Week 12- The Writing Thief by Ruth Culham, “Reproducibles”

This chapter is a little difficult to summarize. It was made up of only pictures with short

descriptions and no other text. The entire chapter had ten images. Some of them were signs (like

one that was a safety message), some were pamphlets/advertisements (like an advertisement for

Susquehanna River Valley), some were informational images/texts (like a brief article on the

USDA forest service), and some were just images with little to no text at all. Some common

themes among these pictures were that they all could be interpreted in some way, offered

information to be analyzed, or could be considered a mentor text. At the beginning of this book

in the prologue, Culham brought up the point that anything and everything can be a mentor text,

and mentioned how she has considered using “Do not disturb” signs as a mentor text and teach

students how to jazz them up. These images were all seemingly examples of unlikely mentor

texts.

Because there was no actual information, it is a little difficult to say how I will use this in

my own classroom. However, I do think it was clever to show images like this in a book about

writing. It was jarring and random to see. This chapter was easily the chapter that made me think

the most. I found myself analyzing the images; how would I use these? How would I interpret

them? How would I change the words used? How do they make me feel? I started to understand

why she would choose to put a chapter like this in her book. Back in week 1 when we responded

to the prologue I mentioned that I love the idea of taking a mundane phrase and turning it into

something that sticks. For some of these images, they are already things that stick. So instead, I

would use these to have a conversation or discussion with my students about what makes them

stick. The sign that says “THINK: Do it right the first time! Plan ahea d” (there is not enough

room for the d in the word “ahead”) is one that sticks out to me as a great candidate for this
discussion. I would love to show this image to my students and talk about how the use of both

graphic design and the power of words allowed this sign to stick with us. Another activity I

would love to do is about the sign that says “Please do not annoy, torment, pest, plague, molest,

worry, badger, harry, harass, heckle, persecute, irk, bullyrag…the animals”. For this, I would

introduce students to various uses for verbs and talk about how the strength and harshness of

these verbs packs a punch. This sign would stick out to me in any public setting and I can see

myself laughing about it. How could I have students interpret this sign? I would also point out

how it seems to cover almost anything you could do to an animal. I could have students try to

write their own signs like this. One final thing I would do with these images is about the sign that

is about “Some Dude’s Fry Sauce”. I would have a discussion about how the conversational tone,

casual but strong dialogue, and funny remarks make this a good advertisement. I would then

have students decide whether or not they would like to purchase or try this product. I would even

love to take it further and have students try to write their own powerful advertisements, and ask

why they did what they did, and why they think it’s effective.

Although this chapter did not have much in terms of content, I really enjoyed it. It ties

back into the idea I love that anything can be a mentor text. These images gave me great ideas of

things I could use in my own classroom and activities and discussions I would love to have. This

was a super cool chapter!

 Works Cited

Culham, Ruth. “Reproducibles.” The Writing Thief: Using Mentor Texts to Teach the Craft of

Writing, Stenhouse Publishers, Portland, ME, 2014.