Kelly Gallagher – Write Like This Clinic
Introduction
As teachers we model concepts and activities for students’ everyday. In “Write Like This” Kelly
Gallagher reminds us to model writing to help students become successful writers. Students
learn best when the teacher models writing, while thinking out loud in front of them, just like we
model reading strategies.
Gallagher reminds us we are the best writer in the classroom and our students need to see us
work through the writing process to understand it isn’t always easy and never perfect in one
draft.
Gallagher presents three “core” beliefs in his book:
Read – Reading provides a knowledge base students can use in their writing
Analyze - Look at good examples (mentor text) of the writing you are asking students to do and
identify what works, why it is a good example
Emulate - Students will use the mentor text as a guide for their own writing
The keys to successful writing are:
1. Helping students understand and identify the purposes for writing
2. Teacher modeling the writing assignment in front of students talking through the process
3. Allowing students to read, analyze and emulate strong mentor text at their level
4. Write every day
His philosophy for writing divides writing into 6 distinct purposes and uses mentor texts to
develop writing skills.
The 6 purposes for writing:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Take a Stand or Propose a Solution
Inquire and Explore
Analyze and Interpret
Express and Reflect
Inform and Explain
Evaluate and Judge
Common Core Standard the clinic will focus on
The ideas presented in this strategy can be used across the content areas. This clinic has been
designed to demonstrate how this strategy can be used to meet one part of the Language Arts
common core standards for narrative writing. We selected this standard because we see it as the
key to good writing and critical thinking. We also felt students mastering this portion will be
successful in expressing themselves on district writing prompts, future written state assessments,
increasing their vocabulary and clearly articulating their thoughts and ideas in all forms of
written and verbal communication.
Writing Standard – Narrative Writing- Students will write a narrative to develop real or
imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and wellstructured event sequences.
Section D states
By 8th Grade – Students will use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and
sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.
Progression 5th Grade – Students will use concrete words and phrases, and sensory details to convey
experiences and events precisely.
 6th Grade – Students will use precise words and phrases, descriptive and sensory details
to convey experiences and events.
 7th Grade – Students will use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and
sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.
 8th Grade – Students will use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and
sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.
Express and Reflect – The writer
 Expresses or reflects on his or her own life and experiences
 Often looking backward in order to look forward
Gallagher’s book begins with the Express and Reflect purpose for writing. This purpose
provides excellent opportunities to teach students to write creatively using descriptive words,
event sequences, and relevant details.
We will focus on Expressive and Reflective Writing by starting out with the six-word
memoir (Pg. 25). It originated in SMITH Magazine (http://www.smithmag.net). Students
are asked to write their memoirs in exactly six words. Begin by sharing aloud to generate
discussion some of the following with your students:
6 Word Memoirs
Birth, childhood,
Adolescence, adolescence,
Adolescence, adolescence . . .
Big, little sister,
Stuck in the middle.
Painful nerdy kid,
Happy nerdy adult
Born bald. Grew hair.
Bald again.
Mistakes were made,
But smarter now
Five feet, but in your face.
My second grade teacher was right.
Sweet wife, good sonsI’m rich
Life was but a dream,
Merrily
Blogging is easy.
Writing is hard.
Afraid of everything.
Did it anyway
Learned reading, writing,
Forgot arithmetic
Can’t read all the time.
Bummer.
I didn’t skateboard
Nearly often enough
Made some good choices,
Got lucky.
Ten strikes against me,
Hit homerun.
Wife has cats.
Husband’s clothes furry.
Still have not learned to swim
Boys liked her.
She preferred books.
Never been kissed.
Don’t want to.
Can’t chew gum without blowing bubbles.
I’m ten, and have an attitude.
I colored outside the lines.
Ran away with the circus;
Never returned
Hockey is not just for boys
Friend.
Boyfriend.
Ex-boyfriend.
Friend.
Friend’s boyfriend.
Finally learned “weird” is a compliment.
