The purpose of this study is to determine what happens when you use multicultural mentor texts as read alouds to generate ideas for writing personal narratives in 3rd grade readers and writers. By utilizing these mentor texts as read alouds this study seeks to determine what effects they have on writing personal narratives. The students in this study listened to weekly teacher read alouds and participated in writing activities over a five week period. Through teacher observations, whole class discussions, student writing journals and essays the study showed a greater depth of understanding, interest, and increase in writing in student responses. Out of fifteen focus group participants, all of the students improved in writing descriptive narratives that reflected connections and associations made during the multicultural mentor text read alouds. The findings of this study suggest that by reading relevant multicultural mentor texts that students can connect to, students are able to generate more ideas and description in writing personal narratives
