January 19, 2015 Using Mentor Texts in the Classroom

The mentor text that I chose to examine is a book review from the New York Times of Alexandra Fuller’s ‘Leaving Before the Rains Come’.  The review gives an introduction to the genre of the novel, which is a memoir, as well as some examples of other books and authors of a similar style.  It also introduces the author, tells a bit about her life, background, and some of her other works, and gives a synopsis of the story.   

The book review is an excellent method for teaching students to think critically about the material they are reading.  It is a wonderful method for assessing the depth of understanding  which students may reach while reading, as well as a diagnostic assessment of what they might be struggling with.  Showing a mentor text of a review as a pre-reading activity can assist students in identifying what details and facts to look for and pay particular attention to so that they might get the most out of their reading.  Assigning a review activity after reading can be used as an effective evaluation tool to assess how students interact with and perceive the text.  The reviews should demonstrate the importance of not just re-telling the story or narrative, but of critically analyzing its style, meaning, purpose, and value as a literary work.  Every student will take something different away from the reading and their reviews will also act as an insight into their own particular experience and perspective.   

The book review can also be used to demonstrate the importance of audience.  This particular review appears in the New York Times, where the general audience tend to share certain demographic similarities.  The use of multiple reviews of the same text but for different entities (ie. the New York Times vs an online blog) could be extremely useful to demonstrate the way audience may shape or change style and content.  This could also lend itself to a lesson on proper writing conventions and the use of formal vs informal language.