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Mentor Text Lessons: Literature & Classic Poetry WritingFix is always growing. It's what we do. Welcome to a new page we're developing to meet the needs of even more teachers. In 2005 and 2006, we successfully built a huge collection of mentor text lessons; some were inspired by picture books; others were inspired by chapter book excerpts. All of our elementary and many of our middle school teachers were delighted, but we still wanted to show the power of using a mentor text to our high school teachers and to our middle school educators who didn't seem all that excited about using picture books in their classrooms. In the summer of 2007, a small group of Northern Nevada Writing Project Consultants worked together to create the first few lessons found on this developing page at WritingFix. Inspired by the popularity of WritingFix's Picture Book Lessons Collection and the Chapter Book Lessons Collection, these NNWP Consultants began crafting 6-Tait writing lessons inspired by excerpts from favorite literature, including the "classics" of poetry. In November of 2007, the NNWP hosted a new inservice class for teachers in Northern Nevada: Inspired by the Best...Creating 6 Trait Writing Lessons Inspired by Literature. For the first time, the lessons on this page were shared and workshopped with teachers from many schools. As part of the class, these participants each proposed a lesson idea based on a piece of literature or a classic poem not yet represented on this page. The thirty lessons you find posted here came from the summer workshop and our Fall inservice in 2007. We hope to offer this new inservice annually, under the leadership of NNWP Teacher Consultant Tamara Turnbeaugh, so that this collection of lessons can continue to grow each year. We hope you are inspired by the lessons we have already published here. Propose your own Literature-inspired Lesson! Join our WritingFix Family! Propose your own picture book-inspired lesson to be posted at WritingFix! Below are our two templates for picture book-inspired lessons. Here is our template for literature-inspired teachers' lessons. If we end up using your lesson at WritingFix, we will send you any two of the NNWP's Print Resources as our way of saying thank-you for sharing your ideas with the thousands of teachers who use this website. |
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Lessons from Literary Excerpts |
Lessons Inspired by "Classics" of Poetry |
 Lesson: A Monster of a Metaphor Mentor Text: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (excerpt from chapter 5) Focus Trait: Idea Development |
Focus Trait: Sentence Fluency |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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Lesson: Antonyms and Comma Splices Focus Trait: Conventions |
Focus Trait: Sentence Fluency |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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Focus Trait: Idea Development |
 Lesson: Poems of Apology Mentor Text: William Carlos Williams' poem, "This is Just to Say" as well as This is Just to Say by Joyce Sidman Focus Trait: Sentence Fluency |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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 Lesson: Writing About a First Impression
Mentor Text: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (excerpt from chapter 2) Focus Trait: Idea Development |
 Lesson: Little Toy Friends (or tales my teddy bear never told me) Mentor Text: Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, "The Dumb Soldier" Focus Trait: Idea Development |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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Focus Trait: Idea Development |
Lesson: Death Personified
Mentor Text: John Donne's poem, "Death Be Not Proud" as well as Markus Zusak's The Book Thief. Focus Trait: Voice |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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 Lesson: Same Setting, Different Moods Lesson's Mentor Text: Lord of the Flies by William Golding (excerpts from chapter 3) Focus Trait: Idea Development |
Focus Trait: Word Choice |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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 Lesson: Just Because Poems Mentor Text: Lord of the Flies by William Golding (excerpt from chapter 2) Focus Trait: Voice |
 Lesson: Four Ways of Looking at __ Mentor Text: Wallace Stevens' poem, "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" Focus Trait: Idea Development |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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 Lesson: "I Never Knew That!" Mentor Text: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (excerpt from chapter 10) Focus Trait: Idea Development |
Focus Trait: Idea Development |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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Focus Trait: Voice |
 Lesson: CSI: The Cory Crime Scene Mentor Text: E. A. Robinson's poem, "Richard Cory" as well as Simon and Garfunkel's song "Richard Cory" Focus Trait: Idea Development |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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Focus Trait: Idea Development |
Focus Trait: Word Choice |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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 Lesson: Tasting an OxymoronMentor Text: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (excerpt from chapter 17) Focus Trait: Organization |
 Lesson: Serendipitous Personification Mentor Text: "The Railway Train" by Emily Dickinson and "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer Focus Trait: Word Choice |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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 Lesson: Showing Creative Problem Solving Mentor Text: Call of the Wild by Jack London (excerpt from pages 17-18) Focus Trait: Idea Development |
 Lesson: Come Hither, Stay Away
Mentor Text: Christopher Marlowe's poem, "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love" Focus Trait: Idea Development |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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Focus Trait: Idea Development
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 Lesson: So Much Depends Upon... Mentor Text: William Carlos Williams' poem, "The Red Wheelbarrow" and Love that Dog by Sharon Creech Focus Trait: Idea Development |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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 Lesson: A Poem for Two Voices for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Mentor Text: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide by Robert Louis Stevenson (short excerpts from chapters 1-6) Focus Trait: Idea Development |
Focus Trait: Organization |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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Focus Trait: Idea Development |
 Lesson: Naming the PetsMentor Text: Two poems from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot Focus Trait: Word Choice |
Click on the lesson's title or the image to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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