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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 Resources (Including Printable Lists)
Book Lists I have been doing some compiling of old posts. I updated two different poetry book lists and made them into printables for easy filing and access. HAIKU POETRY ANNOTATED BOOK LIST This list is all of my favorite haiku books of all time, including some new favorites.…
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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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Poetry Month: Papa is a Poet
Papa is a Poet: A Story About Robert Frost By Natalie S. Bober Illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt, 2013 This story is told in first person, through the eyes of Robert Frost’s daughter, Lesley. Lesley tells of the time when the Frosts lived on a farm…
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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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Mentor Texts for Teachers Workshop
The month of March has been really busy for me as a writer and a teacher. I’ve attended three teacher conferences and one writing retreat. All of them were incredibly beneficial for me. I presented at two of the teacher conferences (one for my local school district and one…
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Writing Marathon: The Results
The last several Wednesdays have been all about the Writing Marathon I did with fourth and fifth graders at my school. Today’s post is all about the results. I had 20 students to participate in this extra activity that required 26 days, 30 minutes per day of outside writing.…
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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 THE TREE LADY as a Writing Mentor Text
The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed a City Forever By H. Joseph Hopkins Illustrated by Jill McElmurry Beach Lane Books, 2013 This picture book biography about Katherine Olivia Sessions highlights the difference one person can make. Kate lived at a time…
