Writing With Mentors ─ How to Reach Every Writer in the Room Using Current, Engaging Mentor Texts: Grades 9-12

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."

Allison Marchetti teaches high school English in Richmond, Virginia. A graduate of the University of Virginia, she is an experienced teacher in both independent and public schools, from inclusion classrooms to AP and IB. A past presenter at NCTE, Allison is coauthor (with Rebekah O'Dell) of the popular blog movingwriters.org, as well as the professional book Writing With Mentors. Both the blog and book were inspired by Tom Newkirk's call to young teachers at NCTE 2012 to "carry the torch" of Don Graves' work to the next generation of teachers and students.Rebekah O'Dell teaches high school English in Richmond, Virginia. A graduate of the University of Virginia, she is an experienced teacher in both independent and public schools, from inclusion classrooms to AP and IB. A past presenter at NCTE, Rebekah is coauthor (with Allison Marchetti) of the popular blog movingwriters.org, as well as the professional book Writing With Mentors. Both the blog and book were inspired by Tom Newkirk's call to young teachers at NCTE 2012 to "carry the torch" of Don Graves' work to the next generation of teachers and students.