Mentor Text and "Hop and Win" Giveaway!!

Happy Sunday!  I am linking up today with the one and only Collaboration Cuties to share a mentor text for Language Arts.  Be sure to check out all the link ups and add some new texts to your list! :)
Also, read the entire post for information about Day 2 of the awesome giveaway going on right now! 

  

I love the story, Dear Mrs. LaRue!  Have you heard of it? 

It is a favorite from our reading series, MacMillan McGraw Hill Treasures for fourth grade.  I use a few stories here and there from the MacMillan series when they tie in with my theme and this is a story that is tough to ignore because the students enjoy it so much!  Because it is in our reading series, each student has their own copy of the text to use and the illustrations are so fun.  The story is full of cause/effect relationships, inferencing, point of view (forgot to add that to the button) humor, and persuasive techniques.  From Amazon Reviews:

A clever book for a clever dog, Dear Mrs. LaRue collects a series of guilt-inducing letters sent home by the cat-chasing, chicken-pie-eating Ike to his "cruel" owner Mrs. LaRue, whom he hopes will come to her senses and spring him from obedience school.  Desperate to come home, Ike shows great enthusiasm for stretching the truth about his treatment at Brotweiler Canine Academy. Illustrator and author Mark Teague has developed a hilariously disdainful and dignified voice for the not-very-put-upon Ike, but Teague's most cunning innovation is the book's format: He splits each spread between what's really happening, done in color, and what Ike's imagining and exaggerating to Mrs. LaRue, in big thought bubbles using dramatic black and white. As Ike delivers his first letter, in his thought bubble we see Ike carted away in the Brotweiler Canine Academy paddy wagon ("We Aim to Tame"!), up a windy road to a scary-looking quasi-Transylvanian compound, complete with lightning and bats; in full-color reality, Brotweiler looks much more like the UCLA campus in spring bloom, with a sign pointing to the sauna (on the right) and the pool (on the left).  

Ike's first carefully typed letter pleads, "How could you do this to me? This is a PRISON, not a school! You should see the other dogs. They are BAD DOGS, Mrs. LaRue! I do not fit in." Subsequent letters describe the staff ("The GUARDS here are all caught up in this 'good dog, bad dog' thing"), the "crimes" that landed him there ("I'd like to clear up some misconceptions about the Hibbins' cats. First, they are hardly the little angels Mrs. Hibbins makes them out to be. Second, how should I know what they were doing out on the fire escape in the middle of January? They were being a bit melodramatic, don't you think?"), and his eventual plans for escape ("I'm sorry it has come to this, since I am really a very good dog, but frankly you left me no choice"). Teague drew inspiration from a couple of sneaky dogs in his own life; kids and grownups reading Ike's tall tales might be reminded of loyal and misunderstood pooches of their own. (Ages 4 to 8) --Paul Hughes

Here is a link to an online teacher version of the text from the MacMillan McGraw Hill Treasures series.  It includes some great guiding questions in the margins of the text.  

Here is also a great guide by Scholastic for this book with links to some reproducibles!

Now, I would like to share with you the awesome "Hop and Win" giveaway by Fifth in the Middle and Where the Wild Things Learn!

There are some AMAZING prizes you can enter to win at one of the two blogs above ("THE" pencil sharpener, choice of a laminator, Xyron Sticker Maker, or $25 gift card to an online store!).

Need to start at the beginning? Go back to the start of the hop here:

Here is my button for the blog hop.  

You will need to record the number shown on the button.

 Download the Cheat Sheet to keep track of your stops!

Go to the next Stop at Teaching Tales Along the Yellow Brick Road by clicking here or the button below!

Have fun at the Hop!