Instructional Overview for Teaching
Grammar With Mentor Sentences
“Good writing is not produced by grammar study in isolation from
writing, as research has shown again and again.”
Constance Weaver (2007) The Grammar Plan Book: A Guide to Smart Teaching
Constance Weaver and many others recommend teaching grammar in conjunction with
writing. Through close reading of mentor sentences from authentic literature, students
study positive examples of grammar and language. By analyzing small chunks of text
students come to understand the function of grammar in context and learn to appreciate
the effect it has on good, quality writing. Students apply what they have noticed in
reading to their own writing right away. By experimenting through sentence imitation
students give their learning a “test-drive” in something meaningful to them. Students will
enjoy collecting sentences from their own reading that match the mentor text in some
way. This becomes a powerful learning experience for students as they compare and
contrast sentences from literature.
“DOL” and other versions of error hunting become a thing of the past. Now students are
studying positive authentic models rather than error-ridden contrived sentences. After
studying mentor sentences in their original form, editing them for errors is an activity that
helps students consider the function and purpose of a particular grammar principle.
Finally, after an in-depth study of a variety of mentor texts that illustrate a grammar
principle, students “write under the influence” in their own pieces of writing.
Skill transfer occurs as students become immersed in a study. Through noticing,
imitating, collecting, and editing students follow the inquiry process into the mechanics
of sentence structure and language. They will develop a “writer’s eye” as they read and a
“reader’s eye” as they write. Language study will become interesting and engaging
because they are the ones uncovering the “rules” of grammar. Most importantly, students
will come to see grammar as a tool to improve the overall effectiveness of their writing.
The Nuts and Bolts of a Grammar Lesson Using Mentor Texts
This is not a series of scripted lessons. My goal is to provide you with mentor sentences
and support for how to teach a unit of study focused on subject-verb agreement. Every
classroom is unique in its needs. I do not presume to know exactly what your students
need and in what sequence. My hope is that I have taken the timeliness out of thinking
about what and how to teach subject-verb agreement.
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Subject-Verb Agreement
An unpacking of Progressive Language Standard L.3.1f Ensure subjectverb and pronoun-antecedent agreement.
Instructional considerations
A few online resources you might find helpful
Some Essential Questions
General rubric for assessing subject-verb, pronoun antecedent agreement
in writing
Sample lessons to provide a general picture of what a lesson could like
Grammar Unit Resources
Mentor sentences with instructional support on what to notice and elicit
from students for Grades 3-5 and Grades 6-8 approximately. There is
overlap, so feel free to borrow from the other grade band.
Suggestions for imitating (more suggestions can be found further down
in this instructional overview document)
NOTE: Ideas and suggestions for how to notice, imitate, collect, edit and
write are contained in this instructional overview document.
Additional Resources (in a Word Doc)
Copies of mentor texts for cutting and pasting into your own documents
A few examples of sentences for editing purposes (the options are
endless!)
For each mentor text you will want to spend time focusing on different types of study and
application. In the “notice” section of the mentor text resource I have listed out some
things you might notice about the sentence. I’ve included noticings beyond the bounds of
just subject-verb agreement. As you think about your lesson choose something that you
want to elicit from students. You can revisit the sentence many times and for many
purposes. You do not need to address each point. The list is meant to be a “catch-all”.
And I’m sure I didn’t catch everything! I’d love to hear what you notice that is not
included in the list.
I have not set a time frame, but I foresee 3-4 weeks of potential study and application.
Each mentor text could be studied for at least a week. It is up to you how much time you
devote to this skill and these lessons. You do not need to use each mentor text. Choose
the one/s that work for you. Also, don’t be afraid to find your own mentor sentences! You
and your students will, no doubt, find awesome examples worthy of close reading. I
suggest adding your sentences to the Word document I’ve included so you can use them
next year or at another time.
Each text should be studied and applied in the following ways. Each of these is written
about separately in the following section.
