Teaching Ideas with Mentor Text (Enemy Pie)

Hi! This is the second post in my Using Mentor Texts to Teach Writing series. If you haven't read the first post, you can find it here. Mentor texts are a great way to teach writing. The words and illustrations can help to guide our young writers as they develop their craft. This post will focus on Ideas. As I mentioned in the first post, Ideas are ideas. The ideas one has can be gained from books, experiences, movies. . .

I chose the book Enemy Pie by Derek Munson as the next mentor text. This story is about a little boy whose dad encourages him to spend the day with his enemy, Jeremy Ross, while his dad makes a pie. . . Enemy Pie. As the boy spends time with Jeremy, he realizes Jeremy is a great kid. The two have fun together and the boy begins to worry about the pie his dad is making. His mind starts to go crazy with "ideas." He thinks about all of the disgusting things his dad is putting into the pie.

I won't give away the ending, but as you can see, this is a great way to teach kids about Ideas. I wait to read the ending and allow my students to make their own Enemy Pie before they find out about the pie in the story.  I tell my students that we must use our ideas and imaginations to write. The author of the book did just that. I ask the students to write about their own Enemy Pie using their ideas. After writing and sharing their ideas, I read the rest of the story.

The lesson doesn't require a lot of writing. The idea is to teach students about Ideas, so when your students are writing, they will have an understanding of what it means to have ideas.

As with any of these lessons, it is important to use the vocabulary over and over. We want it to stick.

I hope your students enjoy this activity. Mine always do. They get a little gross, but they love it!

Thanks for stopping by! Here are the 6 Traits posters if you missed them the first time :)

Here's a sneak peek at next week's text. . .