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Anyone using or has used writeguide.com


wannabepos
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There have been some reviews here. You might post on the high school forum, as it seems that most people use it for older dc, not younger. :-)

 

I haven't used it, but I really liked the sample student/tutor interactions. They seem to be very much like Writing Strands, which is my favorite. :-)

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I tried WriteGuide just this past month for my DD13. I cannot give it a favorable review. I wanted something to walk her through the writing process and to take the tutoring out of my hands. My DD is dyslexic and writing has always been a challenge for her. I am a writer and I think I sometimes have too high expectations. That combination had made writing difficult for us as a team so I wanted to try and hand the process off to another tutor.

 

She had a specific assignment (a persuasive paper) from the K12 Literature and Composition course that she is doing for English. I was hoping the writing tutor would walk her through the process of coming up with a topic, researching the topic, turning that topic into a thesis, organizing her arguments, revising and refining her drafts etc. In fact, I laid out exactly what steps I wanted help with when I was first contacted by the tutor. I also told her that DD needed clear structure, specific assignments with specific due dates so that she could finish the essay in the one month period. 

 

Unfortunately I ended up doing almost all of the tutoring myself. Her writing tutor would contact her in a casual way and suggest that she write about something she was passionate about. And then just wait. Well, as I expect is the case with many young teens, DD would read that and think, "oh, good idea," and nothing else would happen. As long as DD didn't respond back, the tutor didn't send any more communication. What she needed was the tutor to say something like, "come up with a list of topics you are interested in and email them to me tomorrow." I had to do that part myself. This continued throughout the month. If DD didn't make any progress the writing tutor didn't follow-up with additional emails. Once DD came up with a topic I helped her find articles to support it, I helped her organize her thoughts into three main arguments, and I helped her organize her supporting evidence. 

 

Once she came up with an outline, the tutor asked her to write the first paragraph. Again, a week went by without any progress or additional communication from the tutor. Eventually, I prompted her to write the complete first draft so we could at least get comments on that (by this time I had already expressed my frustration with the process and lack of communication to the tutor). The tutor sent back comments that were entirely grammatical and mechanical directly in the text so all DD had to do was go through and fix her mistakes following the exact wording given to her by the tutor (this is one of my pet peeves). There was no direction for substantive revision provided at all. Again, I had to do that myself. 

 

When DD completed the final draft, the tutor was effusive in her praise of it, saying it would surely receive an A. I was pleased with the essay (writing has been a long haul for us), but it was definitely not an A paper (at least not by the rubric provided by K-12). It was a good essay, and a good effort for someone who is not a natural writer, but it was more like a solid B. 

 

So, all in all, it was not a great experience for us, and not worth $75 considering the amount of work I still had to do. I also found the limit of one email a day (which I did not pay attention to beforehand) to be a bit draconian. Perhaps it would work better with a more enthusiastic writer? But, that was our experience. 

 

HTH

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I tried WriteGuide just this past month for my DD13. I cannot give it a favorable review. I wanted something to walk her through the writing process and to take the tutoring out of my hands. My DD is dyslexic and writing has always been a challenge for her. I am a writer and I think I sometimes have too high expectations. That combination had made writing difficult for us as a team so I wanted to try and hand the process off to another tutor.

 

She had a specific assignment (a persuasive paper) from the K12 Literature and Composition course that she is doing for English. I was hoping the writing tutor would walk her through the process of coming up with a topic, researching the topic, turning that topic into a thesis, organizing her arguments, revising and refining her drafts etc. In fact, I laid out exactly what steps I wanted help with when I was first contacted by the tutor. I also told her that DD needed clear structure, specific assignments with specific due dates so that she could finish the essay in the one month period. 

 

Unfortunately I ended up doing almost all of the tutoring myself. Her writing tutor would contact her in a casual way and suggest that she write about something she was passionate about. And then just wait. Well, as I expect is the case with many young teens, DD would read that and think, "oh, good idea," and nothing else would happen. As long as DD didn't respond back, the tutor didn't send any more communication. What she needed was the tutor to say something like, "come up with a list of topics you are interested in and email them to me tomorrow." I had to do that part myself. This continued throughout the month. If DD didn't make any progress the writing tutor didn't follow-up with additional emails. Once DD came up with a topic I helped her find articles to support it, I helped her organize her thoughts into three main arguments, and I helped her organize her supporting evidence. 