1. Notice- posing mentor sentences/texts, asking students to notice author’s craft,
grammar, conventions, etc. (reading like a writer)
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2. Imitate-giving students a chance to imitate the pattern, style, or convention in
their own sentence
3. Collect-students collect samples from literature that mimic the mentor sentence in
some way
4. Edit-showing students an edited version of the mentor text for the purpose of
developing a keen eye for editing (correctness)…and for studying the function of
a particular part of speech, grammar principle, etc.
5. Write- students write in continuous texts to apply and transfer learning
While these appear separately in a list, they do not need to be separated within a lesson.
A lesson could include noticing and imitating, or imitating and collecting, or collecting
and editing (or any combination thereof). Ideally, students should apply through imitating
or writing within each lesson. If you separate the written application from the study you
run the risk of minimal transfer. (See the sample lessons to give you a better idea of this.)
Follow the workshop model. No matter if it’s a 60 minute lesson or a 10 minute
“grammar moment”, you will want to follow the structure of the workshop cycle. Here
are some very general ideas that characterize each phase of the workshop:
Focused Instruction (mini-lesson):
 Introduce the focus of the lesson and the Essential Question (EQ)
 Prepare students for what they will be doing during Real-World Application
through modeling, a shared experience, or by making connections to previous
work students have done.
 Aim for 10-30% of the workshop time.
Real-World Application
 Students work independently or in small groups on a task that gives them greater
insight into the EQ (the teacher steps aside and facilitates, allowing students to
work with increasing independence and self-reliance).
 The task is relevant, involves real-world thinking or doing, and provides students
a “just right” challenge.
 The task pushes students to reconsider previous conclusions, encourages transfer,
and promotes higher-order thinking.
 Aim for 40-60% of the workshop time
Reflective Closure
 Students are given time to reflect on what they did and what they learned…even if
the task is not complete.
 Students revisit the EQ and share new insights.
 The teacher facilitates the discussion while using it as a time of formative
assessment.
 Aim for 10-30% of the workshop time.
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The Ways In Which We Teach Grammar Through Mentor Sentences:
What happens when we invite students to notice?
What makes this different from traditional grammar instruction is that you are in the role
of a facilitator of learning. You are letting the mentor sentences and your good questions
guide students towards the desired understandings.
In a “noticing” lesson you are inviting students to notice how authors craft powerful
sentences. You begin by showing the sentence and asking students to read it a few times.
This could be done out loud, independently, or in partner groups. Allow the sound and
meaning of the sentence to be enjoyed and appreciated before digging deeper. Next, you
invite students to share what they notice about the sentence. Sometimes, it is appropriate
to provide no further direction and begin asking for students to share. Other times it
might be helpful to narrow the invitation (i.e. What do you notice about the subject and
verb? What do you notice about how the author puts the sentence together? What do you
notice about how the sentence sounds? What do you notice about how the author
separates ideas? Etc.). There is no right or wrong way, except that your job is to invite
students to do the noticing. In the very first lesson you could model this, but then hand
off to students right away. Don’t let it become a list of things YOU notice.
When you are in “noticing” mode accept the ideas students share. Take note of
misconceptions and use your questions to encourage students to look closely and use
what they know to dig deep. You will be amazed at the things kids notice!
Have in your mind what you want students to notice, and use your questions to elicit
thinking. It’s ok to narrow your questions after you’ve given time for students to “freely
notice”. For example, you might begin by asking students to just share what they like or
notice about the text. Then, after students have shared some thinking, you might narrow
the focus by asking, “what do you notice about the subject and the verb?” You might
narrow the question further, after students have shared but not noticed that the subject
and verb are separated, by asking, “What do you notice about where the subject and verb
are in the sentence?” In this way you are gently guiding students along the “noticing”
trail. They are still the ones seeing the sights, but with your good guidance they aren’t
missing the point.
