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Mentor texts can serve as scaffolding models for writing. Students can borrow the structure, organization, or format of a wonderfully written children’s book and make it their own by selecting their own topics and tweaking the format. Instead of writing a traditional essay, students can try the various patterns provided by the mentor texts to spice up their writing and make it more appealing.
In addition, the following common core standard (and the similar standard at all grade levels) can be met using mentor text writing for nonfiction:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.2
Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010).
What follows is an annotated bibliography of seven inviting nonfiction mentor texts that will encourage students to write their own literature of facts and make it an engaging, rather than a boring, writing experience. Students should be encouraged to read like a writer (Ray, 2006) as they read and discuss the patterns inherent in these books.
Many of these books come from Children’s Choices Booklists. Children’s Choices are books that children across America vote on as their favorite books. Sponsored by the International Literacy Association, these are books that children enjoy and respond well to, since they themselves have voted on the lists. For a comprehensive list of Children’s Choices, see:
https://www.literacyworldwide.org/get-resources/reading-lists/childrens-choices-reading-list
Annotated Bibliography
Aronson, S. (1998). Fandex family field guides: Dogs. New York: Workman.
This is but one of the many Fandex titles available. In Dogs, each cut out has a photo of a different breed of dog, along with facts about that type of dog. To borrow that format, Figure 1 shows an example of a Fandex of Animals that a group of students and I did together. We wrote one interesting fact we learned after researching our animal, then made pages out of oak tag depicting the animal’s likeness. My pig page features this fact: Some pigs have extremely long eyelashes, but most pigs have poor eyesight.
This modeling of the format of the Fandex allows students to practice summarization skills, as well as skimming for relevant information.
Figure 1: Animal Fandex
Ball, J. A. (2006). Which came first? Food creations: From hot dogs to ice cream cones. New York: Bearport.
Kaufman, G. (2006). Which came first? Sporting events from baseball to
skateboarding. New York: Bearport.
In each of these books, the reader is asked to choose which thing came first. For instance: Which came first, ketchup or salsa? The next page gives a history of each item and answers the question of which came first (in this case—salsa). Students could borrow the format to find out which of two related things came first. Here are two examples of this type of writing done by 4th grade students in a flip book format: