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I've written a bunch of stuff on WWS so am happy to answer specific questions.  Here is an x-post of a comparison between WWS and LToW which might give you a jumping off point for questions.

 

Ruth in NZ

 

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As some of you might know, I have been reading lots of writing curricula and writing books as a way to prepare for teaching high school writing. And now I have somehow fallen into being an English tutor for a friend's boy who is in 11th grade! Yes, I know this is nuts. But there it is. So, I have been busy reading and thinking and understanding how different methods lead to the same endpoint.

I would like to compare WWS and LToW because they are very different in their approaches, and I hope that my thoughts might give parents a framework to review all the other curriculum that are out there. WWS is not completely written yet, but my ds and I have worked through level 1 and are beta testing level 2; and with the scope and sequence, it is all becoming clear. I have not used LToW, but have read it twice. I'm sure that users can add to my comments from their personal experience.

 

THE BIG PICTURE

The end goal is to be able to write like Rachel Carson or MLK. Their work is showcased in Corbett's Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student – the top book recommended by SWB in the WTM for advanced 12th graders. I have read Corbett and Horner (Rhetoric in the Classical Tradition which was recommended by 8filltheheart). These essays are long, well researched, and well reasoned using a variety of arguments. The language is beautiful and carefully chosen, and the ideas are organized carefully for the greatest effect. This is our goal.

There seem to be 2 main ways of approaching this goal – whole-to-parts and parts-to-whole. LToW uses whole-to-parts and WWS uses parts-to-whole.

LToW teaches the student to write a persuasive essay on the first day – it starts with the whole. The first essay is simple in ideas, structure, and elocution – it is really boring to read as is clearly stated in the program. But it is still a full essay – a thesis with 3 arguments. The idea is to give the student the entire picture first and then over the period of years to improve upon it by teaching the student to 1) construct better arguments by thinking about the topic more clearly, 2) arrange ideas better by drawing the reader in with good introductions and conclusions, 3) write with more beauty both by avoiding vague words and by including advanced language constructions. This is an iterative process. The student always writes a full essay but then improve upon it over and over again.

WWS teaches the student to write one piece at a time, but to write that piece in an advanced manner. Each month SWB introduces the student to another piece of a good essay and has the student write that one piece in an outstanding way. There is never a boring, annoying, full essay written on purpose like in LToW, but then again the student only writes small pieces. Her goal is to have the student rock solid in writing descriptions, narratives, definitions, comparisons, and cause/effects, and then and only then to write a large persuasive essay using all these pieces. This essay will be saved for high school level writing (I am assuming this will be the focus of her Writing with Style high school program). SWB has stated numerous times that she regularly sees students who can write essays but have nothing to say; they have nothing to say because they have never been taught deep, meaningful thinking and how to translate it into good, solid, effective writing. This is what WWS teaches. Each piece is developed in minute detail – the questions to ask yourself, the examples to read, the subtle differences in thinking required for different topics. But the student using WWS only writes 1 or maybe 2 pieces at a time. The full essay is delayed until the student masters the pieces, which would require 3 or 4 years. These pieces are required for advanced essays like Rachel Carson/ MLK, but are rarely seen in High school because of the "5 paragraph essay," which is simple in invention and arrangement. SWB has a larger goal in mind -- university-level writing.

University-level writing has a thesis to prove, but you don't prove it with 3 points. You introduce the topic with a personal narrative, and then define the difficult words, which leads to comparisons and cause/effects. You describe an important sequence, and end with a powerful conclusion, with pointed questions. All the pieces come together to prove your thesis. This is the goal. Just look at a classic essay and this is what the author has done. The author does not have a formula of: tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them 3 points, and tell them what you told them. This formula does not lead to great writing. A student must advance beyond the formula in university. SWB's WWS avoids the formula and focuses on the pieces so that one day the student will be ready to put them together into a great and powerful persuasive essay (I assume this is the goal of WWSkill). LToW uses the formula as a temporary crutch and hopes that one day the student will move past it.

Obviously, which type of program is better for a student depends on the student.

THE DETAILS

There are some smaller things of note.

Writing Examples: LToW does not provide examples, but recommends that you find some to show your students. WWS has LOTS of very well chosen examples.

