Biography & Memoir as Mentor Texts Collabisode: Nonfiction Series Part 4 [S5 E119]
Listen to the full episode below:
For part four of our nonfiction series, we’re looking at using biography and memoir as mentor texts. You’ll hear how we define and use mentor texts in our own classroom. We’ll also give you some specific mentor texts that we recommend using, and our reasoning behind those texts.
Since we love a good collabisode, we’ve also crowdsourced some great ideas from our colleagues and friends. They will be sharing their favorite biography and memoirs to use as mentor texts, how it provides a powerful teaching moment, and what students can do with that mentor text.
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Here are some of our favorite mentor text recommendations:
Hear more recommendations from our friends and colleagues:
From left to right: Beth Hall, Meredith Dobbs, and Caitlin Mitchell.
Beth Hall:
Beth is from Vilonia, AR and teaches AP Lang, College English (concurrent credit), Honors English 10, Honors English 11.
In her AP Language and Composition class, she has read several shorter works of nonfiction in order to help her juniors prepare for their AP Lang exam. One of her favorite biography/memoir to use is a speech by Sonia Sotomayor called a Latina Judge’s Voice. This is a great option if you’re looking for something relatively short that you could connect to a unit about identity.
You can connect with Beth @CoachHallWrites on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and TPT, or on her website at coachhallwrites.com.
Meredith Dobbs:
Meredith is from Dallas, TX and teaches Dual Credit Composition and Dual Credit World Literature (11th and 12th grade).
Meredith has loved using the memoir An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography of Paul Rusesabagina in her classroom. This is a text you can connect to topics such as the Holocaust and civil disobedience. At the very end of this memoir, he goes into his reflection, which she uses as an example ending to a personal narrative essay.
Connect with Meredith on Instagram or TpT. You can also join her High School English Teachers Group on Facebook or check out her website.
Caitlin Mitchell:
Caitlin is from Bay Area, California and has taught High School and Middle School English for 10 years.
One of her favorite autobiography mentor texts is Gary Soto’s The Pie. This is from his collection of autobiographical essays called “A Summer Life”. This mentor text teaches students to use vivid imagery in their narrative writing. In this episode, Caitlin walks you step by step through a mini-lesson on imagery.
You can connect with Caitlin on Instagram, YouTube, TpT, or her website. You can also listen to her podcast, the Teaching Middle School ELA Podcast.
Resources:
Sign up for our virtual workshop on Teaching Memoir & Biography
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