Why Teachers Should Use Mentor Essays

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Why You Should Use Sample Work as Mentor Essays with Your Students!

Essay writing is one of the hardest parts of teaching English Language Arts! There are so many skills the students need to master. It’s a lot to get your head around, as a student AND as a teacher! Whether it’s crafting a persuasive argument or analyzing literature, writing well demands both skill and insight. One strategy I am a HUGE fan of is the use of mentor texts—sample essays that exemplify strong writing.

Guiding Students with Examples

When you introduce essay assignments with mentor essays, you can provide your students with clear examples of what constitutes a well-written piece. These essays serve as benchmarks, showcasing effective structure, compelling arguments, and polished language. By studying these examples, students can grasp the nuances of essay writing more readily than through lessons that simply explain the parts of an essay to them or encourage them to use pre-writing strategies. Let’s face it–our kids haven’t done a lot of essay reading in their lives. They just don’t know what a good essay looks like! So why not show them? Trust me, it’s a game-changer. And the kids REALLY appreciate having an example so they know where they’re headed & what the final result should be like.

Learning from Strengths and Weaknesses

Mentor texts offer a dual advantage: obviously we can highlight exemplary work, but consider showing students not-so-great work as well. In this way, mentor texts can also present opportunities to discuss weaknesses. By examining both strong and weak samples, students can identify elements that contribute to success—such as thesis clarity, supporting evidence, or cohesive organization—as well as pitfalls to avoid, like vague arguments or inconsistent reasoning. They really enjoy activities where you provide them with the rubric & a sample “not-so-good” essay & ask them to discuss it with peers and judge it according to the rubric. It makes them feel smart and in control to be able to see what’s wrong with the sample. (Note: If you use previous students’ work, be sure to always ask them if it is okay for you to save it and use it as an example, and be sure to remove their name, even if it was an “A” essay!)

Building Confidence and Skills

Using mentor essays empowers students by demystifying the writing process. They see that crafting a quality essay is achievable through practice and attention to detail. Just as we do with analyzing mentor texts to have students dig into what professional writers do to make their work amazing, we can do it with student work as well! Analyzing mentor essays fosters critical thinking as students evaluate what makes an essay effective. This process not only improves their writing skills but also boosts their confidence in approaching new writing tasks. Often, all it takes to get more buy in and less avoidance, cheating, and procrastination is giving your students enough scaffolding to feel like they CAN succeed! I definitely saw more engagement, had fewer late/missing papers, and less cheating after I started using mentor essays with my students!

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Aligning with Pedagogical Principles

In the realm of teacher-education pedagogy, the use of mentor texts aligns with best practices in writing instruction. It supports differentiated learning by providing concrete examples that cater to various learning styles and levels of proficiency. Moreover, it encourages a growth mindset, where students understand that improvement comes from effort and learning from others’ successes. Your kids can see that even “great” essays still had areas for improvement and that you still marked things on those students’ papers for them to fix or pay attention to. This is really great for students who feel like any mark on their paper is a “bad” thing or a “mean” judgment of their ability. This is a good reason to scan mentor essays WITH your feedback on them!

Conclusion

Incorporating sample mentor essays into your teaching repertoire will help you equip students with the tools and confidence they need to excel in their own writing. By providing clear examples and offering kids an opportunity for critical analysis, mentor texts can play a big role in shaping proficient writers.

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If you’re ready to enhance your students’ writing skills, go ahead and explore the archive of 11th and 12th grade sample essays I’ve compiled below. These essays come from my 11th-grade American Lit and 11th/12th AP Lit students.

Empower your students to become better writers by showing them what excellence looks like and guiding them towards achieving it!

Expository/Informative Essays (by Students)

Struggling? Read this essay to see how simple it can be! — This A+ essay shows how you can and should keep it simple.
Expository Essay (HEART OF DARKNESS) — WELL WRITTEN; SOME MISSING PAGE NUMBERS IN THE CITATIONS
Expository Essay (“THE STORM”) — THIS IS SIMPLE, BUT IT GETS THE JOB DONE
Not-So-Strong Essay Example (THE SCARLET LETTER) — THIS ESSAY HAS A LOT OF PROBLEMS; LOOK OVER THE FEEDBACK TO UNDERSTAND SOME COMMON PROBLEMS STUDENTS HAVE
Strong Expository Essay (HAMLET) — WELL WRITTEN WITH GREAT EVIDENCE; INCORPORATES OUTSIDE SOURCES; SHOWS HOW TO CITE FROM SHAKESPEARE, TOO!

Cited Expository Essays (Literary Analysis/Close Reading/Textual Analysis Essays)