Closing Thoughts Reading and writing are mutually supportive language processes. Separating themmakes about as much sense as separating talking and listening. Fortunately, our more rigorous new standards call for the integration of the language arts, challenging us to find ways to invite our students to benefit from the full power of language: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Ruth Culham (2014), a former children’s librarian who has long advocated the use of mentor texts to teach writing, reminds us, “Just think of what reading brings into the writer’s life. With mentor texts and a good teacher guiding them, student writers can learn the following: • Where ideas come from and how they play out • How an idea develops and moves seamlessly from beginning to end • How the writer casts a spell over the reader that lasts long after the last page is turned • How words and phrases are used to create deep meaning and understanding • How sentences sound and flow to serve to underscore the importance of different elements of the idea • How conventions are used to help the reader navigate the text • How the physical appearance of the writing is an open invitation to reading.”
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CHAPTER 5: TEACH
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