I want my students to find mentor sentences from their independent reading texts, ones they can use as models for their own writing. Last week, I told them to be on the lookout for beautiful language in the novels they are reading. We talked about the concept: what makes language beautiful? Is it the words? The ideas? Both? I gave them no parameters, just the instruction to record three sentences that spoke to them, for whatever reason.
Tomorrow, they are coming to class with their chosen sentences. The first thing they will do is reflect on their choices and why they made them. I’ve made up a slide show to guide the activity. Feel free to grab the images here.
After the initial reflection, they will look more specifically at the language choices the author made:
Next, I’m going to put them in groups of four – five and have them share their sentences and why they chose them. Finally, they will use them as mentor sentences and mimic the style in their journals. Later in the week, they will choose one of them as an opening to a short descriptive or narrative piece of writing.
I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with tomorrow.
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