Mentor Texts & Publication Resources

SOCIAL COMMENTARIES

1. "Bullying: Why Zero-Tolerance Policies Don't Work" by Andrew Zack (Commentary)
2. "Social Media Can Be Deadly" by Leonard Pitts Jr. (Commentary)
3. "It's Not Just the Guns, It's the Person" by Mitch Albom (Commentary)
4. "Invisible Child--Girl in the Shadows: Dasani's Homeless Life" by Andrea Elliot
5. The Hidden Scars All Refugees Carry
6. Six Myths About Suicide Every Parent and Educator Should Know
7. Rape and Injustice: A Letter to My Daughter

POETRY

1. "Vernal Sentiment" a poem by Theodore Roethke
2. "Repetition" by Phil Kaye (Spoken Word)
3. "With Poetic Intensity, Kevin Powers Tackles the Terror of War" by Abigail Deutsch (NPR)
4. "New York City in 17 Syllables" Haiku Writing
5. "Solitude" by Margaret Gibson (Notebook Time: Poem)
6. "Back Road" by Bruce Guernsey (poem)
7. "Ross: Children of the Ghetto" by George Szirtes (poem)
8. "The snow's/feet slip" by Marty Walsh
9. "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke
10. Creed

PERSONAL ESSAYS

2019

1. I Changed My Body for a Sport Related Video: I Was the Fastest Runner in the World Until I Joined Nike

2016

1. "My Mother's Death Cured My Anxiety" by Eliza Berman (memoir)
2. "Find a Good Frog" by Delia Motavalli (This I Believe)
3. "The Triumph of Kindness" by Josh Stein(This I Believe)
4. "Accomplishing Big Things in Small Pieces" by William Wissemann (This I Believe)
5. "The Beatles Live On" by Macklin Levine (This I Believe)
6. "Finding the Flexibility to Survive" by Brighton Earley (This I Believe)
7. "Inner Strength from Desperate Times" by Jake Hovenden (This I Believe)
8. Theme Songs... Celia Rivenbark
9. Drawn to Water JoAnne Silvia
10. My Mother's Last Receipt
11. The Flavors that Unite Syrians
12. Sympathy for the Donald
13. Steph Curry, the Prophet of Basketball
14. The Life of Reilly
15. The Ugly Truth About Beauty (Tedtalk Beach Bodies in Spoken Word) Beach Body poem by Marge Piercy Student Letter to Editor of Seventeen magazine
16. All Parents Are Cowards

EDITORIALS

1. "Parental Involvement Is Overrated" by Keith Robinson Angel L. Harris
2. To Get to Harvard, Go to Haiti?
3. Leaked! Harvard's Grading Rubric
4. Student Letter to Editor of Seventeen magazine
5. Can Writing Be Taught?
6. Why Kids Can't Write
7. Can Writing on a College Entrance Exam Be Properly Graded?
8. To Complain Is to Be Truly Alive
9. Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?
10. Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?

Photography Journalism

3 Questions on Designing High School, USA Magazine with link to Magazine

Photo Essay: Inside Santa Monica High

Social Issues

Letter: Glenn Becket's Empathy (Black Lives Matter link in letter also)

Letter: Diversity Training for Students (with link to article)

The Immigrants Turned Away

Seeing Orange: What Caught Commenters' Eyes About a Small Boy in a Big Chair Photo Editors’ Notebook: What Makes the Image of Omran Daqneesh

Principal: ‘Money matters. Race matters. Grit talk makes me angry.’

Political Cartoons

How Cartoonists Dealt With 9/11

BLOGS

Anything Is Possible!

Courage of a Quiet Teen from Susan Cain's Quiet Blog

Forbes List of Best Teen Blogs (Financial Literacy)

Top Ten Bloggers 18 and Younger

Red Lines and Highlights

EXCERPTS FROM NOVELS

1. Me Talk Pretty One Day (narrative writing)

MISCELLANEOUS

1. University of Alabama Sports Revenue
2. "How Much Does It Cost to Be Batman in Real Life?" by Sarah Ang (Infographic)
3. "The Science of Raising Happy Kids" by happify.com (infographic)
4. "Obama Spends Another Night Searching Behind White House Paintings for Safes" (source: The Onion, a spoof news source)
5. "Connecticut Teenager with Cancer Loses Court Fight to Refuse Chemotherapy" by Elizabeth A. Harris
6. "Save Us from the SAT" by Jennifer Finney Boylan (great opinion piece)
7. Sam Tanenhaus Interview
8. "Child's Play" by Reeves Wiederman (re: Venus and Serena Williams's father)
9. "Facebook Fandom Map 2015"
10. "Life in the 30's" by Anna Quindlen (Notebook Time-Sentence)
11. "How Much Snow It Typically Takes to Cancel School in the U.S." by Eleanor Barkhorn (Notebook Time: Raw Data)
12. "Rise and Shine: What Kids Around the World Eat for Breakfast" by Hannah Whitaker and Malia Wollen (Notebook Time: Image)
13. "How Teens Read: The Kids are Alright" by Delano Scott and Daniel Vecchitto
14. America's Top Breed: How Dogs Have Changed Over Time (example of research essay)
15. Helping the Homeless: One Song at a Time
16. My Youth in 27 Records
17. Out of High School and In to Real Life

ADDITIONAL MENTOR TEXTS RESOURCES:

Story Corps

Quiet Revolution Mentor Texts

Quiet Black Girls: How Do We Fail Them?

more from Quiet Revolution Site

Multigenre Writing

Multigenre Papers

Sleep No More

About Writing

When Writer's Block Isn't

How to Write

PUBLICATION RESOURCES

1. Scholastic Writing Contests
2. Writer's Digest
3. Poets & Writers
4. Young Writer's Magazine (under construction, but open to reading students' prior submissions)