Planning a Language Arts Schedule (How To Fit It All In!)

October 21, 2021

A question I’m commonly asked by upper elementary teachers in regards to using mentor texts is just how to plan a schedule that can fit it all in… for some teachers, outside forces make it very difficult.

Strict mandates from your administration or bell schedules obviously cannot be helped. (If you have 45 minutes for ALL of your ELA standards –yes, there are teachers who have written to me asking for ideas in this type of time block –this post will probably not be for you…) I will do my best to offer some suggestions for even the most time-constrained schedules.

However, this post will also NOT be one of those dream scenarios that reading and writing gurus like to share in their books where you have 3.5 or 4 hours every day to devote to reading, writing, and grammar. (Where are these schools?!)

Using Mentor Texts

First thing’s first: the schedule suggestions I’m sharing with you incorporate the use of mentor texts. A mentor text is not simply a read-aloud. Although mentor texts should be read for enjoyment FIRST, that is not its only purpose. It is not an entire novel either. You can absolutely model skills from a chapter book, but a mentor text should be shorter in length so that it can be referred to throughout a week (or two or three!) for different skills. Think picture books, poems, songs, articles, chapters from a novel, etc…

Using a mentor text, or sometimes called “anchor text,” allows you to teach several skills, and gives students the opportunity to dive deep into comprehension over a longer period of time, as well as analyze it for craft.

In an ideal (but not dream) world, I’d hope for 2 or 2.5 hours to devote to ELA. Check out the “blueprint,” then keep reading for details on what I’d include!

Still too dreamy for you? Here is what a 1.5-hour schedule might look like.

Reading on the Schedule

I like to start an ELA block with the subject of reading. Please don’t interpret this as “only teaching reading comprehension” during that time slot on the schedule though… I am a huge believer in integration. This is why I think an ELA block should be just that: A BLOCK. Not “reading time” and “writing time” but “studying the art of language time” – however, I know that many teachers must specify the subject for their plans, so I am breaking it down the best that I can for you here.

On that note, I also must mention the importance of content integration. It’s the best way to not only maximize your teaching time, but also to help students gain a better understanding of a science or social studies topic. When it came to mandated schedules in my classroom, I always did okay with the timing for ELA, but usually, Science and Social Studies were the areas that got the shaft (for a few years, I had only 30 minutes for BOTH… combined!) so I became quite the “integration expert” if you will. It was often the only way I could still help students learn about the history I had to teach, but then I also was able to teach reading standards, language skills, and writing craft!

Comprehension First…

In my experience, I have found it’s essential for students to work with comprehending a text first before analyzing it for writing purposes. One way to help students understand a text, especially on a first-read, is to use Interactive Read-Alouds, or IRA. There are TONS of resources out there for this method, or you can take my one-hour course on it here!

Teaching vocabulary is one of the top skills to do with an Interactive Read-Aloud. It is the perfect way to explore words using context clues. I am a huge proponent of “throwing out the vocabulary list” and actually helping students understand how to use vocabulary in their speaking and writing, not just memorizing a definition that they can pick out from multiple choice at the end of the week.

In my classroom, I found IRA was NOT an exercise that should be done every day with every skill or mini-lesson, so I also incorporated gradual release (“I Do, We Do, You Do”) when introducing new skills or reviewing tricky skills. This is especially helpful when using a mentor text that students don’t all have a copy of in their hands.

Independent Practice

Remember, the “You Do” part of gradual release means students need time for independent application. You might offer students another short passage to demonstrate their understanding of a skill, or you might give students a different section of the mentor text to use than the one you worked with for the “I Do, We Do” portion. (You could project a page or two on the wall/board for them to see, or photo-copy, or scan into a sharing app.)

During independent practice, I would aim to pull at least one small group to work on current skills, remediate past skills, or push to enrich skills. If you are hoping to run your ELA block in a workshop style, you might want to check out Launching Reading Workshop Tips and Printables in my shop!

Using More Than Mentor Texts

If you provide students with a “cold read” (something new to read while assessing their understanding) during their independent practice, I would encourage you to give them something of their reading ability. I know this can be controversial because students might “get a high mark” on something they read below grade level so does that really mean they are passing the grade? I think the question you always have to ask yourself is: “Am I assessing if they can read the text, or am I assessing if they can apply the standard that I just taught them?”

