Mobile Menu

  • Home
    • About Lindsay
  • Blog
    • English Language Arts
    • Effective Teaching Strategies
    • Technology in the Classroom
    • Self Care for Teachers
  • Free Grading Guide
  • Grading Reset Course
  • Resources
    • Web Store
    • TpT Store
  • Menu
  • Skip to right header navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Lindsey Ann Learning

Raise Rigor, Create Learners, Embrace Creativity

  • Home
    • About Lindsay
  • Blog
    • English Language Arts
    • Effective Teaching Strategies
    • Technology in the Classroom
    • Self Care for Teachers
  • Free Grading Guide
  • Grading Reset Course
  • Resources
    • Web Store
    • TpT Store

Simple Steps to Teaching With Mentor Sentences

Home » Blog » English Language Arts » Simple Steps to Teaching With Mentor Sentences
mentor-sentences

August 3, 2020 //  by Lindsay Ann//  4 Comments

Sharing is caring!

  • Share
  • Tweet
mentor-sentences

I’m SO excited because today I get to talk to you all about mentor sentences, one of my favorite ways to combine writing, student talk, text analysis, and grammar.

When I first started using mentor sentences, I knew that it would be a powerful way to engage student writers. I did not expect students to lack the grammatical skills to decode sentences, though, so we began with simple sentences and worked up to more complex sentences.

For example, my end-of-the-year students had learned to identify a prepositional phrase and to distinguish between a preposition and a subordinating conjunction. But my beginning of the year students could not. Rather than overwhelm students with all the rules at once, I folded them in over time and, with exposure, students soon spotted all kinds of phrases, sentence types, rhetorical devices, and more!

So, What Are Mentor Sentences?

Well, mentor sentences allow students to practice using sentence length variation, sentence rhythm variation, and sentence beginning variation. 

mentor-sentences

Put simply, students are asked to consider and use different phrases and clauses in their writing than they otherwise would on their own. Mentor sentences are chosen because they contain a writing move I want students to practice. They have pleasing use of figurative language, imagery, or devices that add to the sentence’s appeal.

As I’m reading, I collect sentences that can be used as mentor sentences. Sometimes I’ll be reading to look for a particular kind of sentence that I know my students need more practice with. Other times, I’ll just say to myself, “ooh, that sentence is cool” and scoop it up for my mentor sentence folder o’ goodness. 

Tip: If you want to level-up, have students collect their own mentor sentences. Student-led mentor sentence collection gives a sense of ownership to this activity. #worksmarternotharder

Mentor Sentence Examples

mentor-sentences

I want to make sure to leave you with some concrete examples of mentor sentences in action. You’ll notice that it’s important to identify the “pattern” each mentor sentence follows. Students must learn to deconstruct the sentence before putting it back together as they write their own imitation sentences.

Here are some examples of sentences I might pull if we were working on appositive phrases. 

Example #1 

Mentor Sentence: He told me his story, a South African story that was all too familiar with me. (Trevor Noah, Born a Crime)

Sentence Pattern: Subject + Verb + Direct Object + Appositive phrase + Relative Clause. 

Imitation Sentence: The helpless freshman went to the dance, a gyrating den of bad behavior that wasn’t what they expected at all.

Example #2 

Mentor Sentence: She adored her son–the child born late in life when she wasn’t sure she could still have children, the charmer, the one whose manipulations she always gave in to. (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah)

Sentence Pattern: Subject + Verb + Direct Object + 3 Appositive Phrases (long, short, medium)

Imitation Sentence:  She wanted a chocolate ice cream cone — the gooey treat from Grahams that always satisfied her sweet tooth, the sugar-on-sugar, the flavor that she could never get enough of.

Digital Mentor Sentences, What!?

Because I love using digital interactive slides with my students, I decided to use drag-and-drop pieces to create mentor sentence unscrambles. 

My digital mentor sentence drag and drops have three levels of difficulty:

  1. Examine the mentor sentence(s).
  2. Unscramble imitation sentence(s).
  3. Write original imitation sentence(s).
mentor-sentences

➡️ First, I want students to examine the mentor sentence in box #1, to notice what writing moves (a.k.a. “patterns”) the author is using, to identify them and break the sentence into its smaller parts. What types of sentences are used: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex? I ask students what they notice about the sentence, give them the opportunity to talk about it with each other and with me, and we label the parts, discussing why the writer might have written the sentence in that way. 

➡️ Next, as students are familiar with the various parts of the mentor sentence(s), in box #2, they drag and drop the pieces located to the right of the slide as well as punctuation, unscrambling them so that they match the pattern of the mentor sentence. 

