TMT Labels

If you are searching for a book you can use for something in particular, scroll down and choose one of the labels in the column on the right under "Find The Mentor Text You're Looking For".  In case you aren't sure what my labels mean, here's a brief explanation of the labels!  I hope this is helpful, but if you want clarification on any of them please e-mail me!

• $100 Words - This marks texts that have great word choice in them.  A $100 word is a worth that is not as common or plain as a $1 or $10 word.  I've found that kids really relate to the idea of words being "worth" more.  All I have to say is, "That's a $1 word, can you find a better word?"
• AAAWWUBBIS - This comes from Jeff Anderson who uses this mnemonic device to help kids remember words that start dependent clauses at the beginning of a sentence that need to be separated from their independent clause by a comma.  The letters stand for: As, Although, After, While, When, Unless, Because, Before, If, Since.
• Adjectives - These books are great for pointing out vivid adjectives.
• Adverbs - Sometimes I find books that make great use of adverbs, or a snatch of text that illustrates good adverb use.
• ALA - The acronym for the American Library Association
• ALAN - Assembly on Literature for Adolescents
• Alliteration - Literary device where the same sound is repeated at the beginning of two or more words in close succession.
• Alphabet - Books that are great for teaching the alphabet.
• Anaphora  - Literary device where the same sequence of words is repeated at the beginning of lines of poetry or sentences in succession in text to show emphasis.
• Asking Questions - Texts that allow students to practice the reading strategy of asking questions.
• Attention Grabbers - These are books with great first lines or opening chapters that really grab a reader's attention.  When I was in high school we would call them hookers...but I tend not to use that term with my students now! 
• Audiobooks - These are books on tape or CD or MP3 that we have listened to. We love audiobooks! Another great way to read books.
• Author's Purpose - I ask students to infer the author's message or reason for writing a book, story, or passage.  This might be identifying if the text is narrative, descriptive, expository, persuasive, or to identify what the author wants the reader to learn or take away from reading the book.
• Authors - This label is for posts specific to author posts.
• Background Knowledge - Some texts really lend themselves to modeling and practicing activating background knowledge with students before reading.  This means talking to students about what they already know about a topic before reading and showing them that good readers activate their background knowledge.
• Banned Books - These are books that have been challenged or banned in certain schools or libraries at some point in time.
• BBAW - The acronym for Book Bloggers Appreciation Week.
• Biography - These are books written about a person's life.
• Blog Awards - These are awards that have been given to Teach Mentor Texts by our bloggy friends.  
• Blog Hop - A blog hop is when someone posts on their blog and other bloggers link up so you can hop from blog to blog to see what people have to say about a common topic.
• Bloggiesta - This is a bi-yearly fiesta hosted by Maw Books Blog where bloggers spend the weekend making improvements to their blog. 
• Book Debate - I use this label when I post a discussion topic that is worthy of generating a discussion around.
• Book Talks - Book talks are little commercials teachers/librarians do for books.  Basically, it's telling a little about a book and getting kids excited about a book without being a summary or a spoiler.
• Book Trailers - These are like movie trailers, but for books.  You can find them all over the web and are a great way to spice up book talks.
• Challenges - At the end of the year, we choose challenges for ourselves for the upcoming year. Visit our Challenges page to see what we're up to this year.
• Characterization - Texts that are good samples of how an author develops a character.
• Commas (series) - Books that are good mentor texts for comma use. 
• Compound Adjectives - I use this term to refer to hyphenated adjectives.  I might have made up this term, but I'm not sure what else to use to describe them and these are an aspect of writing that I love. An example is: "Don't give me that what-you-talkin'-about-Willis look."
• Cultivating Readers - These posts discuss how we can encourage kids to become readers.
• Cultivating Writers - These posts discuss how we can encourage kids to become writers. 
• Descriptive - Texts that have descriptive writing that might include figurative language like similes, metaphors, or sensory images.
• Dialogue - A literary device when two or more characters are talking to each other.