Paired Texts

I really love pairing a picture book or a chapter book with an article or poem that deals with the same content (to go deeper on a topic) or theme (to allow students to compare, for example).

This doesn’t always have to be provided as a cold read though. You also might consider assessing students’ comprehension after doing a close read of a more rigorous text TOGETHER. This way, they have tackled tricky words, made notes about (and overcome with your help) confusions or misunderstandings, and can work to analyze or compare within texts rather than go in with no prior knowledge. (And remember, this is perfect for content integration, too!)

Or check out how to close read a poem here!

Of course, determining the meaning of a pair of passages or articles, and integrating information from the two, are skills that students are required to learn to do. You might take several days to analyze and dissect a pair of articles together by close reading and annotating, then allow students to respond to the texts through writing.

You can read more about using paired texts to teach AND assess here.

And on that note, let’s move into some writing, shall we?

Grammar on the Schedule

As I’ve said over and over already, integration is important for writing, too. Integrating grammar skills into writing is the best way to develop a student’s language and communication. (That’s right: something else to throw away… no more grammar workbooks!)

Mentor Sentences

Mentor sentences tackle integrating your grammar skills in the most fantastic way. Students will see the RIGHT way to write, rather than the wrong like so many programs tend to do, and it only takes a few minutes each day to work through. Students will notice the good things about a sentence from a mentor text you are already using for another lesson. It’s the perfect way to begin your “writing time.” It helps get students’ brains into a mode where they are analyzing, revising, or even imitating a written piece of work.

Read all about how to begin the mentor sentence routine in your classroom here.

Writing on the Schedule

I just mentioned the mentor sentence coming from a mentor text you are already using… remember, you absolutely should be using a mentor text for as many standards as possible to truly maximize your teaching time. That means the same book you used for a reading lesson can also be used for a mentor sentence AND a writing lesson! No matter what genre you want students to write, you can find style, language, and organization patterns in mentor texts to use as models for students. Oftentimes, your mentor sentence lesson can even become your writing lesson for that day!

Check out how to make mentor sentences stick in writing in this post.

I don’t believe shared writing should only happen with the younger grades. It is just as beneficial to walk through the steps of planning, drafting, and revising writing for upper elementary students. Model your thinking and allow students to make suggestions. This also helps get those creative juices flowing for their independent practice.

Finally, don’t feel you must always have students writing a long “go through all the phases of the writing process” writing piece. Responding to literature, constructed responses to articles or paired texts, or even just quick writes to demonstrate knowledge on some content are just as important. Also, don’t forget to look at drafts of old writing pieces. Look for ways to improve them with newly learned skills. It’s so easy to “file them away” once they’re done, isn’t it? But think of all the opportunities to show growth!

I hope this was helpful for you!

Here are some more helpful links to check out when planning your ELA lessons:

Free Mentor Text Database

The Importance of Diverse Mentor Texts

3-5, Mentor Texts

Why I Love Using Mentor Texts All Year (And You Should, Too!)

July 29, 2021

Teachers know that using literature is the perfect way to introduce a lesson, but starting EVERY lesson with a new book would make it impossible to teach all of the required standards! That’s why it’s important to use mentor texts: a short text like a picture book (fiction or nonfiction), a chapter from a novel, an article, a song, or a poem, which can be used to teach several skills.

Mentor Texts

Using mentor texts is a best-practice strategy that maximizes your teaching time. You’ll have more time to teach because once you’ve read the book one time, you only need to re-read or refer back to parts of it for your different mini-lessons.

And best of all, a well-chosen mentor text will be enjoyable to read, and one you will want to return to over and over!

Choosing Mentor Texts

When choosing mentor texts, you’ll want to find models that inspire students to practice a few skills.

It’s typically easy to identify reading standards that can be addressed with a book, but make sure to step back and look at the book with a writing eye, too.

A good mentor text will always have writing and language techniques that students can imitate. (This is another reason why using picture books is SO important, even in upper grades!)

More Bang For Your Buck

Of course, it’s a bonus when you can tie in another content area, too!

