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Mentor Texts for Teachers 2015: Guest Posts
When I did my list of most popular blog posts in 2014, I noticed that six of the ten posts were mentor texts posts. I want to bring more mentor texts posts to you in 2015. I’m inviting other teachers and librarians to post about how they use mentor…
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Baseball Books as Mentor Texts: BARBED WIRE BASEBALL by Marissa Moss
Barbed Wire Baseball By Marissa Moss Illustrated by Yuko Shimizu Abrams, 2013 Kenichi Zenimura loved to play baseball. He play baseball for years. Until World War II, when he and other Japanese families lived their lives in internment camps. But inside that bleak camp, Zeni made a baseball field.…
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Baseball Books as Mentor Texts: MIGHTY JACKIE by Marissa Moss
Mighty Jackie: The Strikeout Queen By Marissa Moss Illustrated by C.F. Payne Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster, 2004 Jackie had been pitching her whole life, even getting coaching and encouragement from a former Brooklyn Dodger pitcher. But girls couldn’t play major league baseball. Her team played an exhibition game against…
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Baseball Books as Mentor Texts: Miracle Mud
This month, I will be featuring baseball books as mentor texts. Using sports-related books is a great way to get reluctant readers and writers interested in the story and the story structure. There are so many wonderful picture book baseball books that I couldn’t fit them all in. But…
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Poetry Mentor Texts: When Thunder Comes by J. Patrick Lewis
WHEN THUNDER COMES: POEMS FOR CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS by J. Patrick Lewis Illustrated by Jim Burke, R. Gregory Christie, Tonya Engel, John Parra, and Meilo So Chronicle Books, 2013 J. Patrick Lewis has captured fifteen international civil rights leaders’ struggles in this poetry collection. This would be an amazing…
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Hi, Koo! by Jon J. Muth, Poetry Mentor Text
Hi, Koo! A Year of Seasons Written and illustrated by Jon J. Muth Scholastic Press, 2014 I’m a huge fan of haiku books, and I have a huge collection of haiku picture books. For an annotated haiku book list, click here. This particular book follows Koo, a panda, through…
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Water Can Be… and A Leaf Can Be… Poetry Mentor Texts
Water Can Be.. By Laura Purdie Salas Illustrations by Violeta Dabija Millbrook Press, 2014 If you love the sound of words and really love to be surprised by them, then you need to get this book. Water Can Be… is truly a beautiful piece of poetry, but there…
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Nonfiction Mentor Texts: Book Review of FINDING THE HEART OF NONFICTION
FINDING THE HEART OF NONFICTION: TEACHING 7 ESSENTIAL CRAFT TOOLS WITH MENTOR TEXTS by Georgia Heard Heinemann, 2013 I love books for teachers that are so practical that you could read them on the weekend and use them the very next week in your classroom. FINDING THE…
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Writing Wednesday: Using HERE COME THE HUMPBACKS as a Writing Mentor Text
HERE COME THE HUMPBACKS By April Pulley Sayre Illustrated by Jamie Hogan Charlesbridge, 2013 This nonfiction book about humpback whales combines lyrical first lines on each page, with narrative facts and separate factoids on each page. Beautifully written and chock-full of information that will delight animal lovers, it…
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Nonfiction Picture Books about Virginia History as Writing Mentor Texts
We all know that students need to become more comfortable reading and writing non-fiction. Last fall, I did a post on 10 of my favorite fiction picture book writing mentor texts. For this post, I’m focusing on some non-fiction mentor texts–with a bent toward history, specifically American history, as…
