Nonfiction Picture Books about Virginia History as Writing Mentor Texts

We all know that students need to become more comfortable reading and writing non-fiction. Last fall, I did a post on 10 of my favorite fiction picture book writing mentor texts. For this post, I’m focusing on some non-fiction mentor texts–with a bent toward history, specifically American history, as it relates to Virginia history.

Why? I teach 4th grade in Virginia. And while I’m not the person on my team who teaches Virginia history, I think it’s really important for me to know as much of it as I can. My daughter is also studying Virginia history this year, so she and I have been taking trips and reading a lot about Virginia history.

If you don’t live in Virginia, must our U.S. History has roots in Virginia, so much of this will apply to U.S. History as well. And remember, my focus here is using these non-fiction texts to teach WRITING. It’s a bonus that it will also piggyback on the history standards. It’s what I call “double-dipping.” Teaching the content you need to teach while also exposing students to stellar texts that can be used as models for good writing.

For more information about definitions of the different writing skills I cover here, refer to the Glossary of Mentor Text Terms.

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