Reflecting the Relationships Among Form, Genre, Audience, and Media
This microcredential represents educators' effective and consistent instruction on the relationships among form, genre, audience, and media. This is the second microcredential in the Teaching Text Creation stack. This stack of microcredentials fulfills one of the requirements of a pathway for endorsement. Click the More Info button to learn more.
To earn this microcredential you will collect and submit two sets of evidence demonstrating your effective and consistent instruction on the relationships among form, genre, audience, and media. You will also complete a written or video reflective analysis.
A common misconception is that the mentor text set should be as much alike as possible to help students see how a genre works. Instead, writers learn a genre better from identifying traits from a range of genres--of different lengths, with a range of tones, reflecting a variety of stances--that can help them see what the mentor texts have in common and what room the genre allows for writer choice that still stays within the boundaries of the genre.
This microcredential fulfills competency 5.1 for the ELA endorsement. This microcredential will provide evidence that the candidate understands how to collect an appropriate range of mentor texts in a specific genre so that students will be able to “make independent choices to analyze and evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of their own and other’s text creation” (ELA competency 5.1).
Mentor Texts are examples of a genre that serve as mentors to writers, helping them see the characteristics (both mandatory and optional) that they can consider as they write their own versions of the genre.
Rhetorical Genre :In literature, genre means type and is often used to describe different types of literary writing: poetry, fiction, essays, etc. Rhetorical Genre builds from that but describes texts that respond to social situations and that are understood by the people who use them as accomplishing a purpose within that situation (Devitt, 2006).
A teacher’s students are getting ready to write movie reviews to meet the writing and argument standards. In preparation for considering what to teach and how to teach the genre, the teacher gathers the mentor texts that will form the foundation of the instruction. She thinks about what students already know how to write and how the mentor texts you choose could build on those skills. She also considers what movies students might have seen to engage interest in the mentor texts. She looks for interesting writing that will engage and teach, knowing that these will be the basis of instruction in the next few weeks.
As the teacher shares the selected mentor texts with the class, students learn to identify the characteristics of the genre that all the mentor texts share and the ones that the genre may have. They consider how each mentor texts adds to their understanding of the genre and the possibilities for writing in this genre.
Category: Preparation and Planning
Submit BOTH of the evidence items below to demonstrate your effective and consistent preparation and planning for instruction the relationships among form, genre, audience, and media.
Submit a list of at least 6 mentor texts collected for a specific genre writing task with a short explanation for each text as to why it is useful: i.e., why is this mentor text a good choice for inclusion in the list?
Example: Ghost Ships, Murders, Bird Attacks: Stories to Keep You Awake by Ethan Rutherford This review is useful because the author wasn’t initially excited about reading the book. The shift in perspective (from reluctance to pleasure) is one that adds credibility and one that students might find appealing for their own reviews. In general, the review does what other reviews do: gives an overview of the book, provides specific examples of key points the reviewer enjoyed, addresses potential challenges or weaknesses, and concludes with reasons others might want to read the book. The review ends with a question, giving an alternative way to end a review than the other mentor texts.
Submit a table of the characteristics you anticipate students will identify as must haves (the genre must have these characteristics) and could haves (optional elements for the genre). In the center column identify what purpose the trait in the outer column contributes to the genre.
See the Mentor Text Table - Example in the Resources section of this microcredential for an example.
Category: Implementation
Submit BOTH of the evidence items below to demonstrate your effective and consistent implementation of instruction on the relationships among form, genre, audience, and media.
Submit a short video (5-7 minutes) of your students exploring a mentor text and identifying its key characteristics. This could be teacher-led or students in small groups. This video should show the work during the process.
Be sure to follow your district/charter policies on student privacy.
Submit one student-created “Must Have/Could Have” chart that they created when they studied several of the mentor texts. See the Resources section of this microcredential to download the Must Have/Could Have chart.
Be sure to follow your district/charter policies on student privacy.
Review Criteria
Criterion 1: Evidence demonstrates thoughtful consideration of student engagement and student abilities in the selection of mentor texts along with an effective range of options for a variety of learners.
Criterion 2: Student responses (video or chart image) demonstrate understanding and analysis of traits and boundaries of a genre.
How have you used mentor text selection and analysis in your writing instruction?
How does using mentor texts benefit students’ writing development?
What challenges have you faced in implementing this practice (selecting a set of mentor texts and analyzing them with students) and how do you plan to address these challenges in your future practice?
Review Criteria
Criterion 1: Reflection is thoughtful and thorough in considering strengths and challenges of selecting and using mentor texts in the classroom.
Criterion 2: Reflection demonstrates clear understanding of the use of mentor texts in planning for writing instruction as well as in helping students learn the expectations of writing in the targeted genre.
Criterion 3: Reflection references the effectiveness of this research-based practice and its transfer to other writing tasks.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14NKE4xxeymI6kiLOoFgh6EAaHlgxkc_9UU-MO8bXzqk/edit?usp=sharing
This is an example of the Mentor Text Table you will submit as Evidence of Preparation and Planning.
Chapter 6: Bawarshi, A. & Reiff, M. J. (2010). Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy. Parlor Press.
https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/books/bawarshi_reiff/chapter6.pdf
The book in its whole provides a thorough and accessible approach to understanding genre and its application in classrooms. Chapter 6 focuses on the rhetorical understanding of genre.
Chapter 11: Bawarshi, A. & Reiff, M. J. (2010). Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy. Parlor Press.
https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/books/bawarshi_reiff/chapter11.pdf
The book in its whole provides a thorough and accessible approach to understanding genre and its application in classrooms. Chapter 11 explains applications to teaching.
Marchetti, A. (2016, Oct. 10). Infusing lessons with mentor texts. Moving Writers.
https://movingwriters.org/2016/10/10/infusing-writing-lessons-with-mentor-texts/
This blog post provides an overview of how mentor texts fit in lessons.
Sokolowski, K.N. (2017, Aug 6). Mentor Texts as Writing Workshop Fundamentals. Two Writing Teachers.
https://twowritingteachers.org/2017/08/06/mentor-texts-writing-workshop-fundamentals/
This blog post talks about options for mentor texts and how to choose them. At the end of the post are links to other posts about mentor texts, how to curate them and how to use them in a variety of ways.
Worob, A. (2020, April 6). Using Mentor Texts as Models for Writing. Writers Who Care.
https://writerswhocare.wordpress.com/2020/04/06/using-mentor-texts-as-models-for-writing/
In this Writers Who Care blog post, Amy Worob shares a set of strategies related to mentor texts that she uses in her writing classroom. This resource will help give teachers examples and ideas about how to use mentor texts to develop writers’ strategies in their classes.
Position Statement on Writing Instruction in School
https://ncte.org/statement/statement-on-writing-instruction-in-school/
NCTE and its constituent groups have developed position statements on a variety of education issues vital to the teaching and learning of English language arts.
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