Mentor Sentence Archives

Take Back Your Time With Mentor Texts

March 12, 2017

Time is precious. There is NEVER enough of it!!

But, what if there was a way you could take back some of that time? Would you take it?

I have your answer!

Before we dive in, let’s talk about what a mentor text IS and what it IS NOT.

A mentor text is a picture book (fiction or nonfiction), a chapter from a novel, an article, a song, or a poem. This text serves as a model to inspire students to practice a skill. In reading, students will watch and listen to you model a comprehension skill in order to understand how to do it on their own. In writing, students will be inspired to write similarly to the mentor text. In grammar, students will notice all of the “good” in a sentence from the text (called a mentor sentence), and then learn how to incorporate it into their own writing. There is a lot of imitation that occurs with a mentor text; students will impersonate techniques from the texts you present across the subjects.

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.

A MAGNIFICENT MENTOR TEXT can be used for several weeks for MANY skills. In reading, a magnificent mentor text will provide opportunities for a few (if not all) of the following: monitoring, summarizing, questioning, inferring, determining importance, questioning, visualizing, and synthesizing… to name a few. In writing and grammar, a magnificent mentor text will provide opportunities for students to imitate the ideas, structure, AND craft that the author presents in the text. And to top it off, a magnificent mentor text will be enjoyable to read, and one you will want to return to over and over!

And, if you REALLY want to get the most bang for your buck: grab a nonfiction, historical fiction, or science fiction book to integrate your social studies and science content! (OR even math literature!)

We know, as teachers, that using literature is an excellent way to introduce a lesson, but starting EVERY lesson with a new text makes it awfully difficult to keep those mini-lessons MINI! One of the best parts of using a mentor text is that it gives you more time to TEACH. Once you’ve read the book one time, you only need to re-read or refer to parts of it for your whole group mini-lessons. (Small group/guided reading should use books on their level!)

In reading, one way to lead your lesson is to use a graphic organizer. It will help guide their thinking, and it allows for an “I Do, We Do, You Do” lesson- start the graphic organizer with them, then they can help suggest something to add to it, and finally they can finish it on their own. Of course, then they’ll also be able to use that graphic organizer with their own book, or in guided reading, to show their thinking!

Use mentor texts for grammar through the use of mentor sentences. For 10-15 minutes each day at the start of writing time, look at a mentor sentence that was taken from the mentor text you are reading that week. Students notice all the wonderful things about it, figure out patterns in parts of speech, revise the sentence, and imitate the author in our writing- all over the course of the week. And of course, in writing, students will impersonate the ideas, structure and/or craft of a mentor text through your modeling and lessons.

Does this sound like an amazing solution, but you’re thinking, well, Jivey, you just told me WHAT to do, but you haven’t told me HOW to do it! I’ve got you covered!! Sign up below for a FREE one-week course and get all you’ll need to integrate reading, writing, and grammar! In this FREE course, you’ll receive a week of activities and lessons each day for reading, grammar, and writing; and encouragement, suggestions, tips, and reminders. I want to help you take back your time!

Select your grade level below to get comprehensive lessons just for you and your class!

You will get an outline for the week right away, with more information about the importance of using mentor texts. Then, over the course of the next week, you will receive explicit lessons, student activities, explanations, reminders, and suggestions for the next day’s ELA activities. If you’d like to complete the activities with your students over the course of that week, you can! Or, you can “save” all of the lessons and implement them another week if it doesn’t work right away for your schedule.

Lessons, activities, explanations, and support… did I mention FREE? What are you waiting for? Click on your grade level!

Or maybe you’d like to have it all done for you… looking for ready-made mentor text lessons for the week?

Join the club!

No really… there’s a club!

Mentor Texts

Using Mentor Texts in the Primary Grades {Freebies Included!}

May 1, 2016

Mentor texts help students learn how to read like writers and write like readers- yes, even in the early years! In fact, K-2 teachers are a super-big-help to the upper grades teachers because their use of mentor texts helps ingrain the importance of reading, as well as to write like the authors we love.

Mentor texts help students learn how to read like writers and write like readers- yes, even in the early years! Ideas By Jivey talks about the importance of mentor texts in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade, and gives some freebies to try!

