Do you have a mentor text in hand?

One rule of thumb for teaching any writing genre is as follows: don't ever teach without a mentor text -- preferably several -- in hand.  This is perhaps most crucial when it comes to those apt-to-be formulaic persuasive pieces; certainly if we ever want our students to move beyond the stultifying five paragraph essay, then we must show them real-world models of persuasive writing.

In today's New York Times, conservation scientists Samantha Strindberg and Fiona Maisels provide us with a rare treat -- a visually compelling, emotionally grabbing full-page piece, "The Slaughter of African Elephants," that includes two distinct genres within: the first, a persuasive piece (complete with a call-to-action) urging an end to the ivory trade http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/opinion/sunday/slaughter-of-the-african-elephants.html; the second, an informational piece (complete with charts, photos, captions) based on research http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/03/17/sunday-review/even-on-reserves-scant-protection-for-elephants.html?ref=sunday&_r=0.  The sum of these parts is a perfect mentor text for this time of the year, as we pust the finishing touches on our published persuasive pieces and move towards our final genre study, research reports.

My newspaper, complete with coffee stains

Here are a few mini-lessons that "The Slaughter of Elephants"could support:

1. Writers hook readers by appeal to their emotions early in persuasive pieces
• The lead: "There is nothing a mother elephant will not do for her infant, but even she cannot protect it from bullets."
2. Writers conclude persuasive pieces with a call to action so that persuaded readers can act upon their newfound beliefs
• The conclusion (which uses emotional appeal): "A universal attribute of humanity is compassion.  We protect those in harm's way.  We need to show this compassion to forest elephants, giving them space to roam and protection from danger.  Most crucially, people must stop buying ivory. If we do not act, we will have to shamefully admit to our children that we stood by as elephants were driven out of existence."
3. Writers use less common sentence structures (in this case semi-colons, colons, and dashes) to draw the reader's attention to crucial pieces of information
• "Her sacrifice was for naught; the baby was also killed."
• "Lately, nowhere is safe: killings are rising inside the reserves."
• "Nor do young elephants develop secure social relationships when living in a state of terror, or mourning slain family members -- and elephants do mourn."
4. Writers/Researchers/Scientists use text features such as bold text and bullets in order to communicate a lot of information in a succint, readable fashion: 
• Three elephants are profiled in the research report, and each is described by:
• Name
• Photo with caption and date
• Place in group (age, relationships to other elephants)
• Traits
• Death
5. Writers/Researchers/Scientists use graphics in order to communicate information to readers that is difficult to communicate efficiently with text (a picture is worth a thousand words)
• Map of the elephant Resilience's wanderings, before and after she was attacked by poachers, including her three week struggle to overcome the injuries sustained in that attack

In genre study, student always analyze several mentor texts in order to develop their working understanding of the defining characteristics of that genre.  Obviously no one mentor can illustrate all of these characteristics.  That said, some mentors do stand above others and are worth coming back to repeatedly, throughout a spiral or even a year.  Because of its unique hybrid nature, this article certainly merits that honor.  In the meantime, we have two weeks until our next spiral begins -- so let the mentor-hunting commence!