Using Mentor Texts to Guide Writing

Katie Wood Ray says its all about "texts, texts, and more texts." If we want students to be good writers, then they have to be exposed to a wide variety of texts. The more reading experience they have, the better the writer that they will be.

So. Humph. I worked with a SAT-prep class today on essays. They were writing about power and corruption. There were some good, real-world examples in the essays. But the format of the essay...now that's another story. Our students often pigeonhole themselves into a five-paragraph format, or something close to it. The first thing that they do is repeat the question in the form of an answer. Then they very systematically give examples. The essays are almost perfunctory. There's no zest.

So I'm intrigued by the idea of influence from a mentor text. These students should be reading contemporary essays. (Of course, they should just be reading, period.) My hopes are that, through the use of mentor texts, they will see what authentic writing looks like and then will begin to experience such writing. Let's break out of the school-writing mode. Let's show students what real writers do and what they look like. Once they have those authentic writing experiences, then they are sure to improve.

And if you can write well, you can scale back and write to a formula. There's no problem.