One Day, The End - Mentor Text Friday

One Day, The End

Short, Very Short, Shorter-than-Ever Stories

Written by Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Illustrated by Fred Koehler

Published by Boyds Mills Press

You know how when you listen to young kids tell a story, you might get information about the beginning of the event, and then information about the end, but the middle might be a little sketchy?  Welcome to the pages of Rebecca Kai Dotlich's newest book, One Day, The End. On each spread, we see the text about how a story begins, and then how it ends.  The middle is only filled in by looking at the {amazing} details in Fred Koehler's illustrations.  And the middle is what looks particularly interesting.  We see our main character embarking on a number of adventures - crazy science experiments, solving mysteries, hiding all over her house, getting lost in the woods - yet there are no words describing her adventures.  Until the end, when we see all of these partly filled in stories have been compiled into books.

What a great text to use for a writing mentor text.  Need a story?  Fill in the blanks that our young character has left out in her story.  Students can even start with a title from the end of the book to match with the story.  Looking carefully at the illustrations, fill in the blanks - what happened?  What was the sequence of events?  Use for narrative writing!  What are our character's traits and feelings?  How can you add voice to the middle of the story?  How do you transition from one event to another?  Continue to revisit the story as you add new mini lessons to your plans.  Students can continue to revise stories.

This book would be a great text to have in primary/elementary writer's workshop rooms.  What a great source of ideas!