In the primary grades, it’s important to choose mentor texts that are engaging. First, read the book to them for pleasure- you want them to enjoy the book! Once they’ve listened to the book, you can go back and discuss (and maybe re-read) the content for reading comprehension. Finally, you can incorporate the mentor text into your writing lessons! With a good mentor text, you will be able to teach multiple skills across reading, writing, grammar, and maybe even science and social studies!

Read Like a Writer!

Reading like a writer does not come naturally for little ones. You will want to do a lot of modeling and “think-alouds” with a text they are familiar with- point out characters, dialogue, the author’s word choice, the way a problem is solved, the way the author might have surprised you… and so on.

One way to help students notice the style, structure, and conventions of great writing is to use mentor sentences! Students are encouraged to notice what makes the sentence a good sentence, and then are able to practice writing their own sentence just like the mentor sentence. (If you are unfamiliar with mentor sentences, you can read more about them here and here, too!) There is also a grammar focus in first and second grade mentor sentences, so you can touch on parts of speech and conventions during mentor sentence time, too!

Write Like a Reader!

Once you and the students have analyzed how the author wrote a mentor text, you will want them to practice writing that way, too. Try to choose authors that have series of books when you can- it’s a great way to see how consistent they are!

One of my favorite authors to use is Doreen Cronin with her Diary series!

Read these books with your students and take note of the first-person point-of-view diary format with your students. Talk about how the characters reacted to certain events, and how that is similar or different to how they would react in the same situation. Also discuss the things Doreen Cronin included that is typical of that animal (for example, the worm digging in the dirt, and hanging out on the sidewalk after the rain). Have students write their own “Diary of a ____” story with a different animal or insect than in the books!Teaching about animals or insects in science? BONUS! You can incorporate that into your writing time by allowing them to choose something they’ve learned about and include characteristics just like Doreen did! (Diary of a Caterpillar, anyone?!)

You can try out some lessons that I’ve created for Diary of a Worm by clicking on the links below! They are great for first and second graders and MAYBE some high kindergartners, too!

Want to hear more about how I implement these organizers into reading and writing workshop? Attend one of my free webinars by clicking below!

Want to see some more mentor text ideas?

Be sure to check out this pin board, put together by The Reading Crew!

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?

Join the club!

No really… there’s a club!

3-5, Mastering Mentor Sentences, Mentor Texts

Content Integration with Mentor Texts {Freebie Included!}

February 26, 2016

Are you looking for ways to maximize your time in the classroom? This post shows you how to integrate social studies content with ELA using mentor texts - freebie included for Henry's Freedom Box!

If you took a poll of current educators, one of the top things that teachers would tell you they need is more TIME. Although I can’t give you more time in your day, I can help you maximize your time!

One struggle with time is being able to teach the many standards WELL in a short amount of time. Here in Georgia, fourth grade teachers are responsible for teaching students pre-explorer days with Native Americans, to exploration of the United States, to colonization, to the American Revolution, to the creation of our government (new nation), to the War of 1812, to Westward Expansion, to abolitionists and suffrage movements… ummmm hello?! That’s over 400 years of history in one!

Mentor texts are the best way that I have found to be able to cover numerous skills at once. In this post, you’ll see how to teach standards in reading, writing, grammar, and social studies with just one book. Content integration can be a lifesaver if you are trying to maximize your time!

There are so many wonderful historical fiction books out there. We would be here all day if I started listing my favorites! But one of my favorites that I’ll focus on in this post is Henry’s Freedom Box.

If you teach about the Underground Railroad or abolitionism, this is an amazing book to use! But you don’t have to ONLY read this book during your social studies time for a history lesson…

Reading

Definitely read the book during your social studies time to relate it to your teaching about the Underground Railroad, but then refer back to parts of it to cover some reading skills!

There are some great vocabulary words in this book that students can use context clues to define.
Henry “Box” Brown is as a truly courageous man. Students can analyze Henry and determine character traits to describe him.
Students can find evidence in the story to demonstrate ways slaves were treated unfairly (which also relates back to your social studies content).
Students could compare Henry to Harriet Tubman and discuss how they both took drastic measures to escape slavery (again, goes back to social studies content, too).

