Mentor+Texts

This is a place to gather and share great mentor texts that support student writing across genres.toc

= = = = =Nonfiction=

=Personal narrative and memoir= The following books are great for high school memoir study:
 * //Funny in Farsi// by [|Firoozeh Dumas]
 * //Angela's Ashes//, //'Tis// and //Teacher Man// by [|Frank McCourt]
 * //First They Killed My Father// and //Lucky Child// by [|Loung Ung]
 * [|Gary Paulsen]Paulsen is widely known for his fiction, but he also has written many wonderful memoirs.

=Fiction= = =
 * [|Gary Paulsen]Any book by Paulsen is great. His books appeal to a wide audience and especially to boys.
 * Gary Soto's short story "The Bike" - great for elapse of time, showing character [[file:Gary Soto's The Bike.pdf]]
 * Sandra Cisneros' short story "Eleven" - great for showing time, showing character, dialogue [[file:Sandra Cisnero's Eleven.pdf]]

=Poetry= Both of the following are anthologies of writing by teen authors:
 * //You Hear Me? Poems and Writing by Teenage Boys// by [|Betsy Franco]
 * //Things I Have to Tell You Poems and Writings by Teenage Girls// by [|Betsy Franco]
 * Sandra Cisneros' "Abuelito Who" poem: repetition, showing character, imagery, metaphor [[file:Cisneros Abuelito Who.doc]]
 * [|Pablo Neruda] would be a great poet to use with bilingual students, or to consider poetry written both in Spanish and English.
 * [|Naomi Shihab Nye]is a fabulous Palestinian-American poet to use as a mentor for writing poetry. She has many poetry collections of her own poetry published (fabulous poetry!). She also has several edited volumes out, including [|The Tree is Older Than You Are: A Bilingual Gathering of Poems and Stories from Mexico with Paintings by Mexican Artists], which would be another great resource for teaching poetry through English and Spanish.

=Essay=

=Mentor Texts for Teachers= Below are some great sources for texts to mentor us as teachers:

[|NCTE's High School Literature Series] The National Council of Teachers of English has a 12-book series on teaching high school literature. The series title is a little misleading, because you can definitely adapt much of what they have there for other grades as well. Each little book focuses on one author or one novel, and each has lots of lesson ideas on them. I have two by Carol Jago, and I like the way she weaves in literary analysis and using the author's work as mentor texts.

[|National Council of Teachers of English membership]. NCTE also publishes very useful journals for teachers. With a membership, you get one [|journal subscription]. They have journals geared for high school //(English Journal),// middle school //(Voices from the Middle),// and elementary school teachers //(Language Arts).// There are also several other publications that may be of interest, such as //Classroom Notes Plus//, a newsletter-type publication that has lots of lesson ideas.