Juli Kendall's Weekly
Writing Workshop Journal

A MiddleWeb Listserv Project

Members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List and other interested teachers are joining together to explore the Writing Workshop and other ideas about supporting young adolescent writers and readers. Juli Kendall, a reading-writing teacher/coach in Long Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion. Last year, Juli kept a weekly journal from her Reading Workshop.

This year, Juli is continuing her journals, but this time she's focusing on her Writing Workshop. Find out more about our project at our Reading/Writing Workshop homepage. You'll find Juli's background article here. Links to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file will begin to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.

If you'd like to join the daily discussion that parallels Juli's Journals, find out how here.

Writing Workshop
Week #27:

Mentor Authors, Part Two:
Building Independence

I've been "hooked up!" That means somebody really helped me out, as we say in California. This time it's Katie Wood Ray. As I'm reading Chapter 10, "Letting Authors Co-Teach the Curriculum of Products" in her book, What You Know By Heart, I come across her thoughts on using mentor authors in the classroom:
"With a room full of authors to help us teach, teaching writing doesn't have to be so lonely." (p. 150)

Now I understand. Teaching kids how to choose their own mentor authors means that they can have lots of writing teachers--not just one. But what's all this fuss about learning how to choose a mentor author? What difference does it really make? On page 110 in How's It Going? Carl Anderson tells us why:
"When we are successful in showing students how to learn from writing mentors, we teach students how to teach themselves."

Building independence into our Writing Workshop is crucial to the long-term success of our students. So, during the second week of our unit of study about Choosing a Mentor Author in Writing Workshop, that's where we are headed. I want to "show students how to learn from writing mentors" and "teach students how to teach themselves."

We begin to discover how we can learn from authors

As we encourage kids to pick their own mentor authors, Katie Wood Ray reminds us of what Isoke Nia says about the importance of choice: "Isoke Nia has challenged us all to remember, students need to choose their own writing teachers from the authors they love and whose work they admire." (p. 146)

The table is piled with books we've read and used and kids are "looking" for a writing mentor. But I'm wondering what else I can do to help them choose a mentor author. I decide to model off of Carl Anderson and use conferences to show students how to learn from authors.

In Appendix E, "What I Know About Writing from Knowing The Whales by Heart," Katie Wood Ray lists more than thirty things that this touchstone text has taught her. I use these as a way to get better at conferring using a mentor author. I start with just a few things and one book, The Whales. As I confer with kids, I use one of these things demonstrated in the book to help them understand the role of a mentor author and how to learn from this writing mentor.
One way to open and close a piece like this is to use present progressive verbs in the lead and the ending, and present tense verbs in the layers of details in the middle.

You may use part of the proper name of something to describe it.

A colon may be used to set up a list.

Ellipses may be used for a sentence that trails off and doesn't end, indicating the narrator cannot find the words to finish it.

A list of things in a sentence (items in a series) may be connected with and between each item and no commas.

One way to end a piece is to come back again to details that were used earlier in the text.

We also work together in small groups to identify our favorite sections from Scarecrow by Cynthia Rylant. As the kids read their selections, we all talk about why we like them. This is very challenging; many of the kids know they like the writing but have difficulty putting it into words.

Suhey chooses the text, "They line up on his arms and chat all day." When she has difficulty putting it in her own words, we work together to come up with: "Look how Cynthia Rylant uses simple words to help us visualize a picture of the scarecrow and the birds."

For my favorite section from the book, I choose, "The sun trembles and the moon lies still." I love how Cynthia Rylant helps me "see" the sun and the moon by her choice of words. And she's right! I've actually noticed the sun trembling.

We have a great discussion about "the pie-pan hands" -- it's surprising to the kids that someone would think pie pans could scare birds. The story explains this beautifully. "They ignore the pie-pan hands and the button eyes and see instead the scarecrow's best gift: his gentleness."

Danny takes the first line from the story, "His hat is borrowed, his suit is borrowed, his hands are borrowed, even his head is borrowed." We talk about how the sentence construction is repeated several times so that it creates rhythm.

This also leads to a discussion of the word borrowed. We list things we borrow like food (masa from our neighbors) and clothes (from our sisters) and money (from our friends). Then Javier, always brimming with creativity, chimes in. "You could write a story about a snowman. All his things are borrowed, too." When our discussion leads us to jobs, (a scarecrow's job is scaring the birds), Javier reminds us that a snowman's job is "to play." We work together and write Snowman, a tribute to the story, Scarecrow, and to the importance of playfulness. (Read the story here.)

Then, using Katie Wood Ray's ideas from Appendix E in What I Know by Heart, we discover more about the story, Scarecrow. Here are a few of the things we find:
A list of things in a sentence (items in a series) maybe connected with and between each item and no commas.
"The earth has rained and snowed and blossomed and wilted and yellowed and greened and vined itself all around him."

One way to end a piece is to come back again to details used earlier in the text.
"The wind is brushing his borrowed head and the sun is warming his borrowed hands and clouds are floating across his button-borrowed eyes."