Identify more with lyrics than people.
Day: average girl/boy
Night: gaming addict
Staining my clothes:
Spaghetti and chocolate.
Texting in class lost my phone.
Now always thinking
In six word phrases.
Late to school every single day.
It was an honest mistake,
Really.
Me plus brother equals total disaster.
She’s prettier,
But I have personality.
I don’t rock;
Guitar Hero
Lies.
Cold Pop Tart;
Messy hair,
Running late.
My life story: to be continued
Couldn’t sing
So played the drums.
Smoke detectors
Taught me to cook.
A purring cat makes everything better.
Guitar string snapped. I kept playing.
The Beatles really said it all.
My brain’s a box of crayons.
I miss when boys had cooties.
Tired of being the smart kid.
I always spell my name backwards. Hannah
I think in full, correct sentences.
School.
Soccer.
Sweat.
Rinse.
Homework.
Repeat.
Then share a few that you’ve written:
Started a family, surrounded by boys
Read a book; smarter than yesterday
A little nervous about teaching today
Hope you learn a lot today
Then ask your students to draft their own versions:
If they can’t come up with anything suggest they use this as a start:
All things considered I’m doing __________.
I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised how quickly students embrace the six-word memoir.
Kids that never wrote before will be successful with this.
Once students have mastered this you can have them write six-word memoirs for anyone
that they’ve read about. It can be a character in a book, an explanation of a scientific or
mathematical equation and a person in history.
Work Space to write your own six-word memoir(s).
From 6 words to 140 Characters (Pg. 26)
Gallagher uses a progression of writing activities to build up a student’s understanding of a given
writing style leading them to a larger expressive piece of writing. To combine writing with
students’ interest in social media the next activity will use the format of a Twitter message to
help students continue to refine their thoughts of expression using words that show exact actions
and detailed meaning. Twitter messages help students achieve the standard targets of effective
use of precise, descriptive, sensory language.
When using this in the classroom begin by making sure all students understand that a Twitter
message is composed of 140 characters (letters, numbers, punctuation and spaces). We
have included a graphic organizer to use that will allow the students to count the characters in
their message. You can also use a computer and a word document at the bottom of the document
click on “words” to see character count with spaces. There are also several fake tweet website
students can use (but be warned they don’t always limit them to 140 characters) and are
sometimes blocked by tech support. You could even create a class twitter feed and allow the
students to practice on the real thing. There are also websites that will tell you how to print out
an entire twitter feed so if you have the students tweet to a class feed you can then print and
discuss as a group.
The following activity could be used to continue to build students competence in personal
expressive and reflective writing.
Memoir Tweets:
Step One: Pose the question or state the topic you would like students to respond or Tweet
about: Summer Memories
Step Two: Show students some Tweets on the subject. Sometimes you will need to create the
mentor text (in this case tweets) if you can’t find any on your topic. Twitter can be searched for
comments on a particular subject – provide students with those on paper to look at and read.
Mentor Tweets from Twitter:
 The simplest things make the best memories, late night ice cream and hanging out with
my best friend. (103)
 Red light, green light as the yard goes dark, dirty feet from running barefoot, the sound of
crickets as I fall asleep. (122)
 I miss the summer nights of my childhood, when the only thing that mattered was how
many lightening bugs I could catch before bed. (132)
 Screaming through sprinklers, flapping sandals, sparkling windmills, donkey rides, swing
boats and merry-go-rounds, the summer I was 10. (138)
Step Three:
Talk over the mentor tweets with the students; identify what about them was specific, sensory or
very descriptive. Allow students to make suggestions that would make the tweets even more
specific without changing the meaning or going over the character count.
Step Four:
Create some tweets of your own in front of the students about your summer memories, talking
through the process of picking descriptive, sensory and exact words.
Step Five:
Ask students to close their eyes and picture something they did this summer. They should think
of an exact moment during the memory they want to explain in their Tweet and then have them
Tweet using the graphic organizer or digital resource.
