Using Mentor Sentences

Using Mentor Sentences (A descriptive approach to teaching grammar)

1. Choose a sentence from a published book (from your adopted series or a trade book) which is appropriate for your grade level and illustrates specific conventions or crafts that you want to model. 2. Write the sentence on a transparency (or the board) as it appears in the text. 3. Mentor Text Sentence: Read it with the children. Ask students, “What do you notice about this sentence?” Invite the children to identify crafts or conventions used by the author (ie: punctuation marks, rhymes, similes, etc.) Circle and label each item on the original text. Add any that the children miss which you want to draw to their attention! List them on the board. 4. Modeled Text Sentence: Tell the class, “I think I could write a sentence just like (author’s name)!” Model a sentence of your own on the board. Then, ask the class to use the check list to see how many of the identified conventions you used correctly. Give a finger “point” for each one, and award “extra” points for creativity (such as substituting a word or phrase, or including a “vivid verb” or describing word) 5. Paired Text Sentence: Invite the students to work in pairs to create sentences of their own. I found that they need to do this orally before writing. Write the joint sentence. Join with another pair of students to check each others sentences and award points for items from the checklist. 6. Independent practice!

Remember: I do, we do, partners do, you do

 teacher does (I do)  whole class does (we do)  partners do (partners do)  individual students do (you do)