The article I chose is one that I recently read for a different class. This article came to mind immediately after reviewing the teaching innovation guidelines and finding out that we would be selecting a mentor text as it stood out to me prior to learning about this assignment. The article is titled Looking at Children’s Literature From Two Perspectives. It is written by Frank Serafini and Steven Layne, both of whom have worked professionally as author/illustrators as well as college professors for teacher candidates. In this article, they explore the idea of teachers taking the time to have very purposeful interactions with their students, “discussing how the design of a book adds or detracts from their reading experience, how the images were created, what students think went into arranging the borders and visual images, and how the words and imaged work together to tell a story”. The share their opinions on this topic both from the perspective of author-illustrators as well as from the perspective of literacy professors – noting that not many people have the necessary background to speak from both perspectives. These authors feel strongly that it is important for teachers to realize that “although there may be tremendous lessons inherent in many picture books and novels, authors are working first and foremost to create a work of art using words, images, or a carefully constructed combination of both words and images that readers will understand, appreciate, and enjoy”.

The very first thing that I noticed was the title. It is written in all capital letters using two different shades of blue and it takes up the entire top half of the first page. I found that, for this reason, I read the title 3 times before beginning the article. If I had the option, I would do that as well because I want people to do that with my article. The title is important since it is going to be readers’ first interaction with my article. They organized the article by starting with an introduction outlining their unique perspective as dual professionals in both of the aforementioned fields. Then they use headings to separate their views from each perspective. The primary stylistic feature they integrated, which is a big part of the reason that I chose this article as a mentor text is the incorporation of several enlarged quotations throughout the article. Similar to the “pause and ponder” idea, this highlights important takeaways from this article without having to reread the whole thing. Every time I read a scholarly article, I always have my highlighter with me so I can make the important points “pop out” to me when I revisit the article later. In now having the opportunity to write my own article, I would love to be able to do this for my readers as I feels it’s a way to put a little bit of myself in the article.