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Starting WWS level 1 - tips?


bbcooker
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What has helped you implement WWS?   Did you spiral bind the kid's workbook?  Did you get it hole punched to fit in a binder?  Did you stretch the 4day schedule into 5 days?  Did you work side-by-side with them at first?  How much time did it seem each lesson took?  ( I want to allot enough time in our day.) 

 

And any other comments or tips would be much appreciated!

 

Thanks,

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We have done this one off and on for a couple of years.  We work it for a few months then it gets put up for a full load that includes a lot of writing instruction in other places. My 9th grader is going to finish it up this year though. I am determined.

 

I didn't buy her a workbook or get it spiral bound. She works pretty independently in it most of the time. There are times when she has writer's block and comes to me, then I get out the teacher book and do the teaching tips for if your student needs help with her.

 

Right now we are doing it 4 days a week. Sometimes  a particular day is too much for one day for her, and she will just do that over 2 days with the goal being to finish a week in an acutual week.

 

 

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Is this for your 7th grader? We are just getting started. My dd does need some side by side.

Yes, it is for my 7th grader, but also for my 6th and 5th grader.  By their biological age we assign their grades.  But as for their ability level, they are all equal in their level.  

 

As I've glanced through WWS-level 1, I do think they are all ready for it in their abilities.

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I block out an hour a day. Sometimes we don't need the time on Friday, sometimes it takes us two weeks to finish a lesson. After an hour of work their productivity is gone, so if they are done, great, if not there isn't much point in spending more time on it that day anyway.

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What do you mean by a "lesson" that sometimes takes you 2 weeks?  Did you mean that 1 week's worth in the book takes you 2 weeks, or did you mean that 1 day's work takes you 2 weeks sometimes?

 

Do you work step-by-step side-by-side with your students? or do they work independently from you?  I was hoping this would be an independently done curriculum, that I'd occasionally assist with as needed at the time they're working on it, but mainly I'd check their work later in the day.

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Even though it's written to the student, don't assume your kid will read and understand the directions on their own -work with them at first. Have them read the instructions out loud.

 

The first ~10 weeks were pretty straightforward. It got more challenging after that. Don't be surprised if there is a bump at that point and that your kid might need some renewed hand-holding.

 

When they say they don't know what to do, have them read the instructions to you out loud. That may fix it.

 

Don't get attached to the schedule/pace.  Some daily lessons will be super quick - 15 minutes. Some you may want to spread over two days

 

Don't be surprised if they have a little trouble with the Literary Analysis lessons. Those may take longer

 

Don't be afraid to bail on it if, after giving it a serious try, it doesn't work for your kid. It doesn't work for everybody.

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We are using WWS 1 with our two 10 yo boys after they had completed WWE 3. We love the content and promise of the curriculum. The excerpts in level 1 are extremely interesting and serving us also as windows into other worlds and readings, so educationally - it's superbly worth one's time. From this viewpoint, we are never bored and never want to quit the program. On the other hand, we feel that the lessons are very challenging at times and I can see how some families might think that they don't have the endurance to go through it. 

 

On average I feel that the program can accommodate anyone who needs the skills, up to 9th-10th grade and even beyond, and still be appropriate and challenging. For us, it feels like we are on the younger side of users, but we decided to stick with it because of the projected benefits and acquisition of skills. So to start this we decided to do only half of the book per grade and found that the author, Mrs. Bauer actually endorses this pace in a published paper attached here: 

http://downloads.peacehillpress.com/samples/pdf/WWEandWWSexplanation.pdf?utm_source=Catalog&utm_medium=Print&utm_content=Page%2B9&utm_campaign=2014%2BCatalog&page=10

 

What lured us in are the skills promised. In the first level of WWS among some are the ability to outline (different kinds of texts like chronological narrative, description of a place, a person and scientific discovery.) Another is the skill of writing topoi (composition), also the method helps child develop skill of copia, skill of taking notes, literary criticism of prose and poetry and later on, research and documentation. How fascinating and full of potential for us!

 

But definitely, MY kids needed help. And I helped. Openly. I help by simplifying the instructions and by clearing words (and there are a lot of new, fascinating, big and small unfamiliar vocabulary words in the texts) and also many times have to help them with conceptual understanding of the texts. I can tell you that they do go through *panic* symptoms with the reading and writing assignments, which tell me that the program is a step above and stretching for them. But so what.. it only means that I then have to *interfere* and help them work out through the tangled spots. These *panic* attacks are normally the product of misunderstood words, some concepts that they couldn't "materialize" into meanings in their heads so we break it down and sometimes sketch it, and most times the solution is to just go backward in the text to where they were doing well and continue forward unraveling and untangling, words, concepts and instructions. Yes, for sure I have to simplify things for them. But my judgement call is that it is worth the trouble, it doesn't take away from how effective the program is and in the process there is extra growth for them (from this interaction) besides the fact that they acquire good footing in writing.

 

Regarding the physical materials: we are using the hard-copies of student workbooks (workbooks have soft covers) and one instructor text. I am not 100% happy with the instructor text because it does not include the reading excerpts that the students have in front of them. It is a big miss for me as I need to be able to follow with them and spot where they stumble. These stumbling spots are where we find the misunderstood words and are the places to search backward from, to an earlier *tangled* spot. So I feel a bit "unprepared" when a *panic* happens and I don't have the text in front of me to spot where it is. My handle is to borrow one of their books and let them share the other, but it is not optimal. I would have preferred to have the text in the teacher book.