 

Once she came up with an outline, the tutor asked her to write the first paragraph. Again, a week went by without any progress or additional communication from the tutor. Eventually, I prompted her to write the complete first draft so we could at least get comments on that (by this time I had already expressed my frustration with the process and lack of communication to the tutor). The tutor sent back comments that were entirely grammatical and mechanical directly in the text so all DD had to do was go through and fix her mistakes following the exact wording given to her by the tutor (this is one of my pet peeves). There was no direction for substantive revision provided at all. Again, I had to do that myself. 

 

When DD completed the final draft, the tutor was effusive in her praise of it, saying it would surely receive an A. I was pleased with the essay (writing has been a long haul for us), but it was definitely not an A paper (at least not by the rubric provided by K-12). It was a good essay, and a good effort for someone who is not a natural writer, but it was more like a solid B. 

 

So, all in all, it was not a great experience for us, and not worth $75 considering the amount of work I still had to do. I also found the limit of one email a day (which I did not pay attention to beforehand) to be a bit draconian. Perhaps it would work better with a more enthusiastic writer? But, that was our experience. 

 

HTH

 

I feel your frustration, but honestly, if you wanted to hand off her writing to someone else, you should have allowed that tutor to follow her own methodology. 

 

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I feel your frustration, but honestly, if you wanted to hand off her writing to someone else, you should have allowed that tutor to follow her own methodology. 

 

 

Sure, If we had the money to continue to pay $75 for additional months perhaps something might have eventually happened. As far as I could tell, there was no clear methodology. I paid for a service that they advertised, i.e, that they would help a student complete a specific assignment. I did not step in to help until more than 2 weeks had passed with very little communication from the tutor. It is important for anyone contemplating using this service to understand that you are paying by the month, not by the project/assignment. If the tutor was committed to seeing this assignment through to the end, regardless of the time it took, then I might have been more patient. Perhaps it is a good business model to let students work slowly, then you have to continue to renew the contract.

 

The OP was looking for experience with the writing program. I used it in a very specific way. She may be planning to use it differently, or have a different kind of student. I have honestly recorded my experience as completely as possible. I think the OP can make her own judgement. I did not ask to have my actions reviewed, judged or critiqued

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Thanks hepatica and everyone else for the comments since not only the OP but also onlookers are interested here. Of course some back and forth is helpful too for different perspectives. I think many people here are waiting for the kind of detailed review here from hepatica-- anyone else have any experience? Or can compare with other online programs.

 

I'm currently looking for precisely this kind of information on online writing opportunities. The writeguide.com website makes it sound so great that I feel like I want to sign up-- I just learned about it from this thread. Maybe it depends on the tutor that you get assigned there? It sounds like with this site it would be good for when kids don't want to listen to you anymore and you need an outside authority (even if that authority is not as good a writing teacher as you, in truth) or you just need to vent off some of the responsibility.

 

If I didn't have my kids committed for the next four weeks to a writing thing, I would sign up now and give a review. But anyways, I and quite a few others are all ears if anyone has any information.

 

Thanks for this thread!

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Me!  I have used WriteGuide on a number of occasions - for my older two dds at the end of 7th grade, for all of 8th grade, a very short stint for my youngest at the end of 6th, and now I'm using it again for my youngest in 8th and one of my olders in 11th.

 

I have used four different tutors, and for the most part our experience has been very positive.  You have to understand going in that the way the service works is that there is one communication per day from the student, and one from the tutor.  The system is set up so that each one can only respond once the other has responded.  So if your child sends something in, and the tutor responds, then it is the student's turn.  If you miss a day of submissions, you miss the day.  I make sure that one of my kids** turns something in every.single.weekday.  If we miss, we miss - that's our fault.  If for some reason the kid is stuck and needs more teacher feedback, you just need to make sure your student sends something, anything to the tutor.  It could be as simple as "I need more help with X.  Could you elaborate more?"  Then the tutor will respond by the next day.  As long as we submit something, we get feedback by the next day.  100% of the time.  That's the way the system is set up.  As long as you understand that, there will not be a problem.

