• Writing Wednesday: Using MOONSHOT as a Mentor Text for Writing

    Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 By Brian Floca Atheneum, 2009   This narrative nonfiction text tells the story of the Apollo 11 mission from Earth to the moon and back again. It is a very poetic but very informative text of this landmark event in history. It’s not…

  • Mentor Text Tip Tuesday: Poetry Stations

    Tip One of my favorite units that I did with my class last year was on poetry using Tamera Will Wissinger’s GONE FISHING as a mentor text. But I also incorporated many other mentor texts in this unit as well. I created poetry stations for different forms of poetry.…

  • Mentor Text Lesson: Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner

    By day, I’m a teacher. The thing I love to teach the most is writing (no surprise there). I love using mentor texts–really awesome literature to serve as a model for student writing. In the next few months, there will be more to come on mentor texts including some…

  • What’s New in 2014

    January is an exciting time—a time for new things. So on this blog, there will be some new things rolling out in 2014. Here are some of the things I have planned. For Teachers  Teacher Useletter I am introducing my useletter for teachers. I will include links to things…