There may be times when you highlight or bold the words or phrase you want students to
hone in on. This is entirely acceptable because it focuses student attention on something
in particular you want them to notice. You would still ask the question: What do you
notice about what is in bold print? Part of what we want kids to begin to notice is the
function that words (parts of speech) play in sentences. You might consider reserving
this for times when you anticipate a long road before they notice something. 
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When I have students notice I like to keep a list of what they share. It helps me keep up
with their thinking and provides opportunities to go back and revisit ideas that were
shared. This allows for revising and clarifying of ideas.
The theory behind noticing is that until students “see for themselves” they won’t apply it
in their own writing. Traditionally it has been us doing all the noticing, not students.
When we give students time to savor good writing and notice subtleties in the structure of
language they will take note. Once they take note we must get them writing…quickly!
Here are a few examples of questions to use when noticing with students. This example is
for the first mentor text from Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, but they
could easily be adapted for any of the texts used.
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What do you like about the sentence? Not like?
What makes this a good sentence worthy of studying closely?
What do you notice about the {subject and verbs, use of commas, pronouns, use
of the hyphen, etc.}?
In what tense is this written? How do you know?
In what person is this written? How do you know?
Why didn’t the author separate this sentence into 4 different sentences? Why
combine into one?
Why do you think the author used “he” and “his” rather than “Pa”?
If you were to imitate Wilder’s writing style how would you do?
What does this sentence teach you about agreement?
What happens when we invite students to imitate?
After students have spent time noticing and have honed in on the particular concept they
need to give it a try in their own writing. Imitating provides students the opportunity to
experiment with language. I like students to use writer’s notebooks for trying out writing
ideas and experimenting with language. A writer’s notebook is not graded. This doesn’t
mean you don’t assess, however. I like to give a participation grade or mark the entries as
complete/incomplete. The imitating that students do gives you tremendous feedback on
what they notice and understand about writing.
Imitation sessions can be short 15 minute lessons, great for “grammar warm-ups” or days
when you have less time. They can also be used in conjunction with a noticing lesson.
Most of the lessons I do combine noticing and imitating because I want kids writing and
applying right away.
When we ask students to imitate something we are inviting them to mimic an author’s
style, not his or her words. You will want to model this for students initially. Here’s my
imitation of the first mentor sentence from Laura Ingalls Wilder:
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Then Scarlett stood up from her nap, she lifted her tail in the air, she stretched
her legs across the rug, she arched her back towards the sun, and she looked
around for her toy mouse.
Imitating gets us thinking more deeply about how authors craft sentences. It forces us to
think about sentence patterns, word choice, and a host of other things. Sometimes
imitating can lead to a writing brainstorm: the desire to keep writing. If this happens, go
with it! When I was playing with my sentence I really had to think about the parts of
speech. I knew I had to have a prepositional phrase within each sentence clause. This
made me think about what Scarlett could do to make my sentence believable.
It is important to connect back to the mentor text after you and students imitate.
Comparing our imitations helps us think about how our sentences compare and contrast
to the original. In my imitation I added an adverb (around) to the last phrase. Wilder used
a possessive pronoun (his) and a direct object (gun) before the final prepositional phrase.
Discussions about how our imitations differ may lead to additional insight into author
decisions, or could help uncover misconceptions. In my imitation I couldn’t seem to
make a compound subject work in the third clause or direct object work in the last clause.
The goal with imitating is for students to “try on” an author’s style. The more students
play with language in a non-threatening manner the more likely they are to transfer and
apply it on a regular basis.
Let students mimic great writing and they will become great writers.
What happens when we invite students to collect?
Collecting is another step towards building a deeper understanding of the concept or
principle we want students to notice. When we collect, we search literature for other
examples that are similar to our mentor sentence in some way. Some sentences we find
may mimic one particular aspect of the mentor, and some may mimic it in many ways.
Use one mentor sentence for collection purposes. This encourages students to focus their
search. Of course, you will want to model this first. Here is a sentence I found that
mimics the way Harper Lee separated the subject and verb with a prepositional phrase in
the 6-8 example from To Kill a Mockingbird.
