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I'm moving along in the biography writing workshop I'm conducting with fifth graders. One of my favorite writing tools to stress is "show, don't tell." Listen to some of the befores and afters of the students' work that was a result of revision after discussing "show, don't tell" (I swear that these are actual examples):

Before: Jason loved baseball.
After: As soon as Jason got home from school, he dashed back to his room to grab his baseball mitt, then hurried to meet his friends in the vacant lot next door.

Before: Her favorite subject was history.
After: She especially loved hearing stories about the past and how places were discovered.

Before: His favorite subject was geography.
After: He loved it when the teacher whacked her pointer on the map, pointing out countries and rivers.

Before: John loved to go to the Cape every summer with his family.
After: John counted the days until his family would load the beach chairs and boogie boards into the car and head for the Cape.

And my personal favorite:
Before: He hated doing chores, like vacuuming, washing dishes or raking.
After: He groaned when he had to vacuum. He whined when he had to wash dishes. He grumbled when he had to rake.

I started day one of a four-day biography writing workshop with fifth graders yesterday. The kids interview someone (usually a parent or grandparent), then we spend the next few days converting facts into a creative nonfiction story.

I've been doing this workshop for over ten years and have a collection of student writing that is wonderful.

Check out these opening lines from past biographies (keep in mind - fifth graders here):

"Thwack jump 47. Thwack jump 48. Thwack jump 49. Sherry was a born jump roper. Ever since she was born, August 8, 1949, Sherry had been an active child."

"Stroke, stroke. Dab, dab. An artist was at work. A masterpiece was being painted. Sonia *** had a passion for art."

"Nice new asphalt and not a car in sight. Perfect for playing ball, bicycling and marching baby strollers up and down the street." [After we talked about showing setting]

And my personal favorite: "Patricia *** was born in the middle of March of 1957 and was the middle of five. She slept in the middle bunk, played in the middle of the street and loved the middle of summer."

I mean, come on! Pretty great, huh? That last one was written by a very macho, hockey-playing boy who told me he loved to write.

I have had this book by for a few weeks now. I know I won't have time to read it cover to cover until summer, but I have spent a lot of time with it over the last few weeks and I wanted to share. MENTOR TEXTS by Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli is a great book for K-6 teachers who run a writing workshop. It is a big book--almost 300 pages. The authors know writing and they know books well. When I started writing workshop years ago, the two books that had the biggest impact on my teaching were WHAT A WRITER NEEDS by Ralph Fletcher and LASTING IMPRESSIONS by Shelley Harwayne. Both of these books helped me to see the power that books could have for the writers in my classroom. The authors of MENTOR TEXTS builds upon these same ideas and shares more ideas for using great literature as part of writing workshop.

Some things I like about the book:
The writing is amazing. You can tell that the two authors are great writers so, as a reader, I really trusted what they had to say about writing workshop.
The book is organized in ways that helped me think about books in different ways.
Samples from students and excerpts from children's books help us to see exactly what the authors are talking about when they share different texts.
Lots of lesson ideas are woven throughout the book.
An amazing book list shares lots of books that are current and provide a great resource for teacher.

I am really excited to spend more time with this book before next fall. I know that it is going to be one that is tabbed and marked up and that I will go back to it throughout the year. I am excited to discover new books and new ways to think about how they may help mentor the writers in our classroom.