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Mentor Text Lessons: Literature & Classic Poetry
inspiring students to mimic the author's craft of the greatest writers

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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Looking for books that inspire student writing?


Click here to see our favorite books.

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
Support Trait: Sentence Fluency

Lesson: Poems of Condition

Mentor Text: "If" by Rudyard Kipling

Focus Trait: Sentence Fluency
Support 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.

Lesson: Antonyms and Comma Splices

Mentor Text: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (excerpt from chapter 1)

Focus Trait: Conventions
Support Trait: Word Choice

Lesson title: How Do I Love Sonnets

Lesson's Mentor Text: Sonnet #43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Focus Trait: Sentence Fluency
Support 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.

Lesson: Painting Places with Words

Mentor Text: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support Trait: Sentence Fluency

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
Support 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.

Lesson: Writing About a First Impression

Mentor Text: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (excerpt from chapter 2)

Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support Trait: Word Choice

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
Support 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.

Lesson: Ulysses: Time Traveler

Mentor Text: The Adventures of Ulysses by Bernard Evslin

Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support Trait: Organization

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
Support 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.

Lesson: Same Setting, Different Moods

Lesson's Mentor Text: Lord of the Flies by William Golding (excerpts from chapter 3)

Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support Trait: Sentence Fluency

Lesson: Nashing the Animals

Mentor Text: Various short poems by Ogden Nash

Focus Trait: Word Choice
Support 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.

Lesson: Just Because Poems

Mentor Text: Lord of the Flies by William Golding (excerpt from chapter 2)

Focus Trait: Voice
Support Trait: Idea Development

Lesson: Four Ways of Looking at __

Mentor Text: Wallace Stevens' poem, "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"

Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support 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.

Lesson: "I Never Knew That!"

Mentor Text: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (excerpt from chapter 10)

Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support Trait: Organization

Lesson: The Butcher's Tale

Mentor Text: E. A. Robinson's poem, "Reuben Bright"

Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support 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.

Lesson: Mob's Voice vs. Hero's Voice

Mentor Text: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Focus Trait: Voice
Support Trait: Word Choice

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
Support 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.

Lesson: Mechanical Monsters

Mentor Text: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (excerpt from pages 24-27)

Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support Trait: Word Choice

Lesson: HATE to LOVE Sonnets

Mentor Text: "Shall I compare Thee..." sonnet by William Shakespeare

Focus Trait: Word Choice
Support Trait: Conventions

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.

Lesson: Tasting an Oxymoron

Mentor Text: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (excerpt from chapter 17)

Focus Trait: Organization
Support Trait: Idea Development

Lesson: Serendipitous Personification

Mentor Text: "The Railway Train" by Emily Dickinson and "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer

Focus Trait: Word Choice
Support 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.

Lesson: Showing Creative Problem Solving

Mentor Text: Call of the Wild by Jack London (excerpt from pages 17-18)

Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support Trait: Word Choice

Lesson: Come Hither, Stay Away

Mentor Text: Christopher Marlowe's poem, "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love"

Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support 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.

Lesson: Hat Trick

Mentor Text: The Pearl by John Seinbeck (excerpt from chapter 4)

Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support Trait: Organization

 

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
Support 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.

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
Support Trait: Voice

Lesson: Hubris at the Bat

Mentor Text: "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

Focus Trait: Organization
Support 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.

Lesson: A Time Traveler's Log

Mentor Text: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (excerpt from chapter 4)

Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support Trait: Voice

Lesson: Naming the Pets

Mentor Text: Two poems from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot

Focus Trait: Word Choice
Support 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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