• Dystopian VS. Post-Apocalyptic - Kellee's series on the difference between the genres of dystopian and post-apocalyptic
• Dystopic - Books that fall under the umbrella of the dystopian genre
• Expanding - When a writer takes a basic sentence and expands upon it by adding phrases or clauses.  Or this could be expanding on one idea by adding more information or description. 
• Expository - Writing that explains or informs.  I use the "e" at the beginning of expository and explain to help kids remember what this means.
• Fiction - Text that is not based on factual or actual events.
• Figurative Language - Texts that have a plethora of literary devices for students to study and emulate.
• Flashback - A literary device an author uses to take a break from what is happening in a book to go back and give information on what has happened in the past.
• Folk Literature - This is sometimes called traditional literature.  In my mind, this includes fairy tales, fables, myths, porquoi tales, trickster tales, legends, and tall tales.
• Follow Friday - This is a blog hop hosted by Parajunkee.com.
• Format Writing - I use this label for books that illustrate a format for writing that an author might be using that a student writer could imitate.
• Genres - These are categories or groups that books fall into.  Usually I use this label for a book or post that lends itself to discussing genres because otherwise every book would fall into a genre and have the genre label.
• Giveaway - Refers to posts that tell about books or items being given away on the blog or giveaway winners.  
• Graphic Novel - These are books that use pictures in a comic strip format to tell an entire story.  They are different from comics that are short and don't extend throughout an entire novel.  I consider this a format because graphic novels can be fiction or non-fiction.
• Historical Fiction - Fiction books that are closely based on historical events or set in a specific time and place from the past.
• Humor - Books that are within the genre of being funny.
• Hybrid - Books that clearly mix genres - a chapter book that incorporates chapters written as a graphic novel (Frankie Pickle by Eric Wight) or picture books that tell a story while also including non-fiction elements (Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner).
• Illustrators - These are people who create the artwork for books.
• Imagery - Books that show authors bringing a description to life by using visual images and other senses.
• Inferences - Texts that lend themselves to modeling or practicing making inferences with students.  I tend to focus on inferring how a character is feeling or inferring the "character" of a character (determined, shy, laid-back...).
• Integration - This is a term for books that lend themselves to being inter-disciplinary or easily can tie in with other disciplines besides reading and writing.
• Interviews - These are interviews with authors, other bloggers, parents, students. 
• Irony - This is a literary device when what happens is contrary to what was expected to happen.  I always think of Alanis Morisette's song "Isn't Ironic" when I teach irony.
• It's Monday Meme - This is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey that we have adapted for kidlit. Link up your Monday post telling us what you have read in the previous week and are hoping to read for the week to come.
• John Green Week - This was a week devoted to John Green and his awesomeness in anticipation of his 2012 book The Fault In Our Stars.
• Just-Right Books - Texts that talk about helping students choose just-right books: books that are appropriate for their reading level in terms of decoding and comprehension but also that match their interest.
• Library Thursday - A blog meme where bloggers post about their library loot for the week and link up.  This is hosted by Lazygirlreads.
• Making Connections - Texts that lend themselves to modeling or practicing making connections: text-to-self, text-to-text-, or text-to-world connections, with students.
• Meme - Jen's definition of a meme is an online blog link up. The specific meme clarifies what people are expected to post on their blog and then you can link up your post on one central blog and see what others have posted about the same meme.
• Memoir - I consider this to be a nonfiction genre that includes autobiographies that tell a more focused story or memory from someone's life versus his or her life story (autobiography).
• Metaphor - Texts that are good examples of writing with metaphors: where two different items are compared to each other without using "like" or "as".
• Mini-Challenge - These are usually associated with blog events, bloggers post mini-challenges that can be accomplished over a few days and then you can link up to say you completed the challenge.
• Mood - This is another literary device that refers to a feeling that an author portrays in a book through descriptive writing.
• NaNoWriMo - This stands for National Novel Writing Month, which happens to be November.  I participated in 2010 but didn't get anywhere near the 20,000 word goal.  There is a whole website devoted to this and even a kids version.  
• Narrative - A kind of writing that tells a story.
• NCTE - National Council of Teachers of English.
• NF Text Features - Books that can be used to point out elements of a text that are specific to non-fiction like headings, captions, and indexes.
