IS A MENTOR TEXT ALWAYS A COMP?

By Cindy Williams Schrauben

There is often confusion about mentor texts vs. competitive/comparative titles (comps). In my mind, a comp is always a mentor text, but a mentor text is not always a comp. How does that work? Let’s look at some specific examples from this year’s reading month titles. 

On Day # 22, Joana Pastro chose the following as mentor texts that utilize onomatopoeia:

1. WOOD, WIRE, WINGS (Kirsten W. Larson & Tracy Subisak)

2. 
   ROSIE THE DRAGON AND CHARLIE SAY GOOD NIGHT (Lauren H. Kerstein & Nate Wragg)

3. TWO BICYCLES IN BEIJING (Teresa Robeson & Junyi Wu) 

Great examples!

Now, let’s suppose that you are writing a silly, fiction tale that includes onomatopoeia. Which of these titles would make good mentor texts? All of them, right? There are different ways to use onomatopoeia in your story and investigating different techniques can help. Title #1 is a non-fiction biography, #2 is fun fiction starring a dragon, and #3 is a lyrical story with anthropomorphic main characters and nonfiction information. 

So, all three of these books are mentor texts, but #2 is the only title that might work as a comp. Mentor texts that are not comps are extremely valuable for stretching your techniques outside the box, so don’t be afraid to use books that vary from your work-in-progress.