In a recent post I wrote about the importance of allowing students to choose their writing topics.  Whenever I make that statement, I am always prepared to hear the “Yes, but…” responses.  “Yes, choice seems important, but don’t I have to teach my students how to write for a prompt?”  “Yes, but my students have to be able to pass the state writing assessments, and the state test doesn’t give them a choice.”  “Yes, but what if my students say they don’t have anything to write about?  They just don’t have background experiences, so they can’t think of good topics.” 

I want to make sure there are no misunderstandings here.  Is there ever a time when students need to write to a prompt?  Yes!  Should we teach them how to write for a prompt?  Yes!  I believe it would be educational malpractice if we didn’t.  HOWEVER, this is NOT the only type of writing that should be happening in our classrooms.  I have had many teachers tell me that this is the only type of writing their districts require them to teach all year.

Let me give you one way to think about this.  Writing to a prompt or test-taking writing is one genre of writing.  It is worth spending time on a test-taking unit of study to help prepare students for these tests.  However, this is only one genre for writing.  We need to expose our students to many genres through varied units of study throughout the year.  These units may include personal narrative, personal essay, literary essay, book reviews, memoir, poetry, fictional narrative, editorials, and the list goes on.

The units of study at each grade level may not be negotiable at your school, but the students’ topic choices within those units should be.  Teachers sometimes ask, “What about the child who wants to write about the same topic over and over?”  

What about that child? 

A couple of years ago I heard Patricia Polacco speak at the Michigan Reading Association Annual Conference.  She said we should be encouraging students to linger over topics longer and write multiple pieces on the same topic.  She said that she, herself, really only writes about one thing—family stories.  Think about her picture books.  They all stem from stories of her own life or those of her relatives.

I’ve always had my students keep a list of their writing “territories.”  This was a technique I learned in my early writing workshop days from Nancie Atwell in her book In the Middle.  Hearing Patricia Polacco’s advice made me think more about these territories.  These are the areas in our lives where we are experts.  Territories are not single topics—they contain multiple topics.  We should be encouraging our students to write deep, not wide.

A couple of weeks ago a teacher told me that she has a student who is obsessed with hunting and would want to write about hunting all the time if given the choice.  Perfect!  I love when students are passionate about something.  Along with that passion comes loads of writing topics.  I told this teacher that I wouldn’t care if he only wrote about hunting all year.  Here are some pieces I imagine him writing:

• a personal narrative or memoir about a time he went hunting with his dad (he may have several).  I’m thinking of Owl Moon by Jane Yolen or Crow Call by Lois Lowry as possible mentor texts for this type of writing.
• a safety manual for hunters
• a persuasive essay on gun control
• a personal essay on how hunting is a great father-son bonding experience
• a how-to piece like “how to become a successful bow hunter”

Do you get the picture?  You could help a child who is passionate about hunting find topics in every genre unit of study and keep him engaged all year.  He becomes the class expert on hunting.  Pretty soon, other students decide they want to become the class expert on something, and they begin to find their areas of passion and interest.  It’s contagious!

It sure seems to work for Patricia Polacco.  Want to know what some other professional authors have to say about choosing writing topics?  Here are a few:

“Write what’s in front of your nose.”

—William Carlos Williams

“You’re welcome to write about anything, but the places and spaces where you spend time, that’s where you’ll know the details. That’s how you can take readers anywhere, make them see and feel.”

—Jeff Anderson

        “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.  I am not urging you to write a novel, by the way — although I would not be sorry if you wrote one, provided you genuinely cared about something.  A petition to the mayor about a pothole in front of your house or a love letter to the girl next door will do.”

—Kurt Vonnegut

I developed my website because teachers at my seminars often wanted more information than I could provide during the seminar.  I would tell them to e-mail me and I would send them the information.  I decided it would be more efficient to post all of my material on a website.  Teacher feedback has confirmed that these resources have been helpful to them.  But some people would prefer to have all of the information in one spot instead of having to surf around the site to find what they need.  So my latest project has been compiling the information into downloadable eBooks.  I’m pleased to announce that my second eBook Motivating Students to Read More has just been posted and is available for purchase.  You can find more information on my Reading Motivation page.

Motivating Students to Read More (Grades 1-6) by Annemarie Johnson 80 pages of ideas, reproducibles, booklists, websites, and more to motivate even your most reluctant readers!

