Using Mentor Sentences to Teach Grammar in Middle School

I recently just finished my first set of Middle School Mentor Sentences to teach grammar. As I’ve started talking about and posting about Mentor Sentences, I’ve realized that most teachers fall into the following categories when it comes to implementing mentor sentences:

I have no idea what mentor sentences are, but I am intrigued now.
I have seen mentor sentences, but didn’t really know where to start.
I have seen mentor sentences, but most ideas seem to be for elementary students, and I want to implement them with my middle school students.

I was in the third category. I have seen tons of stuff and ideas for mentor sentences for elementary students. Now, to be fair, I have seen some ideas and examples for mentor sentences for middle school, but there was nothing comprehensive for a middle school classroom, and there definitely wasn’t anything challenging enough for what I needed for my middle school students.

Before I dive in, I want to show you the exclusive new grammar freebie I made. This grammar reference notebooks made as a companion to my mentor sentences, but can be used with any middle school grammar instruction. Click here or on the image below to get it sent straight to your inbox:

middle school grammar reference notebook

Now, let’s get back to how I use mentor sentences to teach all of my grammar lessons and concepts.

I’m a big believer in scaffolded instruction to cover tough concepts like 7th and 8th grade grammar skills (which I have to Google on the daily).

With these in mind, I realized I really needed to make something that was ready to go for my students every week, much like the resources that I saw for elementary students.

COMMON CORE LANGUAGE STANDARDS AND YOUNG ADULTS TEXTS

Here is an outline of all the grammar skills and texts that are used in the Volume one of my Mentor Sentences:

MENTOR SENTENCES TWO FREE WEEKS

I will get into all the details below, but if you would like to try a few weeks for free, make sure you sign up for The Hungry Teacher Newsletter. You will be sent two weeks free to try out first.

WHAT ARE MENTOR SENTENCES?

From what I have seen about mentor sentences, most follow a structure where students make their own noticings about the mentor sentence for the week, on Mondays. After that, the rest of the week is spent focusing on working with the sentence and grammar/language skills for the rest of the week.

This idea is a true conceptual way for students to build on their knowledge of language and to continue to build their knowledge each week.

The images below are what a typical week looks like in my middle school ELA classroom:

Use young adult novels as mentor texts and sentences to improve middle school writing.

If you’re low on copies or just know kids won’t look at their reference sheet anyway (ha!) Then I also have made a chart paper for student reference that hangs in my classroom all year long.

MONDAY MUSINGS: WHAT CAN STUDENTS NOTICE ABOUT THE MENTOR SENTENCE?

In order to prevent students from saying, “I don’t notice anything,” I created the following Monday Musings sheets for students to reference each Monday. I laminated some for each of my table groups and taped them to a desk. I also made chart papers to make sure they have no excuses for what they need to do.

Eventually this becomes second nature to students, but in the beginning, it’s definitely a necessity.

DIFFERENT STRUCTURES FOR DIFFERENT STUDENTS

As a teacher who has gone from 5th to 6th and then to 7th and 8th grade, I’ve realized that my needs for my students change each time I move grade levels. So even if I use the same concepts or structures in each of the grades, I often need to make adjustments based on the challenge I need my students to have or the amount of time I have in my class periods.

Because of that, I created three different options (each one with my three different schools and grade levels in mind) hopefully to meet all your needs too.

This first option is great if students have binders or if you want them to turn them in each week. I love that this is set up for them, so there are no questions on what they should do each day. The con would be that they might want to try and do all they work ahead of time (not the end of the world– but something that could and probably will happen). Also, it does require copies each week. My first school, this would have been no problem, because we had limitless copies. Since then, my last two schools just don’t give us much in the way of copies, so this isn’t the format I use.

The following is the option I use in my 7th and 8th grade English classroom. We use A TON of interactive notebooks so by about week two of school, my kids are masters at cutting and gluing. There are 8 sentences per page, so it only take me about 3 copies for each of my classes, and most importantly, it ensures that my students don’t copy the sentence down incorrectly because #icanteven.

I also know how difficult the first years of teaching middle school English are. I lived and breathed for answer keys and examples, so I have possible answers for each week. I have gotten better as I’ve created these resources so the examples and answers will get better as I continue to make the quarters ;), but it definitely helps to have a start.

MIDDLE SCHOOL MENTOR SENTENCES STUDENT WORKSHEET EXAMPLES

These are some examples of what they might look like in your classroom.

MIDDLE SCHOOL MENTOR SENTENCES DISPLAY SLIDES

This is the final option I have for you to use (for those of you who have absolutely no copies and/or want something more digital). These are just slides to project. The only issue with these is that students might copy the mentor sentences down incorrectly, but other than that, these are great option as well.

MIDDLE SCHOOL MENTOR SENTENCES GRAMMAR INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOK LESSONS

I had already tried to outline the Tuesday lessons to the assessments that I created for Fridays, but I realized I need to have much more explicit instruction for students to learn the grammar skills. Because of that, I have created simple interactive notebook lessons for students and teachers to use each Tuesday. They are a little overloaded in the beginning, but they slow down as the students learn more skills.

Here is a lesson that I teach before we even start using the mentor sentences:

Here is an example of lessons based on the mentor sentence for week one. The first week has a few lessons, but it’s something that the students will need to notice each week.

MIDDLE SCHOOL MENTOR SENTENCES WEEKLY GRAMMAR SKILL ASSESSMENTS

I have also created assessments that students will do each Friday. The assessments are based on the mentor sentences and the pre-selected language skills and lessons that are taught on Tuesdays. Each assessment comes with answer keys. Even if you didn’t use the Tuesday lessons, you could still look at the assessments to make sure students have an understanding of the skills that will be assessed on Friday.

MIDDLE SCHOOL MENTOR SENTENCES MONDAY SAVING BUNDLES

Middle School Mentor Sentences Volume I has been done and updated repeatedly for the last three years.
Middle School Mentor Sentences Volume II is currently a growing bundle but it is almost done! Click on any of the images below to be taken to the resources.
Volume II is honesty much better suited for 6th or 7th grade, especially if students really struggle. I had learned a lot and made huge improvements the second time around.
Volume I is still great, but is definitely the more difficult of the two. I use this one with my eighth graders.
There is also a bundle with both Volumes for those of you who teach multiple middle school ELA grade levels.