Step Six:
Allow students to share and then working in small groups have them look at others Tweets and
pick out the descriptive, sensory and specific details and offer suggestions to make the details
even more specific.
Across the curriculum
This activity would work well when discussing characters for a book study or having students
display what they know about a person from history, science, or math by having them tweet a
response as that person.
Work space to write your own Tweets
Twitter Message Graphic Organizer
Each space below is one character (letter, number, punctuation mark, or space) in your message
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Favorite Mistakes (Pg. 29)
After dabbling with six-word memoirs, 140 character tweets it’s time to move students into
a more developed piece. Kelly Gallagher brings in and plays Sheryl Crow’s song “My
Favorite Mistake,” which has a catchy chorus:
Did you know when you go
It’s the perfect ending
To the bad day
I was just beginning.
When you go
All I know is
you’re my favorite mistake. (1988)
Playing off the idea that we all have a favorite mistake in our lives Kelly introduces the
students to a mentor text: Jessanne Collin’s “A Mistake That Should Last a Lifetime”. It
is:
Removable tattoo ink makes it easy to erase romantic failing and youthful indiscretions. Why
would I want to do that?
This Valentine’s Day, thanks to the advent of removable tattoo ink, couples can inscribe each
other’s names into their skin without that nagging fear of “forever.” It’s practical but
unromantic, the fringe culture equivalent of a prenup.
If only I’d put off my quarter-life crisis until this year, maybe I wouldn’t be living with my own
flawed tattoo: blurry, bumpy with scar tissue, haloed with a permanent blue bruise. I’ve spent
the past few years learning to love it-not an easy task for someone who color-codes her email,
alphabetizes her bookshelves and tweezes compulsively. But as I read about removable tattoo
ink recently, flipping through Time’s “Best Inventions of 2007,” I realized I’m not sorry my ink
is permanent. I may have a messed up tattoo, but I have no regrets.
It was a cold April afternoon when I walked into a random Lower East Side tattoo shop and
rolled up my sleeve. I showed the artist where I’d inscribed in felt tip pen on the inside of my
left wrist, the phrase “break to keep fixing” a lyric by the 90’s punk band Jawbreaker. The artist
swabbed the marker from my skin and had me rewrite the phrase with an aqua Sharpie. By then
I’d written it dozens of times, trying to get it just right. This time, the one that mattered, I
scrawled it nervously and told him I was ready. He sat me in a dingy basement, pulled out tools
that I could only hope had been properly sterilized and popped in a metal CD at full volume. It
was over before the first song was.
Back in my Brooklyn kitchen I removed the bandage and rinsed my wrist with antibacterial soap.
I realized then that my word, true to my handwriting, began in neatly printed letters and morphed
by the end into script. Spooked that I hadn’t noticed this until it was too late, I read that four
letter phrase for a solid hour, waiting for a spelling error to materialize. None did, and I bravely
reassured myself that this quirk just made it more “me.” But the permanence of the act I’d
committed was sinking in. This time, it couldn’t simply be wiped away and written again.
Of course, fear of regret was the reason I’d waited until I was 25 to get my first tattoo. Fear of
regret is, in fact, arguably the biggest modern risk of the popular practice, and a technology that
erases it from the equation is likely to be a profitable one. Named with marketing in mind,
Freedon-2 ink, which hit the market in several cities in late 2007, is made from biodegradable
dye encapsulated in tiny plastic pellets. A glass in case of change of heart. After a single laser
treatment, the plastic dissolves, the ink is absorbed into the body and the design vanishes.
In contrast to the painful, costly and variously effective multiple laser treatments required to
remove traditional ink, it sounds like a miracle-and perhaps a frustration for the 17 percent of
already tattooed American who say they’d undo theirs if they could. Angelina Jolie may have
the means to continually reword her body art, but most of us don’t. We’ll be living out our years
with the histories of our youthful indiscretions and failed romances written on our skin.
