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Audible. Jeff has been sharing writing strategies with teachers and students for over 30 years. Whether presenting at national conferences like NCTE, ASCD, or in classrooms or writing his books for teachers or middle grade readers, Jeff’s passion for writing and grammar inspires teachers and young writers to soar.
- Professional Books
Join Jeff Anderson, with Travis Leech and Melinda Clark, as...
- Staff Development
Meaning is made when reading and writing crash together in...
- Teacher Extras
WANT EVEN MORE? Extra materials for Teachers FANBOYS are the...
- Fiction for Kids
Check out Jeff’s new middle grade humorous fiction! ... and...
- News
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- Jeff Anderson Old
Jeff has been sharing writing strategies with teachers and...
- Professional Books
- Who Should Teach with Mentor Sentences?
- Why Are Mentor Sentences A Best Practice?
- What Is Different About Mentor Sentences?
- When Do You Teach The Mentor Sentence Routine?
- Where Should Students Keep Their Mentor Sentences?
Teachers who are tired of grammar lectures, Powerpoints, and drill-and-kill worksheets that don’t actually transfer to writing should absolutely throw all of that out and jump headfirst into the mentor sentence routine. Teachers who enjoy using mentor texts to cover content and maximize teaching time will love adding mentor sentences to their toolb...
Grammar should be taught in context, NOT isolation. Studies like this onehave shown that the “traditional method” of grammar workbooks, lectures, and diagramming is not only ineffective but can be detrimental to student writing! Mentor sentences also check ALL the boxes of the language comprehension strands in Scarborough’s Reading Rope, 100% suppo...
The daily class discussions around language are when the students are going to learn the MOST. This is why mentor sentences should never be solely “independent work” or “morning work.” The engagement in those conversations is what will give many students a “lightbulb moment” and help those skills transfer to writing. This also means the lessons dif...
I suggest incorporating mentor sentences into your writing time, as it should be directly connected to their writing. It should also replace your grammar-in-isolation lesson. Also, it will sometimes replace your style and conventions mini-lessons that you teach during writing time. For this reason, I like to START writing time with the mentor sente...
Students should complete their mentor sentence work in a notebook. This becomes a perfect “living resource” to use during writing time. It will contain a collection of amazing sentences, skill practice, and sentence structure practice that they can apply to their own writing. Visit this post to see suggestions of setting up student notebooks.
Dec 3, 2020 · “I just read Jeff Anderson’s ‘Patterns of Power’ and adapted his ideas for my students’ sentence imitation lessons. I can’t wait until his secondary book for mentor sentences is ...
Here's a sentence from T.C. Boyle's book Tortilla Curtain. This is a great mentor sentence because it uses language richly, and in a way that most high school students will notice if their attention is drawn to it. However, students likely won't write in this way on their own. When I use mentor sentences in my classroom, first I ask students ...
- Missy Davis
Sep 27, 2013 · Using Mentor Sentences to Improve Grammar and Mechanics. During the last professional development session that I did with the middle school teachers language arts teachers, we dove head first into a book titled, Mechanically Inclined, by Jeff Anderson. One word: AMAZING.
Jeff Anderson says in his book, Mechanically Inclined, “Mechanics and grammar are inherently linked to craft… instead of separating them into different lessons, they should be merged whenever possible.” Check out more books from Jeff Anderson about mentor sentences here!
