mentor text – A(nother) Year of Reading

Poetry Friday: Today

(after “Today, When I Could do Nothing” by Jane Hirschfield)

Tracey has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Tangles & Tails.

Franki’s Weekly Text Set– Intentional Use of Dialogue: Picture Books with Talking Bubbles

Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram. Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!

This week’s books could make up a mini-unit on the intentional use of dialogue in narrative. So many young writers work hard to create dialogue in their writing and many are reading books in graphic novel form, that dialogue makes up a great deal of their writing.. For readers, it is important that they understand how dialogue impacts a story. For dialogue to work in a story, the author has to be intentional about its use. This week’s set of books will give young readers a way to look at dialogue with a writer’s eye–why did the author make this decision about dialogue. Hopefully after studying a small set of texts, writers can be more intentional and effective in their use of dialogue.

I think I’d get started with Lift and Dumplings for Lili. Lift is in graphic novel format with very few words. Much of the story is told through illustrations. But there is some dialogue that is important to the story. But the author is intentional about every word of dialogue. This book would make a good first book to notice and wonder about the decisions about when to include dialogue and when not to and how the dialogue adds to the story. In Dumplings from Lili, there are two kinds of dialogue–the dialogue in the text and the dialogue in talking bubbles as part of the illustrations. There are different reasons for each and thinking together about why some of the dialogue was embedded in the text while other dialogue was embedded in illustrations (what purpose does each serve to the story and reader) will make for good conversation.

In both Not Enough Lollipops and That’s My Sweater!, the dialogue is critical to the story. The story would make no sense without the dialogue. Sometimes dialogue adds some detail and sometimes the dialogue is used to tell the story. These are two books to think about how and when dialogue is used to tell the story. Dialogue is used in very different ways in these two books but much of the storyline depends on the dialogue in each.

In See the Cat and See the Dog, again dialogue is critical to the story. Without the dialogue the story would not make sense. However the dialogue is used in a bit of a different way in these two as the characters actually converse with the narrator. This is tricky to do well (and sometimes hard to understand as a reader) but it is something many children try in their writing. How did the author have the character talk back to the narrator effectively in these two books would be the question I’d ask with these.

In Our Day of the Dead Celebration, talking bubbles are used throughout the book. The dialogue is often part of the illustration so this is a great book to talk to readers about how important it is to read the text and the illustrations for full understanding. This dialogue adds detail to the main part of the story in very important ways. The way that the author used dialogue to tell more is intentional and effective and worthy of study.

So many of our students love to write with humor. It takes so much skill to do this and a favorite author to study humor writing is Josh Funk. In his fairy tale series (It’s Not Hansel and Gretel and It’s Not Jack and the Beanstalk pictured here) , the use of talking bubbles to add humor is intentional throughout the book. There is intentionality and craft to his decisions and for our writers who want to make their stories funny, studying the ways Josh Funk uses dialogue can help! (And these stories are just great fun to enjoy together!)

This week’s books were linked at Bookelicious and/or Cover to Cover Children’s Bookstore. If you are looking for a fabulous local children’s bookstore to support, Cover to Cover is an amazing one. We are lucky to have them in Central Ohio! If you don’t have an independent children’s bookstore in your town, check out Bookelicious. They are an online independent bookstore for children with an incredible curated collection.

Franki’s Weekly Text Set: Books to Support Notebook Writing-Volume and Variety

Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram. Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!

There is nothing like kicking off notebook writing with young writers. I remember years ago, learning so much from Shelley Harwayne about the importance of “volume and variety”–how important it was for children to see all that is possible when launching notebook writing. So, the beginning of the school year in writing workshop means lots of invitations to try different kinds of writing-to fill your notebook with lots of different kinds of writing. This week, we’ll explore a set of books that invites writers to “give it a try”. I am adamant that these notebook lessons are always invitations and not have tos because a writer may have something pressing to write about. And by posing these as invitations, our writers can give things a try without a huge risk and see so many possibilities.

Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle is definitely one of my favorite picture books of 2022. Wow! What a book! I love this one for writing workshop because it is the story of a little girl who misses her Mommy, who is a way on a business trip. I love to use early in launching writer’s notebooks because there are so many ways young writers can connect, so many ways they can “write off” of the book. This book will spark lots of family memories and feelings and this is a great introduction to the ways stories can do that for writers, how stories can be great ways to get your writing brain to remember something that’s happened in your life that you might want to write about.

No matter the grade I’ve taught, list writing is a favorite for so many young writers. The Me I Choose to Be (this year’s John Steptoe Award winner!) and Daddy Speaks Love (two more favorites of 2022!) are great invitations to list writing. These books seem to me like lists turned into a poetry/picture book. Writers can follow the repeated lines in each book to write their own lists or think of another topic to write a list about. I like these as mentors because for those writers who love lists, they can see that a simple list can become a beautiful picture book too!

Yes! The Most Magnificent Idea was released this week and is a sequel to The Most Magnificent Thing-! I love this new one for launching writers notebooks because it addresses the problem of days that you have NO IDEAS! This happens to all creators and it is something that comes up early in the school year for writers. Even though the main character is not a writer, she uses all the same strategies to get ideas for making as a writer does for writing. So lots to talk about and explore for days when you are stuck as a writer. So many reasons to use this new book!

Arab Arab All Year Long, Berry Song and Tuesday is Daddy’s Day is a set of books that is perfect for helping writers think about traditions that are important to them. These can be traditions that happen annually connected to a holiday or big event, they can be things you do with a family member or friend at certain times during the year or they can be things that you do daily or weekly-those daily traditions that make your days happy. These three books are great for talking about the various kinds of traditions we enjoy, the reasons for the traditions, and the people we enjoy them with. Great invitations for thinking a bit about those important traditions-big and small.