My own indiscretion wasn’t impulsive, I’d stewed over the idea for years. I’m a textbook
Virgo-over analytical to the point of being indecisive, and indecisive to the point of becoming
impatient. I’d shaved my head with just a month to go before my high school valedictory
speech in my tiny New England town because it was on my list of things to do as a teenager. So,
too, with my first real office job and the sense that I was being absorbed into the anonymous
Manhattan professional class, I felt like my dissipating youth would be wasted if I never got
around to getting a tattoo. Or maybe I thought that a little act of adolescent rebellion would buy
me a few more years before I had to really grow up.
Either way, I awoke that spring morning with an emotional itch so strong, I got out of work,
looked up the address of the tattoo shop online and hopped on the train to the city. I’d been in
New York for half a year and I felt like I was hatching, crawling from the crumbles of one life
toward a new one. As they had in disparate times of heartbreak, depression and angst, the lyrics
spoke to me: “This is the cure/same as the symptom/simple and pure/break to keep fixing.” I
looked to them, now quite literally, to guide my course of action. They explained me to myself.
They even explain, on some level, what happened next.
I picked the scab.
It was a nasty one. My friendly anonymous artist apparently dug a little too deep with the
needle. Crusted over, the ink began to bleed, and the letters blurred. At some point I
accidentally banged my wrist against the kitchen counter, loosening the scab prematurely.
“Don’t touch it!” everyone said, but I couldn’t help myself. I ran my fingers over it
compulsively as it peeled and flaked. I knew better, of course. But like many things I
encountered, I just couldn’t leave it alone, An ink-stained piece of skin bearing the letter “T”
came off completely. I blew it off my fingertip as if it were any eyelash.
The way I felt about it changed from moment to moment, long after it was finally healed.
Sometimes it looked puffy and frayed and my stomach would sink, I’d have this on me for the
rest of my life. At my wedding. In my coffin. I’d forever be explaining it. What it meant, why
it look the way it looked. I’d be enduring the scoffs of my younger, heavily tattooed brother and
unconvincing reassurances of my best friends. I sometimes found myself eyeing the laser
removal ads on the subway, considering the damage I could do to my credit.
At other times it looked almost perfect, in the shower against my translucent skin and veins
warmed by the water, it was solid and clean. I liked the jagged arc it formed from a distance
they way you had to be up close to read it, as it were a private note to self. It’s more
appropriately symbolic that any other tattoo could be for me, it’s something I created that has
taken a life outside my control. What it symbolizes is important enough to me that I was willing
to risk wearing it forever, It wasn’t permanent, what would it be? Just painful jewelry. A
commodity.
It’s still a commodity of a sore, of course, I paid for it-$60, including tip. But it’s more than
jewelry. I got butterflies in my stomach the time a boy ran his fingers over it and told me he
liked it because it felt like Braille. It’s me: Flesh and ink. And like my astigmatism, cellulite
and other scars, there’s nothing much to do besides live with it. It may seem like forever, but
tattoos, even the soon to be old-fashioned permanent ones, only last as long as we do. They’re
an extension of the body, that notoriously imperfect but incredibly functional machine. Mine is
a body that steeps in indecision and then acts rashly, doesn’t know how to feel comfortable
feeling comfortable and can’t resist picking a scab. But at least I can live with the scars.
I’ve underlined words that your student might need definitions of to help them understand
the article. You may find more depending on their level.
In this essay Collins ruminates about her decision earlier in her life and what this tattoo
means to her today. Have student’s read it looking for the answers to some surface-level
questions:
What is the writer’s mistake?
Looking back at the event, what are the writer’s thoughts today?
What lasting impressions does the writer take from experience?
Students can highlight or jot down their answers.
Have student read it again this time to color code the text:
Yellow highlighting to indicate where the author recalls the incident and pink highlighting
to show where the author reflects on what the incident means to her today.
You can find one of Kelly’s students highlights on page 31 of the book.
