To write your own literary essay
Please...think beyond your traditional view of using literature when you look over these lesson. Don't avoid these great lessons just because you don't teach the great books that serve as their mentor texts. Excerpts from larger works make superb writing lessons that can be considered use-able by any teacher.
Posts about literary essay written by Rebekah O'Dell
Mentor Texts: Literature-inspired Lessons - WritingFix
As we built these popular collections through our work with teachers during workshops, we kept asking ourselves, "What else could serve as a mentor text for a writing lesson?" The idea of using great literature to inspire a skill-based writing lesson is the thought that built the lesson collection housed on this page.
Mentor Texts: Literature-inspired ..
The lessons on this page can certainly be used during teaching units based on any of the great novels featured below. But think beyond that too. Most of these lessons here can be used without having to read the entire text being cited, so the lessons are appropriate for both the college bound and the non-college bound. The Tale of Two Cities lesson, for example, focuses students just on the writing style in the famous first paragraph from Dickens' novel; teaching this writing lesson requires no further reading of the novel. But might just using the lesson well with a non-college bound student inspire him/her to someday pick up the book and read it independently? And couldn't a fifth grade teacher use the lesson well, piquing the interest early on of a student who may someday be assigned the entire work in high school?