 

You should be very specific ahead of time about what you want.  They have many different tutors, and they all have different styles.  We did have one tutor (for that short 6th grade stint) that was a very bad fit for us.  I was using up 'extra' time on our account (you can put the account on hiatus and use it later) - our original tutor had left the company and they just assigned someone random, and as it was only for a couple of weeks I didn't think it would matter.  She was all touchy-feely, write about what you want, praising every little thing, and only giving feedback on little grammar and spelling errors.  Ugh!! I specifically requested that we never get her again.

 

All the other times, I have been very specific that I wanted someone rigorous, that we were looking to learn serious academic writing, that I wanted someone who could help my kids develop a defensible thesis, make sure they could defend it with specific points, and learn how to use proper MLA format.  And this latest time I also mentioned that if I was unhappy with the tutor, I would want to switch - and they were fine with that.  You as a parent have a separate account to write to the office at any time if you have a problem with the course or the tutor.

 

You can request that the tutor actually runs a course for you, on the type of writing you want.  However, I have always given the assignments myself, and I've also helped the kids do initial brainstorming on the topics (to make sure I am happy with them - I want to make sure, for example, that they're writing about something that fits in with what they're studying in History, Science, or English), and helped them with getting materials for research (internet, library, periodicals) but asked the tutor to narrow down the thesis and do all the assessments.  I have given the tutor a heads-up ahead of time on what kind of assignments they will be and what kind of feedback they need.  For example, my older dd is using WG mostly for History and English assignments this year.  Her history writing is mostly of the kind to prep for the AP, so it needs to be written at one sitting.  I want one-time feedback, and then we move on to another piece.  Her English assignments, on the other hand, go through a number of revisions.

 

Other than touchy-feely lady, I have been very, very, happy with our tutors.  Our first tutor was beloved by my older dds.  I am loving the tutor we have this year.  He is giving just the kind of detailed feedback I asked for.

 

But remember WriteGuide is a two-way street.  You have to submit something, anything every single day.  It can be anything from a whole rough draft, a paragraph, a revision, or just asking for help with coming up with a topic. But the tutor will not nag or respond to nothing.  This is right from their website:

 

... a student can log into his or her account whenever he’s ready to submit his work or ask a question, and his writing consultant will always reply within 24 business hours. Our teachers provide approximately 30 to 45 minutes of work per day, with the understanding that the student has to submit the completed work before the teacher will provide any more.

 

My kids know whose turn it is that day and that they have to submit a response by midnight, or we have lost a day of the course.  I like this deadline - it is motivating for them, and I'm not the bad guy. :)

 

I have never taken their pre-packaged courses, so I have no comment on them.

 

**You can share the service with as many kids as you like for the same price, as long as you only submit one thing to evaluate per day.  Right now it's mostly the two homeschooled kids using it, but I also put my other older dd in ps on the account, and she can use it if she wants feedback or help on a paper she's writing for school.  This makes the service much more manageable in terms of time put in per kid, and also much more affordable.  If you're using it with one kid, they can also just submit less per day.

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But remember WriteGuide is a two-way street.  You have to submit something, anything every single day.  It can be anything from a whole rough draft, a paragraph, a revision, or just asking for help with coming up with a topic. But the tutor will not nag or respond to nothing.  This is right from their website:

 

... a student can log into his or her account whenever he’s ready to submit his work or ask a question, and his writing consultant will always reply within 24 business hours. Our teachers provide approximately 30 to 45 minutes of work per day, with the understanding that the student has to submit the completed work before the teacher will provide any more.

 

My kids know whose turn it is that day and that they have to submit a response by midnight, or we have lost a day of the course.  I like this deadline - it is motivating for them, and I'm not the bad guy. :)

 

 

This is so crucial and is something that I was totally unaware of. I thought I had read the website thoroughly, but I guess not thoroughly enough. And, I still find the highlighted quote a bit unclear. In any case, I was definitely expecting more from the tutor. I wish this had been explained to us from the beginning, or at least two weeks in when I complained. I feel a bit embarrassed and disheartened that I so completely misunderstood how this works. It was an expensive mistake. I guess I just could not image so completely ignoring a student who was so clearly floundering. 

 

Seems a bit of an odd arrangement. I think the tutor should interact with the student daily, regardless of what the student does. They are, after all, getting paid. I guess this service was just not a good fit for us. 

 

Oh well, I hope this discussion saves someone else from making the same mistake we did.

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