I read a lot, and after reading Anderson's and Gallagher's books, I began to actively notice sentence structure, grammar, diction, figurative language and other examples of beautiful writing, but I struggled with how to catalog them. I had books scattered around with a forest of sticky notes hanging out of them where I'd marked certain examples, but the idea of backtracking and identifying the elements I'd first noticed in each of those books was just too big a job, and I couldn't force myself to begin.

So I did my second favorite thing: I scoured the internet for a ready-made resource or at least one from which I could begin. Nothing I found was quite right. I did find a collaborative blog with well-defined mentor text categories; some of the examples were great, but others contained misspellings or other errors, and many simply wouldn't be relevant to my students. I was worried my own submissions might get lost in the fray if I started cataloging there, so I decided to create this resource to share with teachers on my campus. If you've found your way here by chance,  welcome! You're invited to use anything you find here as you see fit. If you use an author's writing, please attribute the quote accurately.