It’s so great when you find a book that also incorporates some science, social studies, math, or even social-emotional skills!

A new favorite of mine does just that! You do not want to miss the book, Say Something! by Peter H. Reynolds. (This link is an Amazon affiliate link- if you use it to purchase the book, I earn a few pennies which I put toward book giveaways for teachers, but it doesn’t cost you anything extra!)

In this empowering picture book, students will discover the many ways that a single voice can make a difference with our actions, our words, and our voices.

This book can be used for SO many skills across all content areas!

Peter Reynolds writes this book almost entirely in conditional statements (these are sentences with dependent clauses beginning with “If,” followed by an independent clause with advice or directions). This is the PERFECT way to help students practice writing conditionals, as it’s been modeled over and over for them in this book.

There is also a VERY clear message in this book. Students can identify key details in the text to determine the message.

(Want this lesson for free? Receive it directly in your inbox by clicking here!)

And of course, what better way to reflect the message than to show students that even kids can make a difference when they say something? Allow students time to learn about famous young people like Malala Yousafzai, Greta Thunberg, or Mari Copeny, just to name a few. I like to provide an article that can be used for more reading comprehension practice, like the one below about Mari Copeny and the Michigan Water Crisis, but you can also let them practice their research skills to learn about them, too.

There is so much more that can be done with this book and topic!! I have an entire mentor text unit that provides a week of explicit lessons and activities for reading, writing, and grammar:

This unit is a part of my Mentor Text Club: Second Edition, where teachers get a weeklong mentor text unit once a month which THEY get to have input, and even WIN the mentor text for their classroom! This club is NOT a membership- it is a one-time purchase and then all 12 weeklong units are yours to use year after year.

Want even more ideas for mentor text integration?

I have a FREE database where I have listed all of the mentor texts I’ve used in my resources, as well as all the skills covered with those books. Check it out!

3-5, K-2, Mastering Mentor Sentences

Higher Order Thinking Questions for Grammar and Writing

October 30, 2018

We don’t often think of using higher order thinking questions, or Bloom’s Taxonomy above level 1 and 2, within grammar and writing instruction. In fact, when looking at sample higher order thinking question stems to use within your classroom, many of them specifically relate to reading and math!

For students to reach their highest potential, we have to teach them to do more than just recall and recite facts. Higher order thinking questions help students learn to understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and CREATE information rather than simply recalling it. We’ve seen the ineffectiveness of memorizing grammar rules. We know it is important for students to actually understand and apply their grammar understanding to their writing.

Isn’t it our goal for students to create new information using “old” understanding? So that means we want students to formulate more complex, quality sentences using what they have observed and learned.

I’d love to help you tackle this in your classroom!

Sign up below to receive a free download that will help you transform surface level questions into high-value discussions:

Can students really think critically about grammar?!

Higher order thinking questions should also be used in grammar instruction. Download this free higher order thinking questions poster to guide you in transforming your classroom conversations!

Enter your email in the form above to receive this free download to help you transform your discussions!

Yes! Let’s think about teaching adjectives with higher order thinking questions… we need students to do more than remember a list of adjectives, or memorize the definition, “adjectives describe nouns.”

We want students to produce writing, using adjectives EFFECTIVELY. Students should understand the purpose of using many forms of adjectives in order to choose which adjectives to use in their writing. To get there, students should be categorizing and classifying adjectives. This also means students need to see many models of adjectives being used in order to identify and judge the words.

Asking the right questions, providing the appropriate models, and holding those high-value discussions will lead students to transfer this grammar skill to their writing.

Let’s stop asking students to recite and start helping students apply and model!

If you’ve never had discussions with your students about grammar and language, it might be hard for you to imagine that this could even happen. These discussions I’m talking about don’t include lectures. They are not, “read this and put it in your own words” types of assignments. They are actual conversations with students where they are transferring understanding!

It also might not be something you’ve ever considered planning. Since we don’t have many examples of higher order thinking question stems for grammar and writing, it doesn’t come as naturally to us as recall questions do for these subject areas.

Thinking about the topic of adjectives from above, here are some examples of questions that can be asked to achieve those critical thinking and high-value discussions needed for TRUE transfer!