The tree tops along the creek were colored now. Laura Ingalls Wilder (1935).
Little House on the Prairie pg. 201
While the Lee mentor sentence has a compound subject, mine does not. In addition, my
sentence only mimics the initial independent clause of the Harper Lee sentence. It can be
difficult collecting sentences that directly mirror our mentor sentences. Don’t worry
about finding an exact match. The goal is to find sentences that are similar in some way.
Think about how Wilder’s sentence provides an opportunity to compare/contrast to
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Harper Lee’s sentence. Notice how I underlined the subject and verb. I would encourage
students to indicate how their sentences are similar and different from the model.
Invitations to collect should be open invitations. Students might not find something in
their reading during the lesson. The object is not to spend time “searching” for sentences.
The object is for students to be “on the lookout” as they read for sentences that could fit
into a certain collection. I’ve seen many teachers use “collection” bulletin boards where
students can post their findings. This provides more opportunities to go back to noticing
and comparing. Students get very excited when they find sentences that match the mentor
sentences. You could make this fun by having students ring a bell or use a signal when
they stumble upon a match. Have you ever seen the movie or play Fiddler on the Roof?
Singing the chorus of “Matchmaker” would be a fun signal to use.
Matchmaker, Matchmaker,
Make me a match,
Find me a find,
catch me a catch
Matchmaker, Matchmaker
Look through your book,
And make me a perfect match
Collecting takes time. But remember, we want students spending time immersed in their
study of subject-verb agreement. The more time they spend noticing, imitating and
collecting the higher likelihood of transfer into writing. Don’t rush the process.
What happens when we invite students to edit?
Repeat after me. “I will not show students edited versions of the mentor text until
they’ve spent time noticing and imitating the original.” If we show students negative
models it defeats the purpose of what we are trying to do here. We show editing versions
only after students are very familiar with the original.
So, why would we show negative or edited versions of a good mentor sentence? When
we change something about a text it gives students a chance to consider the function of
the particular grammar principle. Consider this example:
"They who can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety
deserves neither liberty nor safety."
Did you catch the change? I made the verb singular- “deserves”. Why doesn’t it work? It
doesn’t work because the subject, “they”, is plural. You wouldn’t say, “They deserves…”
It hurts the ear.
Now, because students have seen the original correct version, they should notice that the
verb is in the wrong form. It becomes the basis of a conversation about why subject-verb
agreement matters.
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Because you have spent so much time with students noticing, imitating and collecting
you know their weaknesses and misconceptions. Editing gives you an opportunity to
present students with something to reconsider. They know the “right” version. Now let
them consider why something would be incorrect.
There are endless ways of editing a sentence. We have already talked about making
negative changes. But you can also make other changes that would not make the sentence
incorrect. Take a look at this version of the same mentor text:
"He who can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety
deserves neither liberty nor safety."
In this version I changed the subject to singular “he”. Now it needs a singular verb
“deserves”. This change encourages students to think about subject-verb agreement
accuracy. Why does this change work? In what other ways could we change the subjectverb and still have a grammatically accurate sentence?
One last point. Editing sessions can be short 5-15 minute “grammar moments”. They are
easy to put together and can be fun for kids. Most students enjoy trying to figure out what
change you made and why it works or doesn’t work. Most of all, editing discussions are
powerful learning opportunities.
What happens when we invite students to write?
Grammar instruction should serve writing. Writing is where students apply their grammar
learning independently within the context of real writing. Within the gradual release of
responsibility model, this is where students independently apply their learning without
our prompting. Here is where we assess transfer. In order to assess we must provide
students frequent opportunities to write.
Students need clear expectations for what is expected of them. I like to use editing
checklists and rubrics. Editing checklists are negotiated with students over time as they
take on greater responsibility for new skills. After students have become aware of a
grammar principle and have had experience imitating, collecting and editing, they take on
the responsibility of self-monitoring their own writing for that particular skill.
