WEBVTT 00:00:04.570 --> 00:00:06.430 Ravestein: My name is Brittany Ravestein. 00:00:06.430 --> 00:00:10.500 I teach third grade at Fall Creek Elementary in East Bend, North Carolina. 00:00:10.500 --> 00:00:15.579 Mentor texts are books, any book that you use to incorporate writing. 00:00:15.579 --> 00:00:18.419 It’s kind of looking at a book through a writer’s eyes. 00:00:18.419 --> 00:00:22.589 You pretend that you put yourself in the author’s position of writing. 00:00:22.589 --> 00:00:29.589 After taking observation in their writer’s notebooks, I can kind of compile what the 00:00:29.589 --> 00:00:36.899 whole group might be lacking and then figure out a book to go along with it 00:00:36.899 --> 00:00:39.830 that can model that strategy. 00:00:39.830 --> 00:00:44.170 Sometimes I use my own stories and I share them with the students. 00:00:44.170 --> 00:00:50.520 And I also use other students’ and other classes’ books or poems that they have written. 00:00:50.520 --> 00:00:53.200 I use read-alouds with the mentor text. 00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:59.600 “Even though I was here first and then conquered by men in big ships who name me, I’ve been 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:03.320 crossed and probed, charted, studied, and dirtied. 00:01:03.320 --> 00:01:06.280 I am the Atlantic Ocean.” 00:01:06.280 --> 00:01:11.760 After I read the mentor text to the students, I have a discussion about the mentor text. 00:01:11.760 --> 00:01:18.270 I ask them prompting questions about what they have noticed inside the book, to look 00:01:18.270 --> 00:01:19.690 at it through that writer’s eye. 00:01:19.690 --> 00:01:24.880 I have the students have their discussion about what the features are, and then I usually 00:01:24.880 --> 00:01:30.030 model what I am trying to teach with the mentor text. 00:01:30.030 --> 00:01:33.590 Like, for instance, today we were doing the iPoetry. 00:01:33.590 --> 00:01:37.120 I read a book called Atlantic, and it was an iPoem. 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:41.790 And then we started the prewriting stage because we’re going to write an iPoem together. 00:01:41.790 --> 00:01:46.220 Take 30 seconds to discuss with someone sitting next to you about 00:01:46.220 --> 00:01:48.669 what you noticed in this iPoem. 00:01:48.669 --> 00:01:52.850 Student 1: She’s the author. The ocean—it’s her. 00:01:52.850 --> 00:01:55.860 She’s the one that’s putting herself in the story. 00:01:55.860 --> 00:02:00.350 Ravestein: She’s writing from the perspective of the Atlantic Ocean. 00:02:00.350 --> 00:02:05.680 In using mentor texts to convey good writing, we look at the different traits that the author 00:02:05.680 --> 00:02:13.280 has put in there; we look at what verbs that they have used; we look at similes, alliteration, 00:02:13.280 --> 00:02:17.180 different features that that author used. 00:02:17.180 --> 00:02:23.610 If we come across something in a book and notice it, we will talk about it through the 00:02:23.610 --> 00:02:29.320 writing and we will talk about why they wrote that and what kind of genre it is and what 00:02:29.320 --> 00:02:33.830 specific features of that genre were in that book to make it that genre. 00:02:33.830 --> 00:02:37.020 Did anybody notice anything with, maybe, the words that were on the pages? 00:02:37.020 --> 00:02:40.560 Student 2: The words didn’t rhyme but it was still a poem. 00:02:42.060 --> 00:02:47.870 Most poems rhyme— but even though the words didn’t rhyme in that one, it was still a poem. 00:02:47.870 --> 00:02:53.290 Ravestein: The prewriting activity that we did today, we had a graphic organizer, whole 00:02:53.290 --> 00:02:57.460 group, and I wrote that we had been researching the moon. 00:02:57.460 --> 00:03:02.569 And the moon was at the top so they knew that they were writing it from the perspective of the moon. 00:03:02.569 --> 00:03:08.310 We’re going to write our own iPoem with the moon, but right now we’re going to get 00:03:08.310 --> 00:03:12.009 all of our thoughts down and do our prewriting stage. 00:03:12.009 --> 00:03:18.220 And then we were just coming up with ideas and thoughts of words to use in our poem— 00:03:18.220 --> 00:03:25.870 how the moon felt, what it worried about, how it acted, what it saw, and different things 00:03:25.870 --> 00:03:33.170 to get their ideas about the moon, and what the moon might be like—to write from the 00:03:33.170 --> 00:03:34.800 perspective of the moon. 00:03:34.800 --> 00:03:42.800 Now, think about how the moon might act. Think about what we know, what we’ve researched. 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:47.220 If you need help, you can whisper something to your neighbor to get an idea. 00:03:47.220 --> 00:03:49.430 What do you think, Samuel? How does the moon act? 00:03:50.030 --> 00:03:52.270 Samuel: Dizzy. Ravestein: Why would you say “dizzy”? 00:03:52.270 --> 00:03:54.770 Samuel: ’Cause it goes around the earth... 00:03:54.770 --> 00:04:00.870 Ravestein: And then next to “dizzy,” I’m going to put “circles the earth” 00:04:00.870 --> 00:04:05.280 so we kind of know why the moon’s dizzy. 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:08.559 And then I had them break off into their Writer’s Workshop. 00:04:08.559 --> 00:04:14.099 We’re going to go ahead and start our Writer’s Workshop so you guys have some time to write. 00:04:14.099 --> 00:04:20.099 During Writer’s Workshop time, I will conference and work with students and I will prompt them 00:04:20.099 --> 00:04:25.030 to use and to look back at different books that we have read. 00:04:25.030 --> 00:04:28.850 During Writer’s Workshop today, while I was walking around, 00:04:28.850 --> 00:04:32.020 I saw students try writing iPoems. 00:04:32.020 --> 00:04:36.440 This is something that’s new to them and they didn’t know the format before, and 00:04:36.440 --> 00:04:40.410 they were trying to write an iPoem. 00:04:40.410 --> 00:04:47.910 I had to prompt them with the prewriting stage to help them get the iPoem, but they knew 00:04:47.910 --> 00:04:50.089 that they were writing from that perspective. 00:04:50.089 --> 00:04:54.580 Pick a topic that you might want to write from then write some words—stuff that you 00:04:54.580 --> 00:04:58.320 know about that. That way it will help us with our actual writing. 00:04:58.320 --> 00:05:05.060 I think mentor texts allow students to look at books with a writer’s eye. 00:05:05.060 --> 00:05:09.300 They help guide them through their writing process. 00:05:09.300 --> 00:05:16.300 They realize that it doesn’t take just one day to get a published piece. 00:05:16.300 --> 00:05:23.819 It takes more than that and it’s going to help them realize the whole process of writing.