A surprising conversation with her young daughter inspired author Brandie Bohney to incorporate mentor texts to help students make sense of convention rules. Since struggling and reluctant readers tend to also be struggling and reluctant writers, the author designed activities that would concentrate on the conventions students most needed to improve their writing (or meet the standards of the school district) in a way that would push them to discover for themselves how the conventions work without requiring years of intense reading to develop those understandings. The exercise presented here is built on the premises set forth by Constance Weaver's suggestions in Teaching Grammar in Context and examples Andrea A. Lunsford presents in "Cognitive Development and the Basic Writer." Weaver's suggestions for teaching grammar focus on using model texts, catering instruction to class and individual needs, limiting the breadth of "grammar" instruction to elements that affect meaning, and limiting use of terminology. Lunsford offers several examples of exercises that involve high cognitive function while teaching sentence-combining skills through inductive discovery.