What do you notice about the way the author described [name noun] in the sentence?
How can you sort these different words/adjectives?
Why do you think the author used [name adjective] instead of another adjective?
How would you describe [name noun]?
How could you change [name adjective] to be a stronger descriptor?
What would happen if we changed [name adjective] to another adjective?

Of course, you wouldn’t ask all of these questions in one discussion! Notice the level of each question and how they progress in the list. We want to move students through the levels of critical thinking naturally for learning to be reflected.

Don’t forget those free sample grammar and writing higher order thinking questions delivered to your inbox!

Have you heard about mentor sentences?

All of this high-value discussion and critical thinking comes very naturally through the use of mentor sentences!

Through discussions and seeing skills in context, students are able to understand the author’s purpose for using specific words and phrases. They are able to compare words and phrases within the lesson as well as from other weeks of learning. Students will learn how to analyze what the author is trying to communicate, as well as have a better grasp of the nuances of language. They will examine a writer’s style and mechanics, and learn to apply those skills to their own writing.

Get more information about mentor sentences for your grade level here, including directions, videos, and resources!

PIN FOR LATER:

3-5, Mentor Texts

Keep Students Learning Before Winter Break!

December 4, 2018

This time of year, it’s no secret that most kids have Santa on the brain…

…so don’t fight that feeling! You definitely can’t beat ’em on this one, so join ’em!

Must-Have Mentor Texts

Since it can get tricky to keep students’ learning stamina going this time of year, incorporate fun mentor texts to keep them excited about the season WHILE learning! Of course, they can be used as fun read-alouds, but they can also be implemented for reading, writing, and language standards.

The two mentor texts I’ll be highlighting in this post are by Stephen Krensky:

The book links in this post are affiliate links. It doesn’t cost you anything extra to purchase using my links, and Amazon gives me a few cents per purchase which I use to fund awesome giveaways for teachers!

There is so much that can be done with these two books. Your ELA lessons will be covered for at least a week!

READING

In the first book of the two, How Santa Got His Job, we learn how Santa’s skills led him to his dream job! Students can work on citing specific text evidence to share Santa’s skills, and ultimately why each job didn’t really work out for him.

In the second book, How Santa Lost His Job, a machine is invented to deliver gifts more efficiently, but it causes many problems, too. Students can easily compare Santa to “The Deliverator” to show how a human with love and compassion is always better than a machine.

Both books are excellent for reviewing cause and effect! Not only can you work on identifying causes and effects within the text, but it’s also helpful to work on creating complete sentences containing both the cause and effect.

If you share the cause first, use the word “so” to connect it to the effect.

“Santa tasted and sampled the food, so he gained a lot of weight.”

If you share the effect first, use the word “because” to connect it to the cause.

“Santa lost the contest because he took time to carefully read each letter and match kids to gifts.”

You can also “flip” the clauses, putting the dependent clause first!

“Because Santa took time to carefully read each letter and match kids to gifts, he lost the contest.”

Get these cause and effect activities for free!

WRITING

These mentor texts are great examples to use for student writing! In How Santa Got His Job, Stephen Krensky did a great job explaining the skills of many jobs that Santa had. Students could brainstorm the skills that elves need and write their own story about an elf being hired, the way that the author did about Santa.

In How Santa Lost His Job, a substitute for Santa was designed. Students could write an informative paragraph about the kind of skills a substitute would need, perhaps drawing on the failings of “The Deliverator” to make sure a substitute would have the right qualities.

LANGUAGE, MECHANICS, AND CONVENTIONS

Stephen Krensky used a variety of sentence types, as we would want our students to do, so using mentor sentences to demonstrate sentence variety is a great teaching tool! I have a free BONUS mentor sentence lesson for How Santa Got His Job, which focuses on compound sentences.

Download For Free!

You can also point out the differences from other sentences in the text that use compound subjects and compound predicates, and identify those as simple sentences compared to compound sentences also found in the text.

Finally, How Santa Lost His Job is full of dialogue between the elves and Santa. Stephen Krensky is a great mentor for using synonyms for said throughout the text. Some ideas for practice would be to have students use quotation marks, as well as use vivid verbs to replace the word “said” in the tags within dialogue.