• Non-Fiction - Texts based on facts or real occurrences.
• Novel - A longer narrative, usually a chapter book
• Novel In Verse - A book that is written through several poems.
• Onomatopeoia - A literary device when an author repeats the same sound in consecutive words or words in close approximation.  I kind of think of this as opposite of rhyme.
• Parent Involvement - As a teacher, working with parents and families is very important. Posts with this label share the importance of this and/or ideas for how to involve parents.
• Parts of Speech - There are eights parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections.
• Personal Narrative - A story written from a writer's personal experience.
• Personification - A literary device when an author brings an inanimate object to life by giving it characteristics or a person.
• Perspective  - Texts that are written from a unique point of view or that alternate between different points of view to allow the reader to gain perspective.
• Persuasive - A type of writing where the author tries to persuade or convince the reader of something.  When I teach this we discuss the claim and the three different types of evidence: logos, ethos, and pathos.
• Picture Book - Books written with pictures and illustrations.
• Plot Development - How an author develops the plot of a story; kind of related to format writing.
• Poetry - A literary format.
• Predicting - Texts that lend themselves to modeling or practicing anticipating what is going to happen next with students.
• Prepositions - Books that make good use of prepositional phrases or obviously use prepositional phrases.
• Professional Books - These are books I believe advance teachers as professionals - usually books to do with reading or writing with kids.
• Pronouns - These are a part of speech that includes words that stand in for nouns.
• Questioning - This is a reading strategy when a reader practices asking questions while reading.
• Read Along - On Sundays, Jen shares her discussion of books with her friend, Colby. They take turns choosing books for the other to read and discussion every month.
• Reading Reasons - This label is for posts that refer to why we read in, out of, and beyond school.
• Reading Revelations - As we read more and more, there are some revelations that we have realized about what it means to be a voracious reader and how our reading evolves the more we read.
• Rereading - Posts that discuss the benefits or what we have learned from rereading This is an important reading strategy.
• Rhyme - A literary device where similar sounds are repeated at the end of two or more words that occur in close succession.
• Series - This refers to collections of books that share the same characters or setting.
• Setting - This is the where and when of a story.
• Short Stories - This is a type of writing format when a story is told in fewer pages than create a whole book.  Short stories are usually collected into a book.  Short story books might be a collection of stories by the same author or about a certain topic or genre.
• Simile - Texts that are good examples of writing with similes: comparing two unlike items using "like" or "as". 
• Slang - This is a literary device when an author uses slang to develop a character or establish the setting.
• Stereotypes - This is a common-held belief about a certain group of people that may or may not be true.  I usually use this label when a character fits or defies a stereotype.
• Technology - Posts with ideas for including technology for teaching literacy.
• Theme - Books that lend themselves to discussing theme in a text.
• Tone - This is a literary device that is similar to the mood of the story.  It refers to the feeling portrayed in the writing of a text.
• Vignettes - Texts with short essays or descriptions.
• Visualizing - Texts that lend themselves to modeling or practicing the reading strategy of imagining what the author is describing in the text.
• Vlog - This is a video blog post...which we need to do more of!
• Vocabulary Development - These are texts that lend themselves to developing students' vocabulary.
• Voice - This is a writing trait that refers to an author or student writer being able to inject his or her unique writing style into his or her writing.
• What If - These are books that prompt student writers to think, "What if...?" and to foster brainstorming.
• Why I Read - This refers to post that discuss why I read or why I think it is important to be a lifelong reader.
• Word Analysis - This refers to books that might have interesting words that can be analyzed for prefixes or suffixes or roots and/or words that an author might have created from smooshing together two words.  
• Word Choice - Texts that lend themselves to analyzing an author's choice of words when writing.  
• Word Play - These are texts that contain puns or play with words.
• World Read Aloud Day (WRAD) - An annual event hosted by LitWorld to celebrate reading aloud.
• Wordless - These are picture books that do not contain text.  Instead the story is told through the illustrations.  These are great for students to infer meaning and can be used to practice writing from the illustrations.
• Writing With Quotations - These are examples of text that use a quotation as an introduction or attention grabber.