 

Spiral binding - it is a great idea! (Thanks.) My kids write directly in the student books. It is indeed hard to write in the book in the beginning (when the book had no support.) My improvised solution is to put some soft booklet underneath as support.. however I prefer standard solutions. One best standard solution would be if the publisher will start spiral binding the workbooks. In the meantime, although I don't like the added cost I am considering to do the spiral thing for the next level. 

 

About speed: in the first 1/2 of the book, the first three lessons of every week are the lighter lessons. Relatively speaking, these 3 lessons of every week used to go faster. Narration was a familiar subject after working with WWE, the struggle with it was that the instructions ask student to narrate in two stages. My boys are good narrators (relatively) and sometimes they were bumped by the extra step. But you can leave the extra step out. Outlining was new to them, after the initial struggle they got a real good hang of it and now they do it faster than I do. I am glad to have the manual by my side to compare their answers and let them move on. The third lesson of every week (in the first half of the book) is about examining topos.. lots (and lots) of reading but just light writing work is involved. The 4th lesson every week (till mid of book) is practicing topos which is the big writing assignment of the week. At first it was a daunting ride for us, a chore that never ended. To make it real and doable for them I had to simplify the big chore, I had to, and I found myself saying to them, "Look guys, it's an easy task in fact, it is almost just to "copy" from text that's been given to you, just choose points that make you happy and kind of re-arrange it in your own words".. since I said that, it released the pressure valve.. and they go through it with more ease. But still, it takes a l-o-n-g time. They also have this fear of 150 words.. so, I've let them know that 150 is great but we are flexible, if their writing is good but shorter, it is acceptable and gets a smiley.

 

Something else I want to mention is that I also like that Mrs. Bauer ties together, from time to time, an excerpt from an older lesson into a new, to introduce some new aspect of writing. Nice feeling to work again with something familiar with just enough of newly shaded light.

 

And last, I admit that we had days when Writing With Skill was the dreaded subject of the day. Unfolding it now we're realizing that it was probably because writing was the last lesson in our HS day while also a NEW program for our students, who also came to tackle it after *double* math and *double* grammar in programs they were very familiar with. This created an exaggerated atmosphere of desperation. Not a good idea to bring them to *hack* a new program like this in a state of mental exhaustion! We are somewhat repairing this situation now. We are testing to see if it feels differently to do this program on an *empty stomach*, I mean as a LONE subject. We have chosen to do it marathon style, for few days to see if it is possible to complete a WHOLE WEEK in ONE day.. and the result of our experiment (3 days in a row so far) is YES, it is possible to do a whole week in one day. I would go ahead to say then that once a student (average) has conquered the learning curve of this program, he can increase his pace and (probably) finish all three levels in three and a half school years.

 

I am absolutely positive that there are families out there that can do it (and did it) without much or any struggle and did not experience a tough learning curve. If you are one of them, could you please inspire us with your story? If you struggled and adjusted, please open up and tell us too.

 
 
 
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  • 3 weeks later...

Question:  How much do you correct and have dc revise their writings?  For example, do you have dc fix errors of forgetting to indent paragraphs, omitted words, misspelled words, omitted punctuation, and capitalization errors?  

 

We've only done week 1 so far.  I had my dc write their summaries, hand them to me for corrections, make revisions, then show me a final draft for approval.  Is this too much work for each lesson? 

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Question:  How much do you correct and have dc revise their writings?  For example, do you have dc fix errors of forgetting to indent paragraphs, omitted words, misspelled words, omitted punctuation, and capitalization errors?  

 

We've only done week 1 so far.  I had my dc write their summaries, hand them to me for corrections, make revisions, then show me a final draft for approval.  Is this too much work for each lesson? 

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I think the most helpful thing for me was that having read lots of reviews on this board before implementing, I went in understanding that it was going to be challenging. I went in without my normal tendency to push too hard. I think it is important to let go of the idea that you have to follow the "week" and "day" designations. Some "day" lessons take two, three, or more days. When I realized that a lot of the material covered is stuff that I either didn't learn until high school or never learned at all, I realized that I shouldn't feel pressured to push my son into trying to finish one book in one year. Whatever he learns now puts him ahead of where I was and, I assume, ahead of most of his public school peers. Last year I gave assignments by how much material he needed to cover each day, but this year I'm letting him set the timer for 45 minutes and whatever he gets done in that time is what gets done. That has helped a lot.

 

Yes, I do have him fix errors and rewrite if necessary. Once you let go of the "I have to finish this book in one year" mentality, you have the freedom to take as much time as you need on each lesson to really do it right. I did feel like making my son rewrite a whole page or more was cruel and unusual punishment. I ended up buying a typing tutor and he now does his longer assignments on the computer. So if I think one sentence needs tweaking or if he needs to just insert one sentence, it isn't a ton of work. There are lessons where the student learns how to footnote, and being able to do that on the computer is necessary. I was glad he was already comfortable using it at that point.

 

We started WWS1 in sixth grade (last year), and this, our sixth week of seventh grade, he'll be finishing up "Week 34" in the book. 

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bbcooker, thanks! (I enjoyed writing the above post while my dear students worked on their Writing With Skill *marathon*. Someone in these threads wrote that, "your children will respect you better if you'd announce that you are working on your medieval poetry book." I tried this line because I needed them to concentrate, and.. it worked. BUT, I have obligated myself into writing *poetry*.. it was then that I took up your post, and started typing.. just to look busy.. then they read it, wanted it published and now they are waiting for the medieval poems..)


 


This is an anecdote to explain how unimposing my answer to your question is going to be, and to give you idea where my *advice* as a home educator is coming from. I've found your question a bit hard to answer and it definitely forced me to think (and took me a long time).. 


 


so how am I doing the corrections?


 


The answer is, I try to stay true to myself (when checking and correcting) while also training TO the *level* of the student. I can't ask of