Their writing tends to be either entirely devoid of detail, or crammed full of clunky, inane and uncalled for details. They don’t yet have the sophistication of an author, being ten and all. But they sure can learn from them.
I don’t know if it’s the writer in me, or the teacher side of my brain, but upon closer inspection of that passage above, I notice that none of the sentences in that paragraph start with the same word. It was a lesson I learned the hard way on my first manuscript. Thank God for a great editor who was willing to teach me along the way. She simply highlighted every single dang time I started a sentence with the word He. No further explanation needed, I got the point.
While I didn’t learn that particular writing lesson until I was on my way to publishing my first book, it’s also a great lesson for kids to learn right now, no matter their tender age. Switching things up by harnessing the power of sentence variety goes a long way to keeping the writing from becoming stale.
That’s where we come in as teacher. Our job is to pull juicy morsels and nuggets of knowledge from a mentor text, teasing out the brilliance and holding it up to the light for students to see. That’s where the best writing mini-lessons come from in my experience. We can help our students develop the gut instinct of a writer, help them understand WHY something makes the reader ooh and aah as they savor the words.
But first, we have to read a text the same way. We have to pause to ponder. We have to understand where our students are as writers and what lessons they need to help them move to the next level. This isn’t about us being the sage on the stage. This is about giving students the space they need to discover these author methods for themselves, then implement them into their own bag of writing tricks.
Read. Analyze. Write. Repeat. It’s as simple as that.
As teachers, we can pull back that curtain to reveal the wizard behind the scenes. We help our students imitate that greatness until it becomes second nature to them.
Here was another little magical bit that tickled the author in me and had me laughing out loud.
I love the short lines that speed up the pace. So often teachers tell their students that a sentence must include both a noun and a verb, and a paragraph consists strictly of 5-8 sentences. Oh, and you can’t start a sentence with and, but, or because. And they believe us!
Yet, so often the authors of the texts they read break those obsolete rules. So are they really rules at all?
How about instead of telling students the “rules” of writing, how about we let the kids discover the rules for themselves? They’d have to read a wide variety of mentor texts like an author would in order to determine which rules hold true? Citing textual evidence would become second nature and they would take more risks in their writing. Both of which seem to be great outcomes in my book.
Now, Wreck the Halls by Tessa Bailey is a great mentor text for me personally. Something I can/should/will learn from. But it’s obviously not appropriate for my students.
Instead, I find myself gravitating toward my favorite kid lit text, Spy School by Stuart Gibbs. With that one text, I can highlight witty dialogue, characterization, grammar skills, and so much more. As I’m reading the story aloud to my students, I have a pencil in hand, ready to underline the best bits I want to return to. Sometimes I point these parts out to my students on the spot, while other times I just add them in to the novel companion guide I’m developing.
Remember mentor texts are all about learning from a text. Read. Analyze. Write. And repeat. For more on mentor texts, check out these great resources.
iteachiwrite.com 