Learning style: LToW uses discussion to teach material. WWS is a self-taught program using a textbook.

Type of essay taught: LToW teaches persuasive writing; WWS teaches expository and literary analysis.

What students write about: LToW lets students pick what they want to write about. WWS gives topics and resources to the student (except for a few research papers).

Invention Topics covered: LToW teaches definition, similarities and differences, circumstance, cause and effect, authority witness/expert. WWS teaches descriptions, narratives, definitions, comparisons, and cause/effects. WWS1 mostly focuses on descriptions and narratives which are not really covered in LToW. WWS2&3 and LToW overlap on many invention topics.

Research Skills: LToW focuses on ideas that the student comes up with from their mind. WWS has a *strong*, purposeful focus on research, note-taking, documentation, footnotes, and plagiarism.

Thinking skills: LToW is excellent in getting kids to really think about a subject by teaching them to ask questions. WWS also uses questions and is equally excellent, but has even more questions, more detail, and more subtle differences. WWS is more advanced in thinking skills.

Arrangement: LToW has formulaic essays. WWS has clear guidelines but not formulas.

Elocution: LToW has an excellent (and I mean excellent!) elocution section for each essay. With a focus on vague writing and advanced techniques. WWS has a much more simple approach to elocution than LToW.

Well, that is about it. I am happy to answer questions if anyone has any. I have reviewed a bunch of curricula before on this thread, and a LOT of other people contributed. So it is worth your time to have a read if you have not already.

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I feel your pain. What I did was go through the book, lesson by lesson, and ask myself questions.

 

What is the point of this lesson?

What skills is it building on from previous lessons?

 

By the end of the book, what should my child know how to do? Going from memory here, but things like (1) summarize (2) write a one-level outline (3) identify common knowledge.

 

But honestly, it wasn't until I read Corbett's Rhetoric book and D'Angelo's Composition in the Classical Tradition that I understood the ideas behind the WWS pathway. And now I think I get it, but I did decide to drop WWS after the first volume.

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So I've been reading like crazy.  I greatly appreciate your threads on writing/writing programs, Ruth.  So much to think about.  Quick question though.  You posted the following in 2012.  Has it changed now that your kids are further along?

 

What I will be using:
For 5th through 8th, we will use WWS with Killgallon to shore up the lack of style in WWS. I like the modern writing style in WWS.
9th and 10th LtoW, I may even compact levels 1 and 2 into 1 year. This is early rhetoric.
11th -12th : Rhetoric. We will be writing across the curriculum without a curriculum. For an overview of rhetoric, Ds will read Corbett both years; for critical reading, we will apply Corbett to essays; for arrangement, we will use They Say/ I Say; and for style we will continue with Killgallon.
 

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So I've been reading like crazy.  I greatly appreciate your threads on writing/writing programs, Ruth.  So much to think about.  Quick question though.  You posted the following in 2012.  Has it changed now that your kids are further along?

 

What I will be using:

For 5th through 8th, we will use WWS with Killgallon to shore up the lack of style in WWS. I like the modern writing style in WWS.

9th and 10th LtoW, I may even compact levels 1 and 2 into 1 year. This is early rhetoric.

11th -12th : Rhetoric. We will be writing across the curriculum without a curriculum. For an overview of rhetoric, Ds will read Corbett both years; for critical reading, we will apply Corbett to essays; for arrangement, we will use They Say/ I Say; and for style we will continue with Killgallon.

 

 

Well for my older, I used WWS1, 2 and half of 3 (beta testing) at which point he was ready for less hand holding.  LToW did not fit that need.  So instead we have switched quite effectively to Common Threads: Core Reading by Method and Theme -- an early high school book put out by Bedford/St Martins which dove tails quite nicely with their AP English Language book (The Language of Composition: Reading, Writing, and Rhetoric by Shea).  What I was finding was that my son was just not reading anything remotely like what I was asking him to write.  He was reading novels, textbooks, and an occasional nonfiction book, but just not reading any great essays.  What I like about these 2 books is that they integrate the reading of essays with the writing of essays.  They focus on kids learning how to write by studying essays, which is basically what WWS and SWB's approach is all about.  They give great essays, analysis, questions, and writing prompts.  Common Threads dovetails with WWS really well because it separates its essays into the topos that SWB focuses on in WWS - things like Comparison/contrast, Cause/effect, etc, but Common Threads uses more advanced and longer essays than WWS. So he reads a few essays organised by both these writing methods and by theme (so all essays in the Definition section are on happiness and all essays on Comparison/contras are on stereotypes), and then he uses the writing prompts (both on the theme and the method) to write essays.  In contrast, LToW requires the teacher to find the readings and example materials, and I really did not want to do that.

