Does your child have a favorite book or a favorite author? Have you considered helping them write about their thoughts, hopes and dreams using their favorite book as a mentor text?

When I first heard the term mentor text there were other terms that went along with it I didn’t know, like read like a writer and write with voice. I taught for — well for a long time and now, in a professional development class, I was learning how to teach writing! It was a good thing because I hated writing using the old method of tell them, then explain it in two or three paragraphs and tell them again. Boring! No decent, readable text is ever written like that, only text books. Oops, sorry.

Here was a new thing. I was to pick out my favorite author and try to write like that author. The author was now my mentor. Oh, I already liked this person and now she/he was to be my teacher. So, what did I like about the story(ies)? I had to read like a writer to use the author’s style. I had to hear her voice telling the story or was that my voice? What did she use to hook me right away? What did I have to say?

No kidding, the administrators wanted us, the teachers, to write. Well, we do ask children to write, why shouldn’t we? They wanted us to post our writing on the bulletin boards or outside our doors along with student writing. What? We couldn’t write. It wasn’t just me. We all hated writing. Okay, since we had to do it, I’d choose Cynthia Rylant’s When I Was Young In The Mountains as my mentor text. Mrs. Rylant’s book is her memoir of childhood in West Virginia, her memories of living with grandparents and all she experienced.

I, too, had memories of a grandmother born in the 19th century. I had experiences very similar to Mrs. Rylant’s. I could connect with her. How could I bring those memories back to life and share those childhood joys with my students? Why would they care? This was the first piece I’d ever written outside of school assignments. I agonized over it. I knew others would read it. I wrote, got a headache and turned it in the next day. It was no prize winner.

A few days later, I was asked to read it before all the other teachers.  When I read and tears streamed down my face and the faces of my colleagues, I realized maybe, just maybe,I liked writing. I had something to say. And so, from that assignment to choose a favorite author, I was bitten by the writing bug.

What’s your child’s favorite book? What are his/her interest? Play it up. “Hey, you could write a story like that! You know so much about …. You’d be good at it.” It doesn’t have to be the same genre. It doesn’t have to be long. It just needs to have heart. The other teachers heard my voice, my passion for what I had written. They felt my heart and it connected to theirs. That’s writing even a child can do. That’s writing even you can do. Then share your writings with each other and anyone who is willing to listen. Oh, by the way GuardianAngelKidsMagazine wants kids to submit their writing before May 3, 2018. The Write2Ignite conference scheduled for September 21-22, 2018 offers a teen track as well as adult.