Then give student a graphic organizer to help them internalize the difference between
expressing and reflecting, as well as to help them remember that the author in the mentor
text did both. Before they begin working on their own organizers you go first to model
using this graphic organizer.
My mistake was breaking up w/Dean Griffin freshman year in high school by writing him a note
and not telling him face to face.
Share info that I wrote on the graphic organizer.
Write your first draft in front of the class. Kelly Gallagher reminds his students that all
first drafts are usually lousy, but the goal is just to get something down on paper. He
reminds them that you have to play a lot of bad piano before you can play the piano well..
The same holds true with writing; you have to produce a lot of bad writing before good
writing emerges. As he creates the first draft he thinks aloud as he considers each word
and as he writes each sentence. He doesn’t try to hide the fact that it’s messy and confused.
He models the drafting process and thinking aloud for then minutes. Then he encourages
the students to begin writing drafts of their own.
My first draft:
I was a freshman in high school. I was very nervous. I grew up in a really large city that had a
lot of kids that attended that high school. About two thousand more students than Junior High. I
had a boyfriend. His name was Dean Griffin. We went to elementary school together.
In fifth grade I remember that for Valentine’s Day he gave me a box of chocolates. He slipped
it into the big box that all the valentines went into before they got distributed. I was so surprised
and delighted when the teacher took that box of chocolates out and walked over and handed them
to me. A little card said “From: Dean To: Lynn. I should’ve figured out how nice he was right
then and there.
We stayed close and started to date. He was my lab partner in biology. I didn’t like science. He
helped me dissect the frog. It really freaked me out to even touch it let alone put a knife to it. If
you didn’t dissect the frog you automatically failed biology. He carried me through the first
semester of that class.
I starting noticing another boy in our class. His name was Steve Gray. He started to notice me.
I was young, immature and selfish and really only thought about what would make me happy. I
decided that Steve Gray would make me happy. The problem was that I still had Dean as a
boyfriend. That’s when I thought it would be a good idea to write a note to Dean to say that I
just wanted to be his friend. So I did. I handed it to him after school one day and said “Don’t
read this until you get on the bus.” This wasn’t unusual since we often wrote notes back and
forth.
The next day Dean didn’t speak to me. In fact he never spoke to me again in high school. It
didn’t take him long to figure out that I was seeing Steve. I said hi to him every chance I got but
he never responded. You know the rest; it really didn’t work out all that great with Steve Gray.
A lot has changed in the world since those days. When I hear that people break up with each
other by texting I think how unkind and cold that is. It reminds me of how I treated Dean. It was
so unkind and mean. I should’ve just had a little courage and talked to him instead of writing a
note. I know this incident shaped me. I’ll never treat anyone that way again. I choose my words
carefully. I wish I could apologize to him as an adult and perhaps we could laugh about it.
Maybe he’d say “It wasn’t a big deal.” I really hope he’s found happiness with someone.
The Big Finish
The “So What” Paper (Pg. 57)
Kelly Gallagher offers many different activity ideas to allow students to continue to practice the
skills associated with expressive and reflective writing. The last step is having students write a
complete expressive or reflective essay.
The following activity combines Gallagher’s ideas on encouraging students to write a detailed
narrative about an experience with an activity from the website Writingfix.com entitled “A
Moment Like This Memoir”. Students will be encouraged to focus on the six traits of idea
development and word choice (areas scored on the current 7th and 8th grade writing prompts) in
producing a longer written piece using the skills from the earlier exercises.
Step One – Building on prior knowledge
Review with students the Express and Reflect graphic organizer used in “My Favorite Mistake”
lesson. This writing prompt requires students to write in a way that answers the questions
 What did I learn from this experience?
 How did this experience change me?
 How do I behave/think differently now as a result of this experience?
Step Two – Introduce the post-it note graphic organizers
Review with students how to use the organizers to rate an author’s effective use of word choice
and ideas.
