Mentor Texts
I read in several "how to write" books to
try typing out picture books you love to see what they looked like as a
manuscript. Well, I dutifully ignored
this advice for a year.
I finally tried it with the following books a few
weeks ago:
Kitten's
First Full Moon - 264 words (By Kevin Henke, 2004)
Children
Make Terrible Pets - 372 words (By Peter Brown, 2010)
This
Moose Belongs to Me - 397 words (By Oliver Jeffers, 2012)
The
Boy Who Cried Ninja - 517 words (By Alex Latimer, 2011)
Here's what I learned:
Typing the text let's you really absorb it. Like
drinking it through a straw. I also
tried drinking it through a straw, but it required so much water to make the
pages slurpable that I really got a significant tummy ache and a severe case of
belching.
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| "Look Ma, I learned how to use mentor texts!" image by Cécile Graat via sxc.hu |
Typing it out (if you're a fast keyer) is much
better than counting all the words one by one. I can count to 1,000, really I can, but I'm lazy and easily
distracted so I often lose count or accidentally start counting sheep.
Parallel structures and repetition become clearer
once typed. Let yourself copy and paste when writing!
Word count reduction methods are easier to see -
such as by omitting dialogue tags, letting the illustrations work, and avoiding
"and," "or", "but." If you look at some of the typed text without any art notes or illustrations, you could imagine many things happening on that spread.
Richness and plot can be obtained in very few words. It's magical when it does.
How do you use mentor texts to learn the craft?
Reading aloud. Typing though definitely sounds like a cool way to get my brain to wake up, or think differently, even if it's just a few pages (especially with MG or YA). Although I could see myself typing out an entire book as a method of procrastination, I've done crazier things. :)
ReplyDeleteGood tip Coleen! Reading aloud makes you slow down. Procrastination is really an amazing art form.
DeleteI held off for a long time, too! But I relented like you, and it helps!
ReplyDeleteI have not tried the straw thing, but got some good laughs from your assessment :-)
Yeah, I should have tried a food processor perhaps.
DeleteA typed picture book really is a unique beast. It's making me rethink how I critique too.
It's like medicine. You dislike doing it, but you know it's good for you. What I do now is read the text while avoiding looking at the pictures. Then I do the reverse and look at the pictures to see what story I can form without reading the text. This helps me see the illustration-text relationship.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I like that approach. The short books aren't too bad, but I should try typing out a longer work. Maybe as punishment anytime I have a manuscript over 500 words :)
DeleteRetyping great PBs is a great idea. I'm going to have to give it a try.
ReplyDeleteOh, and thanks for the cautionary tale about the straws! I'll just type.
I've tried the osmosis method of just napping on a book, too. It's less dangerous than slurping, but not nearly as effective as typing.
DeleteIt's really helpful to type it all out in a block and then go back, marking in the page turns. I should do it more often!
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to word count, I always go to the Renaissance Learning site: http://www.renlearn.com/store/quiz_home.asp
Thank you so much for sharing that resource! Ame Dyckman shared Ren Learn in a training, but I never got around to bookmarking it. Yay!!
Delete