In case you were skeptical that the New York Times couldn’t get any cooler, I present to you: Mentor Texts. Let me break down what Mentor Texts are and why this new feature is so revolutionary towards developing student writing.
Each entry will spotlight a Times text, then offer guided practice to help students both identify effective “writer’s moves” and emulate them in their own work.
Katherine Schulten
Mentor Texts embody their name, they are pieces of writing that are well written and developed that students can use as a guide to see what a strong finished product can look like. Mentor texts can be anything from a rap to an argumentative essay to a letter of recommendation, meaning that good writing can be found EVERYWHERE!
The New York Times is taking mentor texts a step farther to make them even more accessible to writers. Their team will select the best articles from a wide variety of topics, genres, and forms and label them specifically as Mentor Texts. Additionally, they will add notes on what the authors did particularly well so students can work on such skills in their own writing.
The purpose of this feature is not for students to copy, but for them to have strong examples of complete pieces and a breakdown of why the pieces are strong. The Mentor Text series is designed to show students the importance of writing in the “real world” and for them to feel inspired to have their words heard as well.
For more detail about this new feature click here.
The Journey 
Morgan, I totally just shared the New York Times Mentor Texts feature with all my 75 students and their parents! How cool is that?! Currently, we are writing personal narratives in the classroom, and this feature is priceless. The best feature, like you said, is the breakdown of what the authors are doing well in each piece. You know what is also great about each post by Katherine Schulten? As I read it as an experienced teacher, I started to think that her writing style is like a teacher’s voice, teaching a lesson to her students. For instance, she writes (with a few of my own words added in there with brackets) as if I was speaking to my students, “[Writers, do you see here that] There is a great deal to notice about how this writer uses dialogue, starting from this first sentence. For instance, why do you think she writes, ‘Mom, we need to talk,’ he said. ‘It’s something serious.’ rather than ‘Mom, we need to talk. It’s something serious,’ he said?” What a cool resource for new and veteran teachers alike!
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