You can find all of these activities (and more) in this seasonal Santa’s Jobs mentor text unit!

PIN FOR LATER:

3-5, Mastering Mentor Sentences

Getting Started With Mentor Sentences

August 17, 2016

Ideas by Jivey walks you through each day of the first week of mentor sentences.

Some common emails I get when people are ready to start mentor sentences, or are in the first week and feel like it’s not going like it should, go something like this:

“Help! My students aren’t able to write anything down the first week!”

“What do you do if students don’t know anything?”

I want you to think about everything else you teach through the course of your day, and every other routine you have to explain and demonstrate at the beginning of the year. How many times do you repeat yourself? How many times do you have to walk them through the same thing over and over again before they understand expectations? How many times do you not get through all your first week plans because it takes three times longer to do EVERYTHING than it should? Mentor Sentence time is no different, especially if this is the first time your students have EVER done mentor sentences (if they didn’t have it in a prior grade).

Your students are going to need a TON of modeling, prompting, and explanation the first few weeks of school, just as with any other routine. And they AREN’T going to just magically know everything. But if you start out slow and gradually build up to “grade level expectations,” students will feel more successful, and you will be helping them establish the routine necessary for the whole year. And one of the BEST parts of mentor sentences… the spiral review every week! Students who aren’t “getting it” the first few times will get it down the road after seeing it several more times.

In this post, I am going to lay out exactly what I would do the first week of school for mentor sentences with explanations and pictures, as well as video at the end. Buckle up- this is a long one!

No matter where you are in the school year, when you start mentor sentences you should all start the same way. You might have already read this post about not teaching grammar in isolation (and if not, go read it first!) where I lay out the reasons why I don’t “start the year” by explaining all the different parts of speech. Start mentor sentences as soon as you can (I suggest the first full week of school) with LOTS of modeling. Most of the learning during mentor sentence time is going to happen through discussion. Practicing having class conversations (listening and taking turns talking) is going to be essential to teach- and a great thing to implement, not just for mentor sentence time!

The first week you begin mentor sentences, you may not even want students to write in their notebook. I like to walk them through the routine by writing it all out for them to see, and not worry about whether they are copying or not.

In this demonstration blog post, I will be using lessons that are in this Do Unto Otters pack in my TPT store:

Yes, it is necessary to read the book for students to have context of the sentence. If you can, try to read it at some point before starting your lesson, but if not, you definitely want to read it before Wednesday. I encourage you to use the book for other lessons too, not just mentor sentences. Mentor texts are great for reading and writing mini-lessons, too! Many books can be found on YouTube as read alouds, and even on websites like Storyline Online!

If you want to skip over the written explanation and JUST SEE THE VIDEO, scroll to the bottom of this post!

DAY 1

On this day, you are going to teach students to look at a sentence for what makes it special/different/unique from a “normal” sentence. This is their time to notice. Because many of them aren’t used to analyzing a sentence this way, it will be important for you to prompt them a lot and even tell them what YOU notice about the sentence if they truly don’t say a single thing. Generally though, someone will always be the “talker” and anxious to speak up. 🙂 Read the sentence together, and then ask them what they notice about the sentence.

Prompts you might use:

What do you see in this sentence that looks different than other sentences?

What do you notice about this sentence that makes it a good sentence?

Does anything stand out to you in this sentence?

Students might tell you they see a capital and a period first. We want to move them away from those answers as we continue through the year, but that’s a great start for the first week! They might tell you they see an apostrophe in the contraction. This would be a great time to talk for just a minute about contractions and remind them of that skill from previous grades. You also hope they will tell you there are adjectives, or describing words. This would be the focus skill for the week. If they don’t tell you that, IT’S OK!! It’s the first week, and this will be a great time for you to model a think-aloud about what YOU notice in the sentence.

List all of the things they (and you) notice about the sentence either on a chart or in a notebook under a document camera.

Tell them this week, you will be focusing on making writing more exciting with adjectives, and if appropriate, allow them to do something during your writing time with this skill as well. This will help begin the transfer of mentor sentence time to writing time.

