In Writing with Mentors, high school teachers Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell prove that the key to cultivating productive, resourceful writers-writers who can see value and purpose for writing beyond school-is using dynamic, hot-off-the-press mentor texts. In this practical guide, they provide savvy strategies for:--finding and storing fresh new mentor texts, from trusted traditional sources to the social mediums of the day --grouping mentor texts in clusters that show a diverse range of topics, styles, and approaches --teaching with lessons that demonstrate the enormous potential of mentor texts at every stage of the writing process.

Part of a year-long curriculum of units about primary writing

"My hope is that More About the Authors will help you see how shifting your thinking about mentors can make such a difference in your teaching." -Lisa Cleaveland This is not your typical book on mentor texts. Lisa Cleaveland will show you why in her classroom authors and illustrators do the mentoring, not their texts. While this may seem like mere semantics, it's actually a singularly powerful instructional shift. "Books don't make themselves," writes Lisa, "authors and illustrators do, and my students know this because they make books too." About the Authors introduced tens of thousands of teachers to Lisa's primary writing workshop. Now she shares what she considers the most crucial aspect of her teaching. "When authors and illustrators are mentors, you teach students more about how to learn from their mentors than what to learn." With Lisa you'll: engage children by helping them discover mentor authors connect writers to the curriculum as they notice and name the moves their mentors make plan powerful units of study around mentor authors position students to mentor one another. Along the way, Lisa illustrates the effectiveness of this approach with full-color examples of students' work as well as transcripts of a question-and-answer session between her writers and famed children's author and illustrator Marla Frazee. You'll see firsthand how closely examining a mentor's work can lead little ones to big insights about writing. "What I have realized," writes Lisa Cleaveland, "is that it's all about finding mentors for writing and illustrating." Find out just how powerful this slight shift in thinking can be as you find out More About the Authors.

It's been a decade since Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli wrote the first edition of Mentor Texts and helped teachers across the country make the most of high-quality children's literature in their writing instruction. In the second edition of this important book Lynne and Rose show teachers how to help students become confident, accomplished writers by using literature as their foundation. The second edition includes brand-new "Your Turn Lessons," built around the gradual release of responsibility model, offering suggestions for demonstrations and shared or guided writing. Reflection is emphasized as a necessary component to understanding why mentor authors chose certain strategies, literary devices, sentence structures, and words. Lynne and Rose offer new children's book titles in each chapter and in a carefully curated and annotated Treasure Chest. At the end of each chapter a "Think About It--Talk About It--Write About It" section invites reflection and conversation with colleagues. The book is organized around the characteristics of good writing--focus, content, organization, style, and conventions. Rose and Lynne write in a friendly and conversational style, employing numerous anecdotes to help teachers visualize the process, and offer strategies that can be immediately implemented in the classroom. This practical resource demonstrates the power of learning to read like writers.

“The highest achievers share some of their lowest moments, and there is much wisdom to be gained from those struggles. Captivating, thought-provoking.” —David Faber, CNBC The path to success is rarely easy or direct, and good mentors are hard to find. In Getting There, thirty leaders in diverse fields share their secrets to navigating the rocky road to the top. In an honest, direct, and engaging way, these role models describe the obstacles they faced, the setbacks they endured, and the vital lessons they learned. They dispense not only essential and practical career advice, but also priceless wisdom applicable to life in general. Getting There is for everyone—from students contemplating their futures to the vast majority of us facing challenges or seeking to reach our potential. “Kudos to Gillian Zoe Segal for assembling this remarkable group of visionaries and helping them all tell their stories without filters or false bravado. Getting There is both empowering and illuminating.” —Piper Kerman, New York Times-bestselling author of Orange Is the New Black “Life-changing, real-world advice.” —Vanity Fair “Reading Getting There is like having an intimate, one-on-one talk with some of the world’s most fascinating and accomplished people. You will be taken aback by their honesty, entertained by their anecdotes, and, most of all, learn invaluable lessons about both business and life. This book is fantastic—you will not be able to put it down!”—JJ Ramberg, bestselling author of It’s Your Business “Somehow, Gillian Zoe Segal has gotten these leaders to share their stories in a unique, authentic, and revealing way.” —Robert Steven Kaplan, former president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Russell Brand explores the idea of mentoring and shares what he's learned from the guidance of his own helpers, heroes and mentors. Could happiness lie in helping others and being open to accepting help yourself? Mentors – the follow up to the New York Times bestseller Recovery – describes the benefits of seeking and offering help. "I have mentors in every area of my life, as a comic, a dad, a recovering drug addict, a spiritual being and as a man who believes that we, as individuals and the great globe itself, are works in progress and that through a chain of mentorship we can improve individually and globally, together . . . One of the unexpected advantages my drug addiction granted is that the process of recovery that I practise includes a mentorship tradition. "I will encourage you to find mentors of your own and explain how you may better use the ones you already have. Furthermore, I will tell you about my experiences mentoring others and how invaluable that has been on my ongoing journey to self-acceptance and how it has helped me to transform from a bewildered and volatile vagabond to a (mostly) present and (usually) focussed husband and father."—Russell Brand Mentors: How to Help and Be Helped describes the impact that a series of significant people have had on the author – from the wayward youths he tried to emulate growing up in Essex, through the first ex-junkie sage, to the people he turns to today to help him be a better father. It explores how we all – consciously and unconsciously – choose guides, mentors and heroes throughout our lives and examines the new perspectives they can bring.

Edited and with a contribution by Elizabeth Benedict, thirty of today's brightest literary lights turn their attention to the question of mentorship and influence. For Denis Johnson, it was Leonard Gardner's cult favorite Fat City; for Jonathan Safran Foer, it was an encounter with Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai; Mary Gordon's mentors were two Barnard professors, writers Elizabeth Hardwick and Janice Thaddeus, whose lessons could not have been more different. In Mentors, Muses & Monsters, edited and with a contribution by Elizabeth Benedict, author of the National Book Award finalist Slow Dancing, thirty of today's literary stars discuss the people, events, and books that have transformed their lives. When Joyce Carol Oates describes her public-rivalry-turned-wary-professional-acquaintanceship with Donald Barthelme, we are privy to the sight of one of today's most important writers being directly affected by another influential writer. When Sigrid Nunez reveals what it was like to be Susan Sontag's protégé, we get a glimpse into the private life and working philosophy of a formidable public intellectual. And when Jane Smiley describes her first year at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1974, she offers an intimate portrait of a literary milieu of enduring significance for American literature. Rich, thought-provoking, and often impassioned, these pieces illuminate not only the anxiety but the necessity of influence—and also the treasures it yields.