Responsive writing instruction activates an asset-based mind-set when making modifications to instruction. With growing access to texts and their creators across multiple platforms, mentor texts can be selected with responsiveness to students and their communities. Through virtual visits to schools and recorded interviews, authors and illustrators give students an opportunity to ask questions about the texts they are studying, writerly processes, and craft moves. Through recorded read-alouds, students can listen to authors read their own texts. Many authors and illustrators-like Ransome-have provided access to their work and engaged with children remotely, allowing deeper connections to form between creator and mentor, child and text. Students prepared artwork, books, and questions to share with the illustrator during a virtual school visit. They turned shapes into people, tried a technique with watercolors called “glazing,” and illustrated their own stories. During Zoom meetings, they watched a series of instructional art videos with Ransome on KitLit TV. Young writers were particularly drawn to the illustrations. One student drew a portrait of Ransome in preparation for the virtual visit. Additionally, the storyline was one that many children could connect with during the pandemic-siblings spending time together and going on a walk to the store.
Johnson’s text includes repetition, dialogue, and sentence structures that students could approximate in their own writing. While writing personal narratives in fall 2020, Kelsey’s class studied a mentor text: Do Like Kyla (Scholastic), written by Angela Johnson and illustrated by James Ransome. Gaia Cornwell’s Jabari Jumps (Candlewick) illustrates optimism and strategies for releasing fear.
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