 

Our current schedule is to read and discuss essays 1 week, and have him write a method essay in week 2, and a theme essay in week 3, and then move onto the next chapter.  Working this way, the book will take us a full year to complete.  But there is definitely enough material that if you wanted to take 2 years to move through it you definitely could.

 

Here is a bit more about Common Threads that I wrote right after I got the book:

 

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Have you seen Common Threads: Core Readings by Method and Theme by Repetto and Aaron?  Someone on the high school board recommended it to me to work on before The Language of Composition by Shea (which is by the same publisher, Bedford/St. Martin's).  And it is awesome (I just got it and have been reading it today).  It is designed for 9th grade, but I definitely think it could be done in 7th or 8th or even both (there is enough material).  Basically, it goes through 10 different rhetorical strategies (cause and effect, definition, etc) and picks 3 essays that use that strategy and all the essays are on the same topic.  So pop culture, or education, etc. So you read the example essays, discuss, and write.  The questions about each essay are really interesting and varied.  They seem to fall into 6 categories, questions that lead to response essays, questions that lead to critical analysis essays, research questions, questions requiring you to compare 2 works in the book, ideas for your own essays using the rhetorical strategy, and ideas for your own essay about the topic. Each chapter also has very clear information on how to write essays and evaluate essays using that rhetorical strategy, including a section on style (like parallel structure when writing comparison/contrast or concrete/specific language when using description, etc).  The essays are from great writers that publish in a huge variety of newspapers and magazines.  They are short (2-4 pages), well written, and interesting.   Also, the first 5 chapters are just about finding a topic, forming a thesis, revising, plagiarism, MLA style, etc.

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For my younger we are working through WWS1 material, but using the level 1 curriculum as a guide for what I should expect and teach, rather than an actual workbook that he works through, if that makes sense.  He is more of a holistic learner, so WWS is too parts-to-whole for him. 

 

Happy to answer more questions,

 

Ruth in NZ

 

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The best anthology written in 3rd person that I have found is the AP text: Everything's an argument with readings by Lundsford et al, but it is a bit tough IMHO for 8th or 9th grade unless your kid is just really into writing.  It has mostly newspaper type articles written to persuade about an issue. Sources are things like the New York Times and The Chronicles of Higher Education.

 

Common Threads has mostly first person essays because I think that the 'essay' form is typically first person.  Even Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student suggested as a 12th grade text in the WTM has almost all first person essays in it.  And they are by the big names: Malcomlm X, Ben Franklin, Churchill, Somerset Maugham, Socrates, Edmund Berke, Huxley, Matthew Arnold, etc. The 2 big exceptions to the first person essays in Classical Rhetoric are: Rachel Carson, and The Federalist Papers (although there is some first person in that too).

 

So I am starting to wonder if the 'essay' form is different than the student form.  The student form is teaching analysis and testing synthesis, but these are not the types of writing that are actually published for people to read. 

 

Just some musings.

 

Ruth in NZ

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Guest Farhaana

I'm trying to figure out if and what I should work on with my son.  He is in 6th grade.  I have done some of FLL1 and WWE1, but stopped there.  Does he need to have gone through FLL and WWE to be able to do WWS1?

 

Thanks

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Nicole (op), I don't know if you sorted this out, but how I handled it with WWS1 and 2 was to *highlight* the essential points of the lesson in the student text as I scanned/read through it each week.  So on Sunday night I sat down, picked the lessons for the coming week, read them, highlighted them, wrote notes in the margin where I needed to specify things.  