Notebook writing helps us slow down and notice things in greater detail. These two books are great ways to talk about the various ways to write descipritons. Mommy’s Hometown is a description of a place while Wait-and See is more of an observation in-the-moment, a close look at something happening. When we talk about descriptions or descriptive writing, I want my writers to see lots of examples–so I could see a whole text set on different ways or things that authors and illustrators describe. The act of a writer to slow down and notice and find those perfect words is easy to talk about when introduced as description. Young writers often have fun with this type of writing–so many possibilities!

Franki’s Weekly Text Set-Mentor Texts in Writing: Introductions in Narrative Text

Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram.

Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!

This week, we’ll look at some great introductions in narrative text. When thinking about mentor texts, it is important for our students to be able to notice and name things and then to try new things in their own writing. I am a firm believer that studying introductions in narrative transfers to other genres. I worry that we are so tied to units of study that we don’t realize how much writing craft spans all types of writing. So this week, we’ll focus on narrative introductions but that doesn’t mean the craft moves learned can only be used in narrative writing.

Oge Mora is such an incredible writer and the way she introduces Saturday is definitely worth study and conversation. I’d consider the first four pages of this book the introduction. She uses great repeated language, used short phrases to set up the excitement and also gives us a bit of a clue as to what is to come. So many craft moves in such a short introduction. I like this one because sometimes students think the introduction is the first page by default but this book provides a good mentor on discussing which pages do serve as the introduction and discussing what an introduction to a story is. I’d say this is a 4 page introduction but am open to other thoughts. Understanding what an introduction is, is key for our writers so thinking about how much of the book is used to set up the story would make for a great mini lesson.

If you were at the Dublin Literacy Conference, you heard John Schu read the first page of Our Friend Hedgehog: The Story of Us aloud. I think these transitional chapter book authors are BRILLIANT at writing introductions. Because of the ways these authors support readers, the first page sets up the story. There is so much to discuss and try on this first page that I’d definitely include this book in a study of narrative introductions.

I love this introduction because it says so much in such a short paragraph. Sona Sharma, Very Good Big Sister? is a new series with the 2nd book coming soon. This introduction focuses more on setting but you learn a great deal about the main character by learning about where she lives. Such a visual is created by the words the author chose to begin with.

Mr. Watson’s Chickens is another fabulous picture book is another one that takes about 4 pages to set up. The last line of this introduction, “He started, like any sensible person, with 3.” gives the reader a bit of a clue as to what is coming as the story progresses. It is a great craft move for young writers to try out. This book also has the perfect amount of humor so writers who want to try writing something with a bit of humor can learn a great deal from this author.

Dragons in a Bag is a bit different from the others as Zetta Elliot begins by taking us right into the story–there is already a scene happening complete with some dialogue and as the reader we have to figure that out. This is a more sophisticated introduction for young writers to try and kids will have so much fun giving it a try–thinking about where in the story, they want to begin and how that might look.

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Franki’s Weekly Text Set–Talking Bubbles in Informational Books

Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram.

Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!

Young writers love to use talking bubbles and to play around with humor and graphics in their writing. But there are a lot of craft moves that go along with doing that well. Young readers love informational books with humor and lots of text features but the format often makes it challenging to navigate without some instruction and practice. A focus on talking bubbles in informational text will help students focus in on a few ways talking bubbles can be used and how they enhance the book. By focusing in on this one small way talking bubbles are used effectively, readers and writers will approach them in new ways. This is a great mini-unit to do before winter break as it is focused and short but will also carry into other units later because of the close study of something so specific. And I am thinking most of these books are more in the category of informational than true nonfiction although the field of nonfiction is changing a bit.

There is so. much to learn about as readers and writers from this series. The format of the pages are filled with various text and features and navigating the page takes some intentionality. In The Truth About Bears, talking bubbles are used for both sharing important information AND to add side comments as humor. The author embeds both of these types of talking bubbles throughout the text. So you can’t ignore the talking bubbles and still get all of the information in the book. So much of the new information is being told to us by the animals themselves.

Arlo and Pips: King of the Birds is a great model for sharing information embedded in story. This entire story is told through a conversation between two birds. There is text other than talking bubbles but the dialogue tells most of the story with information embedded throughout. Sometimes the information is shared by one of the characters. At other times, we enjoy a story and realize we learned something about crows from the story. Lots of great craft moves in this one!

This is a favorite series for readers K-5. Such a fun way to share information. In each of these books, we get to know a bug or animal. We are introduced through text but the creature (The Cockroach in this example) interacts with us, the reader, thorough dialogue. It is a fun way to use dialogue and talking bubbles and this book makes this craft move visible for young writers so they can try it in their own writing. Since this is the 2nd book/series they will look at by author Elise Gravel, comparing what she does with dialogue would also be interesting.

There is a lot to study in Except Antarctica! The narrative is told through regular narrative and dialogue (and the talking bubbles are not actually in bubbles but talking is designated by a specific font which makes for a good discussion). The author uses these in a way to enhance the story, to give the characters personality. But not a lot of information happens in the dialogue–most happens in the main text. The humor is well done in this and children hoping to try humor can learn a lot from how this is done.

If you don’t know Look Up! Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard, it is one that reader could spend hours with. There is so much information packed into this gem of a book and each page is worth study. I like this one because talking bubbles are used for so many reasons and in so many ways. Creating a chart of the ways and reasons the writer embedded talking bubbles and how each impacts the reading would be a great study. Then writers can decide if any of these ways make sense for their own writing. The combination of humans and birds that talk in this books is also worth exploring.