DAY 2

On the second day, you will want to discuss the specific parts of speech they see in the sentence. This is generally when teachers want to cry in the beginning of the year. But listen, the important thing here is to start off simple and build through the year. Yes, fourth graders should know more in a sentence than the nouns. But guess what? If they have been taught with grammar in isolation all of their school career, they are going to have a really hard time applying those “rules” to a sentence. Remember, the key is to make sure they understand WHY those words are what they are, and how they connect to other words in the sentence. (In other words, don’t label just for the sake of labeling!)

Once again, you need to model, model, model. And just because I labeled all of the words in the lesson plan for your reference doesn’t mean you need to label all of the words for the class!

Start off by asking them if they know how to name any of the words in the sentence. You can remind them of how to name them: nouns, verbs, adjectives… in my past experience, just like on day 1, you’ll usually have at least one kid who knows SOMETHING and they will speak up.

In the sentence from Do Unto Otters, the two most important things I’d make sure to talk them through are nouns and adjectives (because adjectives are the focus). If you want to label other parts, especially if students speak up and say they know that word, then do it! What I would NOT do is talk them through every other word they do not know and try to teach them what those parts of speech are. For one, you don’t have time for that in a mini-lesson. But also, you don’t want to overwhelm them. Take it slow and work your way up over the next several weeks. I promise, halfway through the year, they are going to know those parts of speech because of the consistent spiral manner of the routine.

This is also the day to do some more focused work on the skill of the week. I like to use interactive notebook activities to review and/or teach my skills.

DAY 3

On the third day, students are going to revise the mentor sentence. You will want to explain what this means- making the sentence better than it already is…making it sound better… etc.

Guess what you are going to do this day? MODEL AGAIN! 🙂

Since the focus of this week is adjectives, it will be very easy to revise for adjectives. Create a scaffolded, cloze sentence to show them how you will think through revising the sentence.

Allow them to help you think of words that could belong in the blank or to replace “good.”

Once you get into the routine after a few weeks, you will continue to show a model of a revised sentence (but not necessarily doing a think-aloud every time) so they can discuss and identify what you’ve done to revise the sentence, which gives them ideas of things they can do on their own.

DAY 4

This day will be the trickiest for them at first, but will soon become their favorite day because they get to write about whatever they want to write about! On the fourth day, students will imitate the style and structure of the sentence. This is another reason why the sentences start off “easy” at the beginning of the year. Students need to understand how to imitate a simple sentence before they can ever do it with more difficult ones. Every now and then, I get emails and feedback about the sentences being too easy in unit 1- remember, you are setting them up to be successful for the rest of the year! 🙂

I bet you’ll never guess what I’m going to tell you to do on this day…………… MODEL! 🙂

Provide students another scaffolded cloze sentence- this time with blanks replacing words. Most of them have seen mad libs before, so I like to set it up that way.

Talk through your thoughts as you decide what to write. Discuss picking a topic first, and then moving to write words in each blank. “I want to write about all of my new friends in this class, so I’m going to write classmate in the blank for my noun. Now what kind of classmate do I want? Well I’d like a helpful classmate! It’s nice to have a helpful classmate.”

Just like on day 3, once you get into the routine after a few weeks, you will continue to show a model of an imitated sentence (but not necessarily doing a think-aloud every time) so they can discuss and identify what you’ve done to imitate the sentence, which gives them ideas of things they can do on their own.

DAY 5

This is the day when you will want to have students see how they will be assessed each week. I encourage you to use the quizzes as formative assessments to see what students still need for pulling small groups or one-on-one conferencing…. BUT I am not discouraging you from using them as grades. Just be mindful of how long you have taught the skill before taking it for a grade. 🙂

I would display the quiz on the board and do it together as a class the first week.

This will help them understand what needs to be done each week. It’s also a great way to continue teaching the concept of adjectives- having them talk to you about how they know the words are adjectives!

I like to write on a chart that stays up all week long, but do what works best for your classroom style!

Here is a wonderful example of how it looks in a fourth grade classroom from Lindy Bulsterbaum’s students in San Antonio, Texas!

Ready to see all of this together?

