Sample Matching with Mentor Texts

In their book Knowing What Counts: Setting & Using Criteria, Kathleen Gregory, Caren Cameron, and Anne Davies highlight a strategy called Sample Match where students compare their own work to 2-3 exemplars of different levels to decide which is closest to their own work.  Students use a graphic organizer, like the one below, to compare their work to the closest sample in terms of the assignment criteria.

In Breanna's grade 4 Language Arts class, we adapted Sample Match to complement the Mentor Text Strategy we were using to help students learn about descriptive writing.  Our mentor text was a Mythbusters article (Are Elephants Really Afraid of Mice?) . . . here's what we did with it:

Our lesson prep.

1. We created a new version of the original article, replacing descriptive word choices with basic terms.
2. We developed two questions to help students focus their mentor text readings and observations: How can words pique my interest?  How can words make a picture in my mind? 
3. We placed the focus questions, 'bare bones' version, and the original article in Kelly Gallagher's Mentor Text graphic organizer format that asks What did the author do?:

'Bare Bones' Article:                                          

Original Article:

 

The lesson, itself.

1. Breanna introduced the focus questions -- the class discussed what the questions meant and what their learning goal for the day (choosing descriptive words).
2. Next, students received the 'bare bones' article.  Breanna read the first paragraph aloud as students highlighted the article for words that piqued their interest or made a picture in their mind. 
3. At the end of the first paragraph, Breanna asked students to record how the author used words to catch our attention or make pictures in our minds -- this was a personal response generated from the words each student highlighted.
4. Breanna continued to read the article paragraphs aloud, and students continued to highlight and analyze the author's word choice.
5. Next, students received the original article.  Breanna and the students repeated the reading/highlighting/analyzing process with the original article.

NOTE: We decided to keep the two article format secret -- when students were introduced to the first article, they had no idea there would be another version.  We wanted their full attention to be focused on finding words that piqued interest and formed pictures in their minds.

What we found.

We had some interesting conversations come up about word choice -- students seemed to understand how juicy words make a difference in writing:

• “I liked it when they said, lumbering giants”  Why did you like those words?  “Because they could have said ‘big elephants’.”
• "Territory is a strong word."
• “Instead of saying ‘started a rumour,’ it said ‘impressively persistent rumour.’”
• "It makes the reader interested because there's better word choice."

Students thought the adapted Sample Match Activity helped them to understand what makes good descriptive writing; some automatically compared their own writing to the samples without us having to prompt:

• “I think that, like, it’s really good how you guys made a second copy that’s way better, and a second copy that is way better than the first one.  So then that teaches us to make more descriptive writing than, just, not that good of writing, and put better words and descriptions.”  So we should do more of that?  Sample A versus Sample B?  “Yeah.”   
• “Like, I was looking at the one, and I’m like, ‘Wow, I can write a better story than this.’  But then you guys handed out the two, and I’m like, ‘Wow, this is way better!’” 
• “And we had two of those [articles] and it helped us learn which one was better and which one was not so good.  Like when the first one had not very good words but it was okay, and the other one had good description words and stuff.”  Did that help you or confuse you when you saw the two examples?  “It helped me a lot.”  How did it help?  “To try to make my words better and bigger.”  

For more information on Mentor Texts, check out Kelly Gallagher's book Write Like This.  Also, for more information on strategies for setting and using criteria in the classroom, take a peek at  Knowing What Counts: Setting & Using Criteria by Kathleen Gregory, Caren Cameron, and Anne Davies.

By Terra Kaliszuk

terra.kaliszuk@blackgold.ca