Teaching writing craft and grammar through mentor texts

Writing Workshop
Using mentor texts to teach
writing and grammar.
Amia Kimoy Conrad- Christopher

Workshop Objectives
Teachers will demonstrate an
understanding of:
• Mentor texts and its use in teaching
grammar and writing.
• Story maps to write stories

Genre
• Expository
• Narrative
• Persuasive
• Reflective

Structure
A writer’s
purpose
affects:
Language
Purpose

How do we create tasks?
• We set a purpose – what is the purpose for
writing? To inform, to clarify, to explain, to
entertain?
• The purpose decides the language-
• to inform will use what type of language? Formal
or informal? Why?
• To inform, clarify or explain will use what type of
language?

Checklist
• What is the purpose of the task?
• Can your students write according to the purpose- to inform, to clarify
or to explain, to entertain?
• Can it lend itself to a sequenced exposition of events?
• Who is the audience?
• Can it be factual, can it be formal, lend itself to a narrative?
• Does it lend itself to report? Does the child have sufficient information
on the who, what, where, when, how? Can you write a story?
• Will it motivate students to write?
• Will it motivate your students to write a story?

Story Elements
Setting
Characters
Plot
Conflict
Resolution
Point of View
Theme
Climax
Rising action

Exposition: This is the beginning of the story. The setting,
characters, and background information are introduced.
Rising Action: The author introduces the conflict or problem that
the character(s) must attempt to solve. Complications are
introduced and the suspense builds.
Climax: The point of greatest interest or suspense in the story. It
is the turning point in the story where the action reaches its peak.
Falling Action: The characters are getting closer to solving the
conflict or problem.
Resolution: The conflict comes to an end or the problem is
solved.
Story Elements

Story Elements

What is a mentor text?
• Any text or piece of text that can teach a
writer about an aspect of writer’s craft,
from sentence structure to quotation marks
to “show don’t tell”.
• Sentence Stalking
• Story Elements

Using a mentor text to teach
writing
• King Log and King Stork
• Purpose: Examining writer’s craft through
a story.
• Interrogating the text and completing our
story map.
• Examining conventions, language use and
sentence structure

Setting
• Setting is the “where and
when” of a story. It is the time
and place during which the
story takes place.

Setting
Details that describe:
 Furniture
 Scenery
 Customs
 Transportation
 Clothing
 Dialects
 Weather
 Time of day
 Time of year
Time and place are where the action occurs

Characters
• The person,
animals, and
things
participating
in a story

Characters
• Protagonist and antagonist are used to
describe characters.
• The protagonist is the main character of the
story, the one with whom the reader
identifies. This person is not necessary
“good”.
• The antagonist is the force in opposition of
the protagonist; this person may not be
“bad” or “evil”, but he/she opposes the
protagonist in a significant way

Plot (definition)
• Plot is the organized
pattern or sequence of
events that make up a
story.
• Plot is the literary element
that describes the
structure of a story. It
shows arrangement of
events and actions within a
story.

Parts of aPlot
 Exposition - introduction; characters, setting
and conflict (problem) are introduced
 Rising Action- events that occur as result of
central conflict
 Climax- highest point of interest or suspense
of a story
 Falling Action - tension eases; events show
the results of how the main character begins
to resolve the conflict
 Resolution- loose ends are tied up; the
conflict is solved

Plot Diagram
2
1
3
4
5

1.Exposition
• This usually occurs at the beginning of a short
story. Here the characters are introduced. We
also learn about the setting of the story. Most
importantly, we are introduced to the main
conflict (main problem).

2. Rising Action
• This part of the story begins to develop the
conflict(s). A building of interest or suspense occurs
and leads to the climax. Complications arise

3. Climax
• This is the turning point of the story. Usually the
main character comes face to face with a conflict.
The main character will change in some way. This is
the most intense moment.

4. Falling Action
• Action that follows
the climax and
ultimately leads to
the resolution

5. Resolution
• The conclusion; all
loose ends are tied up.
• Either the character
defeats the problem,
learns to live with the
problem, or the problem
defeats the character.

Putting It All Together
1. Exposition
2. Rising Action
3. Climax
4. Falling Action
5. Resolution
Beginning of
Story
Middle of Story
End of Story

Diagram of Plot
Setting, characters,
and conflict are
introduced
Introduction
/ Exposition
Climax
Resolution

Conflict
Conflict is the dramatic struggle
between two forces in a story.
Without conflict, there is no plot.