As I mentioned, this is my second eBook.  The first is called Mentor Texts: Using Children’s Literature and Modeling to Improve Student Writing.  For more information see the Mentor Texts page.

Mentor Texts: Using Children’s Literature and Modeling     to Improve Student Writing  (Grades 1-6) by Annemarie Johnson Over 100 pages of ready-to-use mini-lessons, ideas, and booklists to inspire your student writers!

Mentor Texts

What Are Mentor Texts?

Why Use Mentor Texts?

Teachers as Writing Mentors

Vygotsky’s Zones of Development

Optimal Learning Model

Selecting Mentor Texts

Importance of Read Aloud

Reading Like a Writer

Mentor Text Mini-Lessons

How Do Writers Work?

Write About What You Know

Mapping for Ideas

Name Dropping

Using Literature to Spark Ideas

Memories

Sharpening the Focus

Asking Questions

Planning Sheets

Show, Don’t Tell

Paint a Picture

Using Color

Be Specific

Fancy Words

Walk Around in the Author’s Syntax

Attention-Grabbing Leads

Satisfying Endings

Glue Words

Seesaw Pattern

Apostrophe Detectives

Narrative vs. Expository

Expository Text Features Booklet

A good writing program includes the use of good literature.  Before a child is ever able to independently use specific writing skills and strategies, s/he is able to listen to and identify these qualities in good literature through read- aloud experiences.  Read aloud serves more than just to entertain our students.  It is used to build a strong sense of community which is important in a classroom where children will be asked to take risks in their writing.  It also serves as a model for what good writing looks and sounds like.  By closely examining what good writers do, we and our students can begin to internalize these techniques and employ them in our own writing.  

It is important to remember, however, that first and foremost, a book should be read aloud to be enjoyed as readers first.  Only then should we begin to use the literature to teach writing.  Mentor texts should be read more than once.  According  to Jeff Anderson in his book Mechanically Inclined, “by reading a text more than once, we create a shared text that we can refer to again and again—a mentor text that can show  us craft and mechanics techniques.  This repeated revisiting, viewing all the different layers in the text, deepens students’ understanding of how to read like writers.

The following books are great resources for using read alouds to enhance writing instruction:

When we read with the eyes and ears of a writer, we focus less on what the writer is trying to say and more on how the writer is saying it. Specifically, we look at the craft moves the writer makes to get his or her message across and the way those moves affect us as readers.  When we notice an author’s intentional use of craft we have a window into the mind of the writer and we can begin to teach our students how to use these techniques in their own writing and stand on the shoulders of professional writers.

What might we notice as we read like a writer?  Here are just a few techniques used by professional authors:

• Repetition: repeating a word or a phrase
• The Power of Three: three words used in a row to create emphasis
• Onomatopoeia: sound words
• Big and Bold:  text written in bold, capital letters to express an idea
• Interesting Punctuation:  ellipses, dashes, colons, parentheses
• Figurative language:  simile, metaphor, personification
• Stretching out the print
• Intentional sentence fragments: used to create rhythm and flow
• White space
• Hyphenated adjectives

In her book Wondrous Words (1999) Katie Wood Ray outlines five steps to reading like a writer.

                                     5 Steps to Reading Like a Writer

1. Notice something about the craft of the text.
2. Talk about it and make a theory about why a writer might use this craft.
3. Give the craft a name.
4. Think of other texts/authors you know.  Have you see this craft before?
5. Try to envision using this crafting in your own writing.

Lester Laminack unpacks these 5 steps a bit for us in his book Cracking Open the Author’s Craft.  As we train our students to read literature through the eyes of the writer, he suggests that we use the following line of questioning with them:

Notice the Craft/Name the Craft

• What did you notice as I read this aloud?
• What do you notice on this page?
• What has the writer done with the print here?
• How is the white space used differently here?
• What I noticed next was…
• If you are like other kids I’ve worked with, you may have noticed…
• Many people who write often…

Form a Theory

• Why would a writer do this?
• How does this help you as a reader?
• Are there other places in this text where the author has done this?
• When you find other instances of this, how does that affect your theory?  Does it make your more certain?  Does it nudge you to reconsider?
• Does this help your theory grow?  If so, how?

