Do you use literary mentor texts in your classroom? This practice has definitely gained popularity, and for good reason, but many of the resources out there offer strategies for using picture books, novels, and poetry as mentor texts for writing. The strategies from literature analysis can be applied to nonfiction sentence structure, but there are a few easy things you can add to specifically help your students read like writers in informational text.
You don’t want to miss:
- (4:40) My biggest reason for wanting my students to write with variety and authenticity…spoiler alert, it’s totally selfish!
- (7:46) Why sticking to only 5 paragraph essays is doing our students a disservice
- (9:23) Activity 1: Dissecting introductions and conclusions for students to determine aspects they might mimic
- (13:50) Activity 2: Have students learn about caption cards and informational plaques from museums, and create those about class projects.
- (16:30) The cool thing about variety: understanding that one text about a topic cannot cover everything about a topic, and authors have to be intentional!
- (21:40) Activity 3: Analyze and mimic text features: digging into all the great examples you collected from episode 27 & 28, and finding what they can imitate about their own topics in their own writing
PLUS, my very favorite way to make Open House truly highlight student learning by helping them be the docents!
Links and resources from this episode:
- Get on the waitlist for the FREE virtual training on how to take your upper elementary lessons from rote to “REAL” - leave with 5 “purposeful project” planning templates and the tools you need to increase student engagement, boost motivation, and create lasting learning!
- Read my Edutopia article about the 5 authentic audiences that will motivate your upper grade writers.
- Analyzing introductions & conclusions activity: See it in action here from 5th, and in my story highlights from just this week in 3rd grade! And if you’d like more guidance, this resource has a simple poster setup and guiding questions for your students.
- Want to see the interactive Open House I shared? Check that post and this one from my 5th grade classroom, and see even more in my Open House story highlight.
>>> P.S. Next week is my first ever THIRD GRADE open house, and my students and I have been planning BIG THINGS! Be sure to follow along in my stories next week for all the prep and showcase!
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