Personification is generally achieved through specific verb and noun choices.
"But a scarecrow's life is all his own."

Ellipses may be used to mark a pause in the text.
"The scarecrow is thinking his long, slow thoughts...
...and soon, birds will be coming by."

The subject and verb of a declarative sentence may be understood from the surrounding text and not stated in the sentence.
"It takes a love of silence and air. A liking for long, slow thoughts. A friendliness toward birds."


We begin to make our choices

All this time, kids are choosing their mentor authors. It's slow at first. They are hesitant and watchful, but it's such an adventure.

Sokunteer chooses Sandra Cisneros, the author of Hairs-Pelitos. She likes how the text is in English on the top of the page and Spanish on the bottom. She thinks she will try to write a story with English at the top of the page and Khmer (Cambodian) on the bottom.
"Everybody in our family has different hair.
Todos en nuestra familia tenemos pelo diferente."

Gary Soto is very popular mentor author with our writers. Guadalupe, Francisco, Jorge, and Ericka want to use Too Many Tamales as a mentor text. They love his description of the kitchen.
"They made twenty-four tamales as the windows grew white with delicious-smelling curls of steam."

Although some people might not consider Jamie Lee Curtis a mentor author, three of our kids choose her. The book that delights Karen, Javier, and Pedro is When I Was Little, A Four-Year-Old's Memoir of Her Youth.
"When I was little, I spilled a lot. My mom said I was a handful. Now I'm helpful."

Jane Yolen is popular with Fernando and Sokun. In Owl Moon, they like the way she describes the owl's call.
"The owl's call came closer, from high up in the trees on the edge of the meadow. Nothing in the meadow moved."

I watch as Vantanath carefully reads and rereads Donald Crews' books. He loves the beginning of the book, Short Cut.
"We looked...We listened...We decided to take the shortcut home."

Gary Paulsen is a hit with some of our kids. Danny chooses him as a mentor author because he likes the writing in The Tortilla Factory.
"...where laughing people and clank-clunking machinery mix the flour into dough, and push the dough, and squeeze the dough, and flatten the dough...and bake the dough into perfect disks that come off the machine and into a package and onto a truck and into a kitchen...."

And, of course, someone chooses Judy Blume as a mentor author. Suhey loves her books and is especially fond of The Pain and the Great One. It's a wonderful example of point-of-view in writing. The book is divided into two sections with the first part written from the point-of-view of the eight-year-old sister.
My brother's a pain.
He won't get out of bed
In the morning.
Mom has to carry him
Into the kitchen.

The second section of the book is written from the first-grade brother's point-of-view.
My sister thinks she's
so great
Just because
she's older
Which makes Daddy
and Mom think
She's really smart.
But I know the truth.
My sister's a jerk.

As Friday arrives, the kids have all chosen their mentor authors. With books piled around, the writing continues. This unit of study about choosing a mentor author is completing its three-week long stay in our class and soon, kids will be teaching themselves.

Download Juli's Curricular Calendar #8 (mentor authors) for Writing Workshop

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Here's the tribute we wrote to Cynthia Rylant.
It's an adaptation of her story, Scarecrow.

SNOWMAN
by Ms. Kendall's Writing Workshop

His coat is second-hand, his scarf is second-hand, his boots are second-hand, even his shovel is second-hand. And his nose probably came out of someone's refrigerator.

But a snowman's short-lived life is all his own.

It takes a certain tolerance for freezing, hanging around in the snow all day. It takes a love of chilly weather and ice-cold air. A liking for long slow thoughts. A friendliness toward children.

Yes, children. Short ones, tall ones, girls, boys. Ask them how they feel about a snowman, and they'll say, "Friendly." They ignore the carrot nose and the coal-black eyes and see instead the snowman's best gift: his friendship.

They climb up on him and can play all day.

He knows he isn't real. A snowman understands right away that he is just second-hand parts made to look like somebody.

But he knows this, too: that there is a certain excitement going on around him. Snowballs are being made, and inside them there is freezing snow and dirty ice and little rocks that just get caught in the rolling.

And though the snowman knows that he can as quickly be turned back into water and lumps of coal as he was turned into a man, he doesn't care.

He has been with the polar bears in evening and the Arctic Fox at dawn. He has watched a gopher dig carefully making a tunnel like a road through the snow. He has seen low gray clouds cover the sky and the snow fall silently.

The snowman doesn't care what he is made of or how long he might last, for he has been a witness to the playfulness of children. They have laughed and cried and teased and comforted and climbed and fallen and exhausted themselves all around him.

His cap has played baseball and his arms have helped to comfort. A small child has held tight to his legs while a seven-year-old is clinging to his scarf.

There is not much else a person might want, and the snowman knows this.

So he doesn't mind that there is always a smile on his face or that his eyes are always open. He doesn't mind being cold. He doesn't mind being short-lived.

The snow is falling on his second-hand head and the wind is chilling his second-hand arms and clouds are floating across his coal-black, second-hand eyes.

The snowman is thinking his long, slow thoughts...

...and soon children will be coming by.