Explore Other Authors

• Do we know other writers who do this?
• Let’s explore one of these books (anchor texts from class set) and see if we notice any other writers who do this.
• What do you notice in these books?
• Consider your theory and check it in this title.  Are both authors doing this for the same reason?
• Is there more than one reason to use this crafting technique? 
• What other possibilities are you thinking of?

Think About Your Own Writing

• How would you use this in your writing?
• Can you imagine this working for you?
• Would this work in the writing you are doing now?

Mentor Texts for the Traits of Writing
This site lists picture books that can be used to model each of the traits of good writing. Suggested grade levels and teaching ideas are included.

Picture Book of the Day
Each day this site features a new picture book that can be used to teach the six traits of good writing. Includes a one-sentence summary, an excerpt from the book, and 6-trait mini-lesson suggestions.

Book Savors: Reading Like a Writer
Every day or two the writer of this blog posts another picture book, gives a summary, and then lists several of her “noticings” or “savorings”, as she calls them, about the author’s use of craft.

Two Writing Teachers
Two writing teachers reflect and blog about the teaching of writing and bring other writing teachers together to share ideas and stretch each other’s thinking.

Writing Fix
This site features lists and lists of mentor texts for teaching the traits of writing and links to lessons for each.

Teaching That Makes Sense
This link takes you to an article entitled “Read Like a Reader, Read Like a Writer” by Steve Peha. It leads you through some valuable exercises that help you read like a writer, taking note of the author’s use of the six traits of writing. Also check out the full website Teaching That Makes Sense for many valuable resources.

It’s Always the Write Time
This link takes you to some handouts from a conference session about writing workshop. It outlines year-long curriculum ideas for grades K-2. Pages 12-15 provide lists of wonderful mentor texts for grades K-2.

Inside Writing Communities
This site is a gold mine. At this site you will find a complete 8-session online workshop complete with free video training. Session topics include Building a Community of Writers, Reasons for Writing, Reading Like A Writer, Teaching the Writing Craft, Conversations with Student Writers, Conversations Among Writing Peers, Learning to Revise, Writing Across the Curriculum. Also check out the home page at Learner.org for additional courses and graduate credit options.

Reading Like Writers, Writing Like Readers: Mentor Texts
This site focuses on the craft of structure and of ways with words. It lists many different writing crafts and mentor texts that contain examples of each craft.

As important as it is for students to be introduced to mentor authors, I think it is even more important that they see us, their teachers, as writing mentors. 

In his book What a Writer Needs  (1993), Ralph Fletcher begins with the importance of writing mentors.  He says mentors to young writers have certain things in common. 
A mentor…

• Has high standards
• Encourages students to take risks
• Builds on strengths
• Looks at the big picture
• Values originality and diversity
• Is passionate

From among these, Fletcher says passion remains the most important quality the mentor has to offer.

I would like to add one more item to Fletcher’s list:  a writing mentor models his or her own writing.  As important as it is for our students to find professional writers  to serve as their mentors, I believe the writing we do in front of our students and in our day-to-day lives can be just as, if not more, powerful. 

I used to wonder if it was okay when my students tried to borrow my ideas or even copy my writing.  Now I know that it is more than okay—this is a desired result!
As Katie Wood Ray says in Wondrous Words (1999), “Like any other craftspeople, professional writers know that to learn their craft, they must stand on the shoulders of writers who have gone before them.”   So when our students try to emulate professional writers and their teachers, we should celebrate and affirm for them that they are doing what good writers do.

If you want to become a more accomplished writing teacher, to become a true writing mentor for your students, I highly recommend Katie Wood Ray’s What You Know by Heart.

<a type=”amzn”asin=”0814158161″Wondrous Words</a>.

• Mentor texts help students envision possibilities for their own writing.
• They provide a model of what good writing looks like.
• Use of mentor texts is consistent with Vygotsky’s Zones of Development and with the Optimal Learning Model (gradual release of responsibility).
• They help students grow as writers by giving them something to emulate.
• Exposure to mentor texts encourages students to take risks in their writing, to try something new.
• Mentor texts inspire and ignite writers.
• Mentor texts help us “show” not just “tell” our students what good writing looks like.
• This is how  real writers work—they look to other writers for ideas and ways to craft and structure their writing.  Why not teach children to do what the professionals do?

“With a room full of authors to help us teach, teaching writing

doesn’t have to be so lonely.” 

—Katie Wood Ray, Wondrous Words