Writing with Mentors: How to Reach Every Writer in the Room Using Current, Engaging Mentor Texts

"Writing With Mentors is one of the best books I’ve read on harnessing the power of mentor texts to spur authentic student writing." --Kelly Gallagher, author of Write Like This

"Writing With Mentors has transformed the way I think about using exemplar pieces." --Christopher Lehman, coauthor of Falling in Love with Close Reading

"I am certain Don [Graves] would have celebrated these wise, kind, and fearless advocates for young writers." --Penny Kittle, author of Write Beside Them 

In Writing with Mentors, high school teachers Allison Marchetti and Rebekah  O’Dell prove that the key to cultivating productive, resourceful writers―writers who can see value and purpose for writing beyond school―is using dynamic, hot-off-the-press mentor texts.   In this practical guide, they provide savvy strategies for:

--finding and storing fresh new mentor texts, from trusted traditional sources to the social mediums of the day
--grouping mentor texts in clusters that show a diverse range of topics, styles, and approaches
--teaching with lessons that demonstrate the enormous potential of mentor texts at every stage of the writing process.

In chapters that follow the scaffolded instruction Allison and Rebekah use in their own classrooms, you’ll discover how using mentor texts can unfold across the year, from inspiration and planning to drafting, revising, and “going public” in final publication. Along the way, you’ll find yourself reaching every writer in the room, whatever their needs.   “Our hope in this book,” they write, “is to show you a way mentors can help you teach anything you need or want to teach in writing. A way that is grounded in the work of real writers and the real reading you do every day.  A way that is sustainable and fresh, and will serve your students long after they leave your classroom.”

Penny Kittle teaches freshman composition at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. She was a teacher and literacy coach in public schools for 34 years, 21 of those spent at Kennett High School in North Conway. She is the co-author (with Kelly Gallagher) of Four Essential Studies: Beliefs and Practices to Reclaim Student Agency as well as the bestselling 180 Days.

Penny is the author of Book Love and Write Beside Them, which won the NCTE James Britton award. She also co-authored two books with her mentor, Don Graves, and co-edited (with Tom Newkirk) a collection of Graves’ work, Children Want to Write. She is the president of The Book Love Foundation and was given the Exemplary Leader Award from NCTE’s Conference on English Leadership. In the summer Penny teaches graduate students at the University of New Hampshire Literacy Institutes.  Throughout the year, she travels across the U.S. and Canada (and once in awhile quite a bit farther) speaking to teachers about empowering students through independence in literacy. She believes in curiosity, engagement, and deep thinking in schools for both students and their teachers. Penny stands on the shoulders of her mentors, the Dons (Murray & Graves), and the Toms (Newkirk & Romano), in her belief that intentional teaching in a reading and writing workshop brings the greatest student investment and learning in a classroom.

Learn more about Penny Kittle on her websites, pennykittle.net and booklovefoundation.org, or follow her on Twitter.

Penny's students make a statement about how
student choice in reading has affected them.

Allison Marchetti is coauthor—with Rebekah O'Dell—of Writing with Mentors and Beyond Literary Analysis. Their popular blog Moving Writers focuses on writing instruction in middle and high school classrooms with an emphasis on voice and authenticity. Traveling the country to work with teachers and students provides constant inspiration as they help educators do the hard-and-transformative work of teaching real writing.

Allison has taught middle and high school English in both public and independent schools in Richmond, Virginia. Her favorite moments in the classroom happen at students’ desks, thinking and reading and writing beside them.

Grades: 6–12

Rebekah O'Dell is coauthor—with Allison Marchetti—of Writing with Mentors and Beyond Literary Analysis. Their popular blog Moving Writers focuses on writing instruction in middle and high school classrooms with an emphasis on voice and authenticity. Traveling the country to work with teachers and students provides constant inspiration as they help educators do the hard-and-transformative work of teaching real writing.

After more than a decade in the high school classroom, Rebekah currently teaches middle school English in Richmond, Virginia. She has experience using the reading and writing workshop model to transform student engagement at all levels, from inclusion classrooms to the International Baccalaureate program.

Grades: 6–12