“Here is what I love about this book: It has gobs and gobs of student writing samples with smart and lively explanations of how to use each as the focus of a craft lesson to teach writing. The right models of student writing are the best mentor texts a teacher can find and with this book, you need look no further. . . . Breathe, fellow writing teachers. Much needed and wanted help has arrived.”
- Ruth Culham, Author of Traits Writing
Sometimes a student’s best teacher is another student
If ever there were a book to respond to the pressure to increase students’ test scores, this is it. You see, Gretchen Bernabei and Judi Reimer have had amazing success using mentor texts by students to teach writing well in any genre. Now, they “hand over their file drawers” and pair 101 student essays with one-page lessons on topics such as how to:
- Choose a structure across genres
- Extract thesis statement and main points
- Support points with details
- Use rhetorical devices and grammatical constructions
- Write from the point of view of a fictional character
A popular workshop presenter and winner of NCTE’s James Moffett Award in 2010, Gretchen Bernabei has been teaching kids to write in middle school and high school classrooms for more than thirty years. In addition to four other professional books and numerous articles for NCTE journals, she is the author of National Geographic School Publications’ The Good Writer’s Kit, as well as Lightning in a Bottle, a CD of visual writing prompts.
Judi Reimer taught fourth grade in San Antonio, Texas, for seventeen years and continues to advise students and school districts. She has worked as a freelance writer, contributing columns and features for Parents, Ladies’ Home Journal, and other national magazines. Judi has also written articles for Studies Weekly classroom publications and has been a freelance writer for American Legacy Publishing.
