I just finished reading Because of Winn-Dixie by the amazing Kate DiCamillo. If you've read anything by Kate DiCamillo you know that her stories are worth reading to children of just about any age. If you need some convincing, here are some other ideas.
Because of Winn-Dixie is a recommended mentor text for use in Lucy Calkins writer's workshop Units of Study 3-5 series as a model of good leads in personal narrative writing. In addition to a great lead, you will find examples of great dialogue, showing not telling, inner thinking and other examples of writer's craft.
In the Teacher's College Writer's Workshop Model the use of mentor texts in the 3-5 or seconday grade bands typically go like this:
1. Read the story/text for enjoyment. On the spot or, ideally, at an earlier time for read aloud.
2. Tell your writers that you will now read as writers....noticing the writer's craft, or simply noticing what the writer does that make the writing interesting. It is best if you have the sample writing up on chart paper where they can see it and where you can highlight the writer's craft that you and your students notice.
3. Model your own thinking first. Read a selection of the text that is a clear example of good writing. Typically, it is best to select a selection that clearly demonstrates good use of dialogue, action, description, elaboration, showing not telling or telling the story step-by-step, or other writer's craft and qualties of good writing.
4. Often your think aloud will sound something like this: "Kate DiCamillo could have just said, 'I found a dog when I was at the grocery store.' But instead she elaborated and told us step-by-step what happened. " Highlight as you go and write the writer's craft on the side to remind students every day of the work real writers do.
5. You may have more than one text selection for students to practice reading as writers with or you might ask students to look for more writer's craft or dialogue in the same text example.
Authors as mentors is a great unit in the K-2 Lucy Calkin's Writer's Workshop Units of Study. For older students, we can create a unit it which we study one great author. Kate DiCamillo would be an excellent choice once you've read many of her books to your students.
Because of Winn-Dixie is also a global reading challenge book this year. If a team of students read all the global reading challenge books, they can participate in the challenge. Some students might be interested that so many other students are involved and enjoy having a reading challenge in your classroom.
Variation: Having a jeopardy-style challenge would be a motivating way for students to share verbal "book reports" after finishing books with their reading groups. Each team would have an expert of each book and the experts would be responsible to teach their teammates. Or this could be a fun way to celebrate after finishing a read aloud.
Lastly, as readers all of us seek out books by an author we like. This is a lesson we want to teach, notice and encourage among our students. What better way than to read them stories by authors we love, I'll start with Kate!
