Mentor Texts
Commentary & Argument
- Opinion: This one goes out to every whiny brat restaurant customer by Daphnew Craford, senior in high school
- Here Be Mother of Dragons by Maureen Dowd
- Healthcare? One desperate man finds it in jail by Leonard Pitts Jr
- Cruel as It Is, We Somehow Go On by Leonard Pitts Jr
- Violence, videotapes and police by Leonard Pitts Jr
- Some Harsh Sentences Prove Unjust by Leonard Pitts Jr
- Gamers To the End by Rick Reilly
- The Life of Reilly by Rick Reilly
- Next Time, Stop the Freakin' Race by Rick Reilly
- Keep Skeleton in the Closet by Rick Reilly
- The Flags of Our Sons by Billy Shore
- They, Too, Sing America by Charles M. Blow
- The Ugly Truth About Beauty by Dave Barry
- All Parents Are Cowards by Michael Christie
- I Fit the Description by Steven Locke
- Learning to Love From Afar by Gail Caldwell
- Twelve Minutes and a Life by Mitchell Jackson
- How I Replaced Shakespeare by Joel Stein
- Learn To Read Kid, but Don't Fall in Love by Rainbow Rowell
- Skeleton Plunges Face First by Rick Bragg
- Running and Reading We Need Choices by Jennifer Schwanke
- The Top 10 Reasons Why I Can't Stop Reading Children's Literature by Emily Meixner
- Student commentary: Why a Liberal Arts Degree is Not As Useless As Everyone Thinks
- I Am Still Tiger Woods by Cameron Kittle
- On the Mindless Menace of Violence by Bobby Kennedy
- Taking the Fight Out of Teenagers by Carol Jago
- What's a Mother to Do? by Ruth Marcus
- Do the Math by Penny Kittle
- About More Than Baseball by Penny Kittle
- Homerun by Penny Kittle
- The Seasons of Teaching by Penny Kittle
Analysis
- Hidden Intellectualism by Gerald Graff
Graduation Speeches
- The Fringe Benefits of Failure by J. K. Rowling
- Crutcher's Ten Commandments by Chris Crutcher
Letters
- Letter to Seventeen Magazine by student
- Letter to English teachers about non-fiction reading by student
- Letter to the Editor WA#7 by Penny Kittle
Multi-genre Writing
- Sleep No More by Kayla
On Writing
- The Essential Delay: When Writer's Block Isn't by Donald Murray
- How To Write by Tom Romano
Short Texts for Word Choice Study
- Book Reviews
- Writing about the Brain with Beauty... a sample from Diane Ackerman
Story
- All There Is by Beverly Eckert
- My Youth in 27 Records by QuestLove
- Pull The Trigger by Sam Prevost
- Intensive Care by a student
- My Supercharged Wheelchair Life Force by Katie Savin