Giving Up the Whole-Class Novel

Here is a great article from Choice Literacy that we thought was good food for thought. We hope this will help you as you work to have a balance in your reading workshop.

Mentor Texts and Conferring

This post on the Two Writing Teachers blog has some good food for thought. Are you working with favorite mentor texts? Are you using them during conferencing? Read this for some good ideas.

Are You a Horse?

Roy gets a saddle for his birthday. It comes with these instructions: "1. Find a horse. 2. Enjoy the ride." Roy doesn't know what a horse is. He travels along asking, "Are you a horse?"

This is a wonderful text for reading aloud with young readers. It could also be used as a pattern book with older kids when writing informational text with clues. Possible teaching points:

• Repeating line (text structure)


• Surprise ending


• Inferring


• Use of elipses


• Dialogue


• Use of capital letters for emphasis (voice)


• Adjectives. Andy Rash uses these words to describe a pig: "a fat, snorting thing rolling around in a mud puddle." His use of adjectives make this a great mentor text.

The Keeping Quilt

The Keeping Quilt is another one of my favorite Patricia Polacco books. I used it with my second graders last spring. It tells the story of a quilt that has been passed down in her family through many generations.

This story may be used to teach:

• Narrative writing ( We used the book as a pattern when we wrote about something that was passed down to us or that we could pass on to someone else.)
• Dialogue
• Use of italics
• Use of elipsis
• Narrative reading text structure (characters, setting, plot)
• Important idea
• Predicting
• Connections
• Making Inferences
• Change over time

This book could be part of a unit of study of the Jewish religion or family traditions.

The Relatives Came

Cynthia Rylant is one of my favorite authors. The Relatives Came, a Caldecott Honor Book, is a great mentor text for K-3. Students can make authentic connections about summer vacations and family relationships. This book also lends itself well for writing workshop. The narrative structure and circular ending are very well done in this book.

My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother

I love Patricia Polacco's books. My favorite is My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother. You may use this text in your reading workshop to teach:

• Connections
• Visualizing
• Big Ideas
• Wondering/Questioning
• Changing your thinking as you read or hear a story

This is also a great text for modeling small moments during a narrative study in your writing workshop.

Those Shoes

Those Shoes is a wonderful mentor text. Below are some quick ways you could use this book in your reading workshop...

• predicting
• visualizing
• dialogue
• the importance of italicized words
• big ideas
• strong ending