Here is a video I filmed in my office, walking you through each step of each day. It is not a professional video, so no judging 😉 but I hope it helps you see how it all works together!

I hope this post has been helpful and encouraging to you- your students WILL get better with a lot of practice, MODELING 🙂 and time!If you want even more IN-DEPTH step-by-step help with implementing mentor sentences, check out my courses!

If you are looking for guidance to pick the “just-right” bundle for your needs, click below!

Don’t forget to check out Jeff Anderson’s books! I adapted his ideas to make them work in my elementary classroom!

3-5, Mastering Mentor Sentences, Mentor Texts

Use Enemy Pie To Maximize Your Teaching Time

September 27, 2016

Use the book Enemy Pie to teach multiple skills in multiple subjects- maximize your teaching time with one mentor text!

I absolutely LOVE getting the most bang for my buck, don’t you? Time is such a precious commodity in the classroom, so any time I can maximize that time by using a mentor text, I do! Today, I’m going to share how I use the book, Enemy Pie by Derek Munson.

You can get the book on Amazon:

This link is an affiliate link on Amazon.

OR you can play the book on Storyline Online!

There are so many wonderful things you can do with this book. I am going to share a few in this post.

All of the activities I am suggesting can be found in this mentor text pack in my TPT store!

READING

This is a great book to use to introduce the theme of friendship! There are many pieces of evidence the students can find to support this theme.
But don’t stop now! You can also teach character traits with this book. Have students describe the boy or Jeremy Ross giving evidence of their thoughts, words, and actions with you for practice, then have students describe Dad on their own!

WRITING

This next idea won’t just get in some great writing practice, but it will also be a great review of manners and how to treat each other. Students should write an opinion piece on what makes a good friend. First, discuss and brainstorm ideas as a class, then have students write to the topic.
Of course, you’ll also want to tie in good-sentence-writing and revision lessons with this prompt, which leads to the next subject…

GRAMMAR

Use a sentence from the book full of adjectives for your mentor sentence! (Not familiar with mentor sentences? Read all about them HERE!) Have students identify the adjectives and tell you why they help the reader. They should also be using adjectives when writing about what makes a good friend.

My friend Megan over at I Teach! What’s Your Superpower?

loves using mentor sentences!

You can also practice identifying subjects and predicates to make sure the students have complete sentences in their writing. We always practice first by looking at sentences from the book we are reading. I prepare sentences on sentence strips first and cut them apart between the complete subjects and complete predicates. I pass them out to the students and their first job is to decide if they have a subject or a predicate strip. Then, they will circle the simple subject(s) and underline the simple predicate(s).

Next, they will find their “match” to make a complete sentence!

As the sentences we use for mentor sentences become more difficult, this is a great way to identify compound and complex sentences, too! This is an easy activity that can be done pretty quickly during “writing time” or “grammar time” because it reinforces skills needed for both!

I hope this post gave you some good ideas on how to get the most out of your teaching time with one mentor text! You can head over and get the pack for this book in my TPT store here!

If you want even more IN-DEPTH step-by-step help with implementing mentor sentences, check out my courses!

Or maybe you’d like to get ready-made mentor text lessons for the week?

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Using Mentor Texts

Reading on the Schedule

Comprehension First…

Independent Practice

Using More Than Mentor Texts

Paired Texts

Grammar on the Schedule

Mentor Sentences

Writing on the Schedule

Mentor Texts

Choosing Mentor Texts

More Bang For Your Buck

Want even more ideas for mentor text integration?

I’d love to help you tackle this in your classroom!

Can students really think critically about grammar?!

Let’s stop asking students to recite and start helping students apply and model!

Have you heard about mentor sentences?

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Must-Have Mentor Texts

READING

Get these cause and effect activities for free!

WRITING

LANGUAGE, MECHANICS, AND CONVENTIONS

If you want to skip over the written explanation and JUST SEE THE VIDEO, scroll to the bottom of this post!

DAY 1

DAY 2

DAY 3

DAY 4

DAY 5

Ready to see all of this together?

If you are looking for guidance to pick the “just-right” bundle for your needs, click below!

READING

WRITING

GRAMMAR

Or maybe you’d like to get ready-made mentor text lessons for the week?

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