 

Like you, I'm a big picture learner, but sometimes I decide it's easier to force myself to be incremental and accept it and work with it (sort of protracted big picture study, hehe) rather than wanting to rush it.  When I rush and wrap my brain around the whole thing, sometimes I get bored or try to cut corners or make jumps, and some students REALLY NEED all the steps some incremental programs put in.  WWS is totally incremental, which is why some people are going crazy.  The math I use with my ds (Ronit Bird, meant for dyscalculia) is incremental.  DRIVES ME CRAZY.  But I can exercise the mental discipline to do it that way when I need to.  It's not like the student needs that big picture.  Take that back, SOME kids really, really, really do.  Some kids aren't meant for WWS at all and should be given some huge, cumulative project that uses every skill in the book.  But for my learner, WWS, with its ability be break up into chunks and have CLEAR EXPECTATIONS AND STRUCTURE really does work.  It just doesn't work for *me*.  Since *I'm* not the one doing the writing, I decided to get over it.

 

And guess what?  After months of saying I wouldn't do WWS3, I'm BACK...  Because for kids who need LOTS OF STRUCTURE, WWS is pretty golden.  I've got plenty of other things we could do, but when push comes to shove and I'm writing the syllabus, I know we need that STRUCTURE of WWS.  

 

So laugh away, SWB, but we'll probably be buying.  That's why I'm back checking the threads, to see when WWS3 will be out.  I got the beta files, but betas don't work for us.  I need the whole thing, neat and tidy, able to be highlighted, flipped, etc.

 

Btw, the things that make it work for us?  I KNOW it's a problem and like crocodile dental work to get through.  Another Lynn and I chatted about this (auto spell switched that to chafed, haha) a while back and it was her comments that gave me my idea on how to do it.  It seems like people get bogged down.  Rather than slowing it down, I decided we were going to work it FASTER, harder, with MORE zip zoom.  Sort of get in, get it done, and get out before you even knew what hit you!  And that worked for us.  

 

I've posted on the hs board the weeks we used and how we condensed and skipped things.  I'm pretty radical.  To me, we harvested the good, skipped things that, for her, duplicated skills she already had, doubled up lessons absolutely as much as possible, and completed it.  I'm pretty comfortable saying we can do the same thing for WWS3.  I'll see what happens when we have it in-hand, but that will be the plan again.

 

So that's how I did it.  Highlighted the lessons to make sure she caught the actual instructions.  Condensed, combined lessons, skipped things, and was MERCILESS.  She probably worked 1-1 1/2 hours the days we worked WWS.  I didn't sit there making it nice or short.  I looked at how much I thought she could get done in say 45 minutes, and that's what I assigned.  It took her longer, because well everything takes longer and is hard in her reality.  I don't think kids mind hard work, especially if it's in consistent, doable, customized chunks.  Kids rise to the occasion when we ask them to work hard.

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Disclaimer: We did WWS1 in 8th, WWS2 in 9th, and (if it works out) will be doing WWS3 for 10th.  That's not 5th/6th/7th like some people feel compelled to do.  I have a bright dc with some SN.  It's also not the ONLY thing we did for those grades.  For this coming year I have a food writing text, Don't Forget to Write (secondary), some stuff for punctuation, tons of essay collections, the IEW ACS series, etc. We do a mixture of things, another reason to compact.  We also use Inspiration software quite a bit.  We did some of the Creative Writer books one year, and they were fine.  I'm hoping to merge the DF2W and literature study somehow.  I'm working on that syllabus today.  

 

My big goal is to give her a real, viable way of getting her thoughts onto screen and organizing them.  I think a lot of methodologies don't care about how the student actually thinks but just want them to follow a formula.  So we're spending a lot of time exploring genres of writing and mature writing to see where this is GOING rather than getting stuck in the weeds of how somebody thinks a 10th grader ought to writing a 5 paragraph essay, kwim?  For her, as a very good THINKER with a lot to say but challenges getting it on paper, this actually makes more sense.  I'm combining WWS, which to some people is better for lower grades, with all these other more challenging materials and thought processes.  It's the overall picture, not one component.

 

That's not to say what someone else needs to do.  I employ Chris Matthews' line for my curriculum development: Does it send a thrill up her leg?  :)

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