Writing

This book really sparks emotion in students and gets them interested in the time period. What a great time to allow students to do some research and write an informational piece about the Underground Railroad or civil rights!

Grammar

And of course, you can’t read a good mentor text without analyzing a good mentor sentence, too! (Unfamiliar with mentor sentences? Click to read all about them or check out the ready-to-teach units in my TPT store!) This book is full of great descriptive sentences that students can use as models for their own writing.

Being able to cover all of these skills with just one book not only helps you maximize your time, but it also will help to ingrain the social studies content you need to teach as well.

Do you want to use this book for all of the skills I just listed above? Here you go! :o)

You might also love these mentor sentence mini-units to help you cover grammar and writing skills WHILE utilizing these books in other content areas!

Looking for ready-made, detailed, explicit mentor text lessons for the week that also integrate content across the subjects?

Join the club!

No really… there’s a club!

Mentor Texts

Flipping For Fall Mentor Texts: The Stranger

October 2, 2015

Inferring

Reading between the lines… putting clues together to solve a mystery… whatever you may call it, I’m sure you will agree, students need a lot of practice with inferring! A great mentor text to use for this very skill is The Stranger by Chris Van Allsburg! The Stranger is the story of a mystery man who stays with the Baileys after he was accidentally hit by Farmer Bailey’s truck. The accident has caused him to lose his memory. While he stays with the Baileys, very strange things are happening with the weather… it doesn’t seem like fall will ever come! Finally, the stranger seems to remember who he is, and with his departure, cold air comes in and green leaves turn red and gold!

Lesson Introduction

Tell students that as you read the book, The Stranger, they are going to try to solve a mystery. A man loses his memory and you are going to try to figure out who he is!

Working with the Text

Use this freebie to work with the text!

Mentor text and practice inferring with Ideas by Jivey.

I suggest reading the book first. Some of the “clues” won’t be obvious right away on the first read, but after you’ve read the book, you can go back through the book and see if there is anything that helps prove his identity. This also helps reaffirm to students the importance of returning to the text to find evidence! (You might even want to read the book one day, and do the activity the next day since it requires a re-read.)

As you re-read, have students give you a signal (maybe thumbs up or snapping) when they hear something that seems like it could be a clue to identifying the stranger’s identity. Of course, you will want to start off the activity by doing a think-aloud or two…

Mrs. Bailey stopped the doctor as he left the house. He’d forgotten his thermometer. “Oh, you can throw that out,” he answered. “It’s broken, the mercury is stuck at the bottom.” Oh! That seems important! I know that the mercury in a thermometer rises with heat but if it’s stuck at the bottom, that must mean it’s very cold. That must mean that the stranger’s temperature is very cold!

He watched Katy take a spoonful of soup and blow gently across it. Then he did exactly the same. Mrs. Bailey shivered. “Brrr,” she said. “There’s a draft in here tonight.” Another clue about the stranger being cold! He blew on his soup, and it seems that when Mrs. Bailey felt his breath, it made her cold!

Complete the activity during the second read to show the evidence you find to prove the stranger’s identity:

Next Step Options…

Of course, I can’t pass up an opportunity to use an awesome text for a mentor sentence!! (Not familiar with mentor sentences? Click here to read more about them!) You can grab this FREE bonus mentor sentence lesson to go along with your inferring activity!

I also have hundreds of activities you can use with your favorite mentor texts in these three sets:

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

Join the club!

No really… there’s a club!

Take Back Your Time With Mentor Texts

Or maybe you’d like to have it all done for you… looking for ready-made mentor text lessons for the week?

Using Mentor Texts in the Primary Grades {Freebies Included!}

Read Like a Writer!

Write Like a Reader!

Getting Started With Mentor Sentences

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!

Use Enemy Pie To Maximize Your Teaching Time

READING

WRITING

GRAMMAR

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

Content Integration with Mentor Texts {Freebie Included!}

Reading

Writing

Grammar

Looking for ready-made, detailed, explicit mentor text lessons for the week that also integrate content across the subjects?

Flipping For Fall Mentor Texts: The Stranger

Inferring

Lesson Introduction

Working with the Text

Next Step Options…

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

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