This is the perfect opportunity for some mini lessons on the following:
 Adjectives
 Verbs
 Figurative Language
Read
Step Three - Reviewing the Mentor Text
“Milkweed” by Jerry Spinelli – Use chapter one and a section near the end of chapter 5 where
the narrator encounters the “Jackboots”.
1. Pass out the post-in note check-lists to the students – having half the students complete
the word choice list and the other half the ideas list.
2. Read the sections of the book
3. Discuss with students how Spinelli (as the author) has the narrator describe the events to
clearly show and tell the reader what is happening.
Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli
Chapter 1
Memory
I am running.
That’s the first thing I remember. Running. I carry something, my arm curled around it,
hugging it to my chest. Bread, of course. Someone is chasing me. “Stop! Thief!” I run.
People. Shoulders. Shoes. “Stop! Thief!”
Sometimes it is a dream. Sometimes it is a memory in the middle of the day as I stir iced
tea or wait for soup to heat. I never see who is chasing and calling me. I never stop long enough
to eat the bread. When I awaken from dream or memory, my legs are tingling.
Milkweed - Chapter 5 – The Jackboots
And then something hit me on the ear, and I was on the ground and the drumbeat was rolling
over me. I looked up and I saw boots. The tallest, blackest, shiniest boots I had ever seen,
endless columns. For an instant I saw my gaping face in one of them.
I knew what I must be seeing; Uri had spoken often of them. I gasped aloud “Jackboots!”
They were magnificent. There were men attached to them, but it was as if the boots were
wearing the men. They did not walk like ordinary footwear, the boots. When one stood at tall,
stiff attention, the other swung straight out till it was so high I could have walked under it/ only
then did it return to earth and the other take off. A thousand of them swinging up as one,, falling
like the footstep of a single, thousand-footed giant. Leaves leaped.
Analyze
Step four – Selecting a topic
Students should select an event to write about. Something they can easily recall. Students can
even use the same event they wrote about in an earlier assignment.
Gallagher has his students create a list of topics to keep in their writing journal to refer to when
seeking ideas (see pages 10 – 14). Or ask your students the following questions to help them
select an event:
Do you have a memory of something special happening at school?
Do you have a memory of a happy time during a holiday?
Do you have a special memory of a time spent with a family member?
Do you have a memory of playing in water or snow?
Do you have a memory of receiving or finding a special object?
Do you have a memory of a pet?
Do you have a memory of a really special meal?
Complete an organizer for a memory of your own in front of the class
Have students complete the express and reflect organizer again for this event.
Step five – using the mentor text
1. Hand out copies of the student sample mentor texts
2. Have the students fill out the post-it check list for ideas and word choice
3. Ask students to find “powerlines” in the text – Passages that demonstrate excellent
description, vivid images, similes or metaphors. Have students re-write these lines in
generic form as another way to show how the importance of vivid, descriptive language
in writing about an experience.
4. Have students compare the student texts to the passages from Milkweed – finding
similarities in the descriptions
Student Samples from the Writingfix.com website
http://writingfix.com/Chapter_Book_Prompts/Milkweed3.htm
The Furry Surprise
by Lyndsey, seventh grade writer
My heart was pounding with anxiousness. I was running down the stairs, and there
underneath the Christmas tree, I saw a puppy. I didn’t realize until afterwards, but I had been
screaming the moment I saw the dog. My excitement had taken over my eight-year-old little
body, and before I knew it, I was downstairs trying to pick up the furry surprise. He was black,
furry, chubby, and to top it off, there was a red bow tied around his neck. As I was
complimenting all of his greatest features, I felt a sudden pain in my arm and looked down to see
the puppy’s teeth sinking into my skin. I yelped “Aaaah!”
The next thing on my mind was what am I going to name this rambunctious pup. It didn’t
matter what my mom, my dad, or my brother wanted to name him; I felt that I was in charge. My
friend had always named her pets after presidents—like Lincoln, Hayes, and Madison—so I
thought that was a wonderful idea and in my head started to come up with president names. As if
it just struck me, I came up with the perfect name.
