Last January, fifth grade teacher Katie McEnaney (right) and schoollibrarian Ellen Bunn (left) wrote a post describing a collaborative nonfiction writing unit they’ve offered for several years at their school.Their article was very popular, so now they’re back with a more detailedexplanation.

Now they’re back, providing a step-by-step breakdown of activities thattook place in the library and sharing how those activities supported andenhanced the multi-week learning experience. You can scroll down for the lasttwo posts, which describe how students interacted with a broad range of booksas they learned about nonfiction book categories, writing styles, textstructures, and craft moves in the library.

Today’s postexplains how and why students used published nonfiction picture books as mentortexts and to revise and improve their own nonfiction writing. This process canalso be utilized by adults interest in writing nonfiction for children!

Thank you, Katie and Ellen, for providing this additional information.

Why Use Mentor Texts?
A mentor is a person whoguides you in your journey to learning a new job or skill. But you can alsofind mentors in other pieces of writing, not just in other people. A mentortext allows a student to study craft moves used by a published author and trythem out in their own writing. As Melissa and Marlene say in the 5 Kinds of Nonfiction, mentor texts “canalso help students recognize patterns, think by analogy, and engage in bigpicture thinking” (Stewart & Correia, 2021, p. 18). By studying howpublished authors crafted their books, students can make better decisions abouthow to craft their own nonfiction writing.

Findingand Choosing Mentor Texts
One goal of our nonfictionpicture book writing unit was to expose students to a range of picture bookstructures, topics, and levels. Through the use of sorting sets for the fivetypes of nonfiction (Part 2: Investigating Mentor Texts in the Library for Categoryand Writing Style) and analyzing books for specific text structures andvoice (Part 3: Exploring Mentor Texts in the Library for Text Structure andCraft Moves), students have interacted with dozens of nonfiction picturebooks.

Throughout this process, studentswere encouraged to pay attention to books that interest them as potentialmentor texts. Rather than pick a mentor text about a similar topic, students wereencouraged to think about books that match the category and writing style ofbook they’re writing. During our final book sorting lesson in the schoollibrary, students checked out their personally-selected mentor texts, which wekept in a bin in the classroom for the rest of the unit. This made themaccessible as students drafted and later revised their picture books.

HowMentor Texts Can Inspire Students
During the 2023-2024 schoolyear, Katie had a student who wanted to write a narrative nonfiction book aboutgeckos and fell in love with Honeybee: TheBusy Life of Apis mellifera(Fleming, 2020). He studied Honeybee closelyand used a similar format. He also noticed that Fleming’s text kept returningto a central conflict—the main bee character, Apis, wanted to fly. Inspired by thistechnique, the student wrote about a gecko, Gecky, wanting to explore.

Examples of Nonfiction Revision Using Mentor Texts
After writing the initialdrafts of their picture books, the fifth graders had a week to revise based onfeedback from me, guidance from their mentor texts, and peer editing feedbackfrom each other. Below are several examples of specific sentences that studentsrevised based on carefully studying their chosen mentor text.

I love how their writing becamemore precise and engaging as they revised. Having an authentic audience in mind(their second-grade buddies) also helped push students to do their best work.

Originalsentence(s): Climate change is long weather patterns caused by humans.

Studentgoal: I wanted to be more specific and more poetic. I made itlonger and more flowy instead of being dull.

Mentortext: Bats (Carney,2010)

Revisedsentence(s): Have you heard of climate change? Climate change islong-term weather patterns caused by humans. When the climate changes, theearth heats up and that causes many problems.

Original sentence(s): The planets are what make up our solar system and we shouldlearn more about them. Most people don’t know that much.

Studentgoal: I wanted to use better language while giving information.

Mentortext: Did You Know?Dinosaurs (St. Fleur, 2020)

Revisedsentence(s): The planets make up our solar system and we should learnmore about them. The sun gives us heat, and we even live on one. We see themoon almost every night and most people don't know a ton about the planets.

Original sentence(s): Another word for mushroom is fungus. A fungus has somethingcalled mycelium underground, which are like their roots.

Studentgoal: I wanted to make the text more appealing to our buddies[second graders].

Mentortext: The Big Book of Blue (Zommer,2018)

Revisedsentence(s): Mushrooms can also be called fungi. Underground, fungi havesomething that looks like roots called mycelia. Two or more fungi can use theirmycelia to communicate by sending chemical or electrical signals to each otherthrough the soil. They usually communicate about food or their surroundings.Using these signals, fungi can “say” around 50 unique “words.”

HowMight You Use Mentor Texts?
Mentor texts are a great toolthat can be applicable to any style and format of student writing. Writingpoetry? Have students analyze a poem with an eye toward poetic devices or formand then have them write their own poems in that style or form. Writingpersuasive pieces? Read aloud published editorials or letters to the editor.Have your students model their own arguments after a certain mentor text. Thepossibilities are endless.

LookingBack, Looking Forward
Thisnonfiction picture book writing project is a labor of love and a work inprogress. This current version is the end result of three years of planning,implementing, reflecting, and revising. Being able to collaborate and alignlibrary time with classroom projects has been an endless source of ideas andinspiration. Kids see that the library is a part of everyday learning and not aonce-a-week silo off by itself.

We are always on the lookoutfor new picture book mentors that effectively model the five types ofnonfiction and that freshen our "one topic/five book" text sets fordisplay in the school library. With the strong foundation provided by 5Kinds of Nonfiction and Nonfiction Writers Dig Deep, we look forwardto next year’s crop of fifth graders coming up with new topics to research andinnovative ways to apply writing style, text structure, and word choice.

As an author, archaeologist,and fifth grade teacher, Katie McEnaney is always on a whirlwind huntfor the perfect artifact to illustrate a point and teach about the past. Herstories have been featured in LittleThoughts Press and the middle grade anthology Clio’s Curious Dash Through Time. When she’s not traveling theworld and geeking out over archaeological sites, you can find her at home inWisconsin with her husband, son, and two very-demanding cats. You can read herand her students’ book reviews at https://www.thelogonauts.com/ .

As a school librarian, EllenBunn enjoys engaging K-8 students in research. She was a committee memberfor the Charlotte Zolotow Book Award (2016, 2017), Sibert Medal Award (2022),and South Asian Book Award (starting 2025). Previously she excavated andpublished about ancient hominin archaeological sites and hunter-gatherers ineastern and southern Africa, before teaching elementary science. Sheparticipates in rural land-use planning in Wisconsin, where she and her husbandhave raised three children, farm animals, and organic vegetables.

Socialmedia links for Katie:
https://www.instagram.com/katie_mcenaney
https://bsky.app/profile/katiemcenaney.bsky.social

Socialmedia links for Ellen:
https://bsky.app/profile/ellenbunn3.bsky.social
https://www.instagram.com/ellenbunn3