Using the Mentor Texts as the Basis for our Rubric
I wanted to use mentor texts (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2009; Calkins, 1994) as the basis for
our criteria for our rubric for persuasive reviews because I believe that real literature by real
authors should be used in writing workshop in order for students to learn what good writing
entails. As they study real authors they can begin to see elements that authors use for various
genres. They can also learn how different authors incorporate different elements into their
writing, hopefully transferring some of those elements or styles into their own. I spent three
days reading books that were persuasive texts: Earrings (Viorst,1990), My Brother Dan’s
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reading each book I explained that the character was trying to persuade someone to do allow
them to do something, like get their ears pierced, or get something, like an Iguana or a new
room. We discussed what they wanted and who they were trying to persuade. We also
discussed whether they were successful in getting what they wanted. My research journal
reflections state: “The kids loved the illustrations in Orloff and Catrow’s books. Only a handful
of girls liked the Earrings book. I was surprised; I thought that more would. Catrow’s
illustrations and humor definitely were the favorites of the entire class” (Taylor, 2013). Alex,
the main character, tries to persuade his mom and dad he needs a new room; once his little sister
was born, he had to move into a room with his little brother, so he writes various letters stating
why. One excerpt from my research journal, dated 5/ 20/13, shows some of the discussion that
took place:
Teacher: (Referring to one of the pages; they were not numbered) What reason did Alex give
his dad for wanting his old room back?
Student 1: His brother sticks crayons up his nose….
Student 2: And he barks like a walrus…
Student 3: And he snores like a grandpa!
Teacher: Would you want to share a room with a brother who did those things? (Kids talk
amongst themselves about that idea.) He gave his father lots of good reasons didn’t he?
One of the children’s favorites of the four books I read was I Wanna Iguana (Orloff,
2004). Alex, the main character is trying to convince his mom that he should get his friend’s
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him have it and she replies with an answer for each of his reasons. On one of the pages he tells
his mom how responsible he will be; in taking care of it. We talked about how he made
promises about what he would do if he got one. The main character in Earrings (Layne, 2003)
did the same thing; she promised her parents how responsible she would be if they let her have
earrings. These discussions led students to think about how people sometimes make promises
when trying to persuade. When students studied the books on their own, one of the ideas they
came up with was: Make promises to other people on our elements of persuasive writing chart.
In order to create the criteria for the rubric, I divided the class into four groups. I gave
each group one of the books we had read together and asked them to look the book over and list
the ways the main character tried to persuade the mom, dad or monster, in the case of My
Brother Dan’s Delicious (Layne, 2003). Each group made a poster with the ways. They
identified things the character did and said to persuade. One group also discovered things like
using exclamation points and capital letters to show strong emotion. Together as a class, we
made a list of elements of persuasive writing, based on their findings. It included eleven
elements: state what your opinion is in the beginning, give lots of positive reasons why, give
specific examples to go with your reasons, choose interesting persuasive words. use ! and capital
letters when appropriate but be nice about it, show how other people like it or have it , make
promises if appropriate, restate your opinion, exaggeration may be appropriate, comparing might
get your point across. Some of these ideas were generated by the students, some by me, and
some were generated by the students, with my help in putting their ideas into words. I typed up
our chart (Appendix G). For the purpose of this study, I wanted to reflect on who had generated
the idea; the students, both of us or me. I looked at each of the ideas and coded them with a
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is an idea that the students talked about and then I put it into words. A ‘T’ means that it was all
my idea. Excerpts below show how some of our ideas made it on the chart:
Student: Alex gave lots of reasons why he wanted a new room.
Teacher: So we could say that in order to persuade someone you need to have lots of reasons?
Students: shook head ‘yes.’ (I wrote on chart: Give lots of reasons.)
One group noticed that in their book the author used a lot of exclamation points and capital
letters to show strong emotion. When they shared what they had found with the whole class,
our conversation went like this:
Student 1: There were a lot of excitement marks.
Students 2: There were capital letters when Alex got really mad at his brother.
Teacher: Let’s find that page in the book (looks for page). Exclamation points show that you
are excited about something – or really upset or really angry or really want something, right?
And capital letters show that you are speaking really loudly like in our book, (as I yelled the
words): THIS IS YOUR SIDE OF THE ROOM. THIS IS MY SIDE OF THE ROOM. STAY