➡️ Finally, in box #3, students write their own imitation sentences, making sure to use the same sentence types, phrases, and clauses, but substituting their own topics.

Wrapping Up

Thanks for reading! I hope you’re inspired to start or continue using imitation writing with mentor texts in your middle school or high school English classroom. Remember, progress over perfection. Start small, and build your students’ capacity to imitate beautiful writing. Eventually, they’ll be able to tackle whole paragraphs, if you want! Any questions? Please leave a comment and I’ll be happy to help!


Hey, if you loved this post, I want to be sure you’ve had the chance to grab a FREE copy of my guide to streamlined grading. I know how hard it is to do all the things as an English teacher, so I’m over the moon to be able to share with you some of my best strategies for reducing the grading overwhelm.

Click on the link above or the image below to get started!

grading-papers

Sharing is caring!

  • Share
  • Tweet

Category: Effective Teaching Strategies, English Language Arts, Technology in the Classroom

About Lindsay Ann

Lindsay has been teaching high school English in the burbs of Chicago for 18 years. She is passionate about helping English teachers find balance in their lives and teaching practice through practical feedback strategies and student-led learning strategies. She also geeks out about literary analysis, inquiry-based learning, and classroom technology integration. When Lindsay is not teaching, she enjoys playing with her two kids, running, and getting lost in a good book.

Related Posts

You may be interested in these posts from the same category.

presentation-skills

Teaching Effective Presentation Skills in English Language Arts Classrooms

poetic-devices

Understanding Poetic Devices: Personification, Alliteration, and More

top-classic-novels

20 Must-Read Classic Novels for High School Students

round-table-discussions

10 Reasons to Try Round Table Discussions

writing-prompts-for

101 Writing Prompts for all Levels of ELA

student-blogging

Everything You Wanted to Know About Student Blogging

chatgpt

Teachers, Open Your Eyes to OpenAI’s ChatGPT

Back from Break: Re-Establishing Rules & Routine in Classrooms

poems-to-teach

23 Poems to Teach in the Winter

analyzing-song-lyrics-2

Analyzing a Song – So Simple Every Student Can Do It

exit-tickets

Revolutionize Your EXIT TICKETS With These Easy-Peasy Tips

transition-words-in-an-essay

Improve Your Transition Words In An Essay Skills

Previous Post: «back-to-school-activities OMG! The best back to school activities ever!
Next Post: First Day of School: How to Plan for Success first-day-of-school»

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lisa

    January 16, 2022 at 9:23 am

    Hi Lindsay,
    Thank you so much for sharing your work. The link to the “mentor texts” in this sentence, ” I hope you’re inspired to start or continue using imitation writing with mentor texts in your middle school or high school English classroom,” is broken. I’m wondering if it could be fixed.
    Thought I’d let you know.

    Reply
    • Lindsay Ann

      January 16, 2022 at 11:11 am

      Hi Lisa,

      Thanks for letting me know! I’ve checked out the link and it appears that the post I linked to previously no longer exists. You’re welcome to browse the site, though – I find it useful: https://movingwriters.org/

      I hope all is well with you!
      Lindsay

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Step Up Your Active Voice in Writing - Lindsay Ann Learning English Teacher Blog says:
    May 31, 2022 at 8:44 am

    […] of practice to get the hang of using active voice in writing. Gallery walks of student writing, mentor sentences written by expert authors, modeling revising sentences written in passive voice in your own […]

    Reply
  2. Top 10 Grammar Mistakes High School Students Make (and what to do instead) - Lindsay Ann Learning English Teacher Blog says:
    October 9, 2022 at 3:11 pm

    […] When I’m planning the scope and sequence of grammar lessons in my classroom, I consider two things: common grammar mistakes and what grammar and syntax moves I see published writers using in mentor texts.  […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Join me in the pursuit of engaged, dynamic classroom learning!

I’ve created a FREE guide with 20 of my best strategies for streamlined grading to help English teachers like you have more time to do what you love.

Get the Guide!

Categories

Latest Products

  • Late Work Submission Google Form $3.00
  • Rhetorical Devices Activities for Google Drive & Print $4.00
  • Distance Learning Google Form Student Survey $3.00
  • Creative Writing Prompts Choice Boards $3.00
  • Slam Poetry Condensed Unit for Distance Learning $7.00

Site Footer

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2023 Lindsay Ann Learning English Teacher Blog · Privacy · All Rights Reserved

83 shares