The Writing Thief - Ruth Culham

I'm a huge fan of Ruth Culham.

She's written a lot of books about the

6-Traits of Writing.

She's a great resource

for mentor texts. 

And basically,

that's what

The Writing Thief

offers. 

Culham explains how stealing from

authors and books we love

is great when teaching writing. 

She focuses on 

informational, narrative and argument

types of writing.

She explains them in simple terms

and connects the 6-Traits to these 

text types.

With the 6-Traits,

Culham points out

the simple differences

in each text type,

and offers some mentor texts

to support them.

With Ethan having completed 

first and second grade,

and with having taught,

in recent years,

second and third grade,

I found myself making notes in the margin

about which texts I could see myself using

with a specific grade,

or even matching ideas

with a unit.

The Writing Thief

is one of those books

that you're glad you read over the summer

and gets you excited about going back

into the classroom.