Conflict
Conflict is a problem that must be solved;
an issue between the protagonist and
antagonist forces. It forms the basis of the
plot.
Conflicts can be external or internal
External conflict- outside force may be
person, group, animal, nature, or a
nonhuman obstacle
Internal conflict- takes place in a
character’s mind

Types of External
Conflict
Character vs Nature
Character vs Society
Character vs Character
Character vs Fate QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

Type of Internal Conflict
Character vs. Self

Special Techniques used ina Story
 Suspense- excitement, tension, curiosity
 Foreshadowing- hint or clue about what will happen
in story
 Flashback- interrupts the normal sequence of events
to tell about something that happened in the past
• Symbolism – use of specific objects or images to
represent ideas
• Personification – when you make a thing,
• idea or animal do something only humans do
• Surprise Ending - conclusion that reader
• does not expect

Point of View
• First Person Point of View- a
character from the story is telling the
story; uses the pronouns “I” and “me”
• Third Person Point of View- an
outside narrator is telling the story;
uses the pronouns “he”, “she”, “they”

Types of Third-Person
Point of View
• Third-Person Limited
• The narrator knows
the thoughts and
feelings on only ONE
character in a story.
• Third-Person
Omniscient
• The narrator knows the
thoughts and feeling of
ALL the characters in a
story.

Theme
The theme is the central, general
message, the main idea, the
controlling topic about life or people
the author wants to get across through
a literary work
To discover the theme of a story, think
big. What big message is the author
trying to say about the world in which
we live?
What is this story telling me about how
life works, or how people behave?Amia Kimoy Conrad- Christopher

The Theme is also
• the practical lesson ( moral) that we
learn from a story after we read it. The
lesson that teaches us what to do or
how to behave after you have learned
something from a story or something
that has happened to you.
Example: The lesson or teaching of the
story is be careful when you’re offered
something for nothing.

Other elements
• Grammar
• Mechanics
• Dialogue
• Creole

Grammar vs. Mechanics
• Grammar includes principles that
guide the structure of sentences and
paragraphs.
He likes to eat pizza, but I like
spaghetti.

Grammar vs. Mechanics
• Mechanics is how we punctuate to
achieve meaning (punctuation,
capitalization, paragraphing,
formatting).
“Let’s eat Grandma.”
“Let’s eat, Grandma.”

Syntax
• Examples of Syntactical Complexity
• Multiple subject: The deer and the beaver are walking toward the stream.
• Multiple object: The boy is carrying the fishing net and pail.
• Infinitive used as an object: The girl wanted to play her guitar.
• Gerund used as an object: He enjoys catching frogs.
• Compound Sentences: The man is trying to light a fire, but he doesn’t have enough
matches.
• Complex sentence: The girl e-mailed her family while sitting in the tent.
• Prepositional phrase: The frog jumped out of the stream.
• The girls sat on the log.
• The eagle soars over the trees.
• Relative clause: The camp leader is the man who started the fire.
• The younger sister is the girl that plays the guitar.
• The deer drinks from the stream, which flows through the
forest.

Principles We Know
• Construction of a Simple Sentence
Subject + Verb + stands on its own
• Construction of a Compound Sentence
Sentence, + Conjunction +
sentence.
Moving on…
Complex SentencesAmia Kimoy Conrad- Christopher

Independent clause
(Simple sentence)
Subject Verb

An Independent Clause
•Is a sentence
•Stands on its own
•Is perfectly fine as it is

But sometimes we want
more
 Pictures or images
 Information
 Specifics
 Description
So how do we add information to our
sentences without making run-on or
incorrect sentences?Amia Kimoy Conrad- Christopher

What you add to the sentence
• Can’t be a whole new sentence
• Can’t stand on its own— it must be…

Independent
This has a noun and a verb
Does it stand on its own?
Does it express a complete thought?
It’s Dependent

independent clause (sentence)
must lean on an

There are three basic
complex sentence patterns
• Add information at the beginning of a
sentence
• Add information in the middle of a
sentence
• Add information at the end of a sentence

, closing .
Beginning ,
,interrupting ,
Complex Sentences
The three basic patterns…

Planning for writing
• What do students know?
• What do they need to know?
• What is the end result
• How are you measuring they are reaching
there?
• What about the process approach and a
portfolio to track student’s work?

Thank you

Teaching writing craft and grammar through mentor texts

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