Maintaining a class list of expectations communicates to students that the baton is being
passed to them.
Teaching students to re-read their writing is an important part of self-monitoring. So
often we enable students by falling into the role of “editor”. They bring something to us
to read to “see if it is right”. The best thing we can do for kids is to hand it back and say,
“You know the expectations. I trust you are taking responsibility by rereading your work
and editing as needed.”
While checklists are great for checking off if something was done or not done, rubrics
serve a different purpose. Rubrics provide criteria along with performance level
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descriptors. Rubrics make the standards very clear and show students what various levels
of performance look like. They help students approximate towards proficiency and can
provide valuable feedback. They should be used for formative as well as summative
assessment.
Katie Wood Ray coined the phrase “writing under the influence” when referring to
students who write demonstrating the influence of their mentor texts. Jeff Anderson
stresses the influence of students moving beyond imitating mentors to writing in larger
texts where they continue to apply their learning. Basically, we want students to move
beyond writing a sentence, like they do when they are imitating a mentor, to writing
continuous text. We want to see if they can “play the game” vs. practice the skill.
Here are a variety of ways for students to write under the influence of a particular
grammar study. These ideas are adapted from Jeff Anderson in Everyday Editing (2007)
1. Within the context of writing workshop. If students write regularly in the context
of writer’s workshop, then they are used to writing daily with purpose. They
could be in a genre study, mode of writing study, or a writing process study. It
doesn’t matter. If they are writing, they have something in which to apply their
grammar learning. During writing conferences you could focus on subject-verb
agreement (or any other grammar topic) and use that as your lens for conferring
and goal setting with individual students. This is a great way to provide
differentiated instruction, and it is my preferred method of helping students
transfer knowledge into practice.
The most common way I ask students to apply a particular grammar skill is within
the context of writing workshop. Before sending kids off to continue drafting,
revising or editing a piece of writing I encourage them to try a couple of things. I
invite them to reread their writing to make sure their own writing is a positive
example of the grammar principle. This includes editing for errors. Next, I
encourage students to find places in their writing where they can demonstrate
something new they’ve learned. For example, maybe they’ve just learned that
authors often separate the subject-verb with phrases and clauses while still
maintaining agreement, which makes for more interesting reading. I encourage
them to push themselves as writers and give this a try. I use the reflective closure
time for students to share examples of where they edited or pushed themselves as
writers in applying a particular concept.
2. Free-write. Have regularly scheduled “free-write” assignments where students
choose the topic (or you could provide a prompt…although I am not a fan of
prompts) and write for the purpose of demonstrating writing proficiency. This
mimics writing assessments where students follow the writing process to produce
a short piece of writing. It gives students a crack at the whole of writing, not just
the parts.
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3. Reading response or summarizing text. I take any chance for cross-curricular
application. Why not kill two birds with one stone as opposed to creating
something that only serves one purpose. When asking students to respond in
writing to something they’ve read or summarizing a text, use it as an opportunity
for them to demonstrate proficiency with the grammar skill they’ve been
studying. We want students to make cross-curricular connections. Writing across
the disciplines is a great chance for them to show what they’ve learned in
language arts.
4. Targeted concept response. Sometimes it is nice to hear from each individual
student what they are learning about the concept and how they see it fitting their
writing purposes. I like to periodically have students respond in writing to the
Essential Question. Another way to do this is to use an exit ticket. Ask students to
write a few sentences about something as they demonstrate their understanding of
the grammar concept. Even though this type of writing is a less authentic measure
of their skill transfer, it still provides valuable feedback with regards to their
understanding.
Quick Recap!
 Select a mentor text. Determine a particular understanding to target specifically.
Mentor texts are meant to be studied for many different purposes. What you don’t
focus on today, save for another time.
 Follow the workshop model (focused instruction, real-world application,
reflective closure).
 Include one or more of the ways to teach grammar using mentor sentences
(notice, imitate, collect, edit, or write).
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