“Franklin,” I shouted. Franklin Roosevelt Anderson sounded grand to me!
After that, I went outside in the powdery snow and played with Franklin. I stuck my
tongue out and on it plopped a snowflake. At that moment, I was the happiest eight-year-old girl
alive. Franklin and I romped around; I didn’t even care that inside my other Christmas presents
awaited me.
That moment, was the starting of a friendship that has lasted me ever since. My puppy is
no longer a puppy, but he is a dog. Although his maturity and size may have changed, the bond
we have together is unbreakable.
_____________________
The Big Break-in
by Sara, sixth grade writer
Slam! The school door banged closed behind me. My eyes were struggling not to droop
shut. It was 7:30 in the morning, the start of another boring school day....so I thought. There was
an unusually large amount of chatter, and the teachers and custodians were scurrying about.
I ignored all the chaos, though. As I passed the cafeteria, heading for the gym, the aroma
of hot pancakes and thick maple syrup filled the hallways. I, reluctantly, plodded passed the
cafeteria. Suddenly, out of nowhere, my friend, Brittany, hopped in front of me, excited and
hyper. "GuesswhatSarasomeone-"
I cut her off. "Speak slower!" I told her.
She started over: "Someone broke into the school last night!"
I was so confused I couldn't describe it. I finally found my voice. "What-what did they
steal? Who stole it? Did anyone die?" So many question bubbles were floating into my head, but
popped as Brittany explained herself. I found out that two teenagers were skateboarding on the
playground, broke into the school, stole two computers, and shattered several windows. It turns
out that our second grade was at the school grading papers at the time of the scene.
We walked to the gym together thoughtfully. On the way we passed by a broken window. The
cracked glass looked like a spider web. The school went on with a regular school day, though we
weren’t allowed in certain places because of glass, other evidence, or the occasional blood! I’ll
never forget that scary experience when we were the talk of the town.
Emmulate
Step 6 – Write in front of the class
Model using the mentor text and begin writing about your memory in front of the class. Talk
through your process (much as you would model you thinking while reading).
1. Use the mentor text as a pattern for your own words
 Use Spinelli’s description of the Jackboots as a pattern to describe some part of your
memory.
Gallagher’s book addresses the revision process in a later chapter but this activity allows for
students to begin understanding the importance of writing more than one draft. Gallagher likes
to call it the “downdraft” getting something on paper and the “updraft” fixing it up through
revision and editing.
Step 7 – Revise
Have students use the same post-it note check lists to review their own work.
Peer Review
 Ask students to create a “pen” name (to keep the writing anonymous) and hand in a copy
of their rough draft – hand these copies out to another class and have them review using
the same post-it check lists.
 After students have reviewed their own writing using the post-it note check lists have
them use blank post-it notes to point out trouble spots in their writing they need some
help with. Using the “pen” name swap these papers with students from another class to
provide feedback on specific areas the author has requested help in.
Step 8 – Final copy and publish
Using the advice from peer reviews and their own review have students create a final copy.
These final essays offer multiple opportunities to insert mini lessons in a variety of areas and
revising and editing should be included in that list.
Notes:
Wrapping it up
Write Like This is an excellent resource for teachers to offer students a scaffold approach at
writing that speaks to writing opportunities students will encounter outside of school in their
daily life. It provides you with a common language to use with students and opens their eyes to
the understanding that writing is not just something assigned by Language Arts teachers.
While researching the mentor text for this clinic we discovered two amazing websites:
Writingfix.com is sponsored by the Northern Nevada writing project and CorrbettHarrison.com
an educator and contributor to the Writingfix website. Please take some time to look at these
resources. They offer countless lesson plans and mentor text ideas. There is no formula for
teaching writing but there are some excellent ideas out there that you can use to create the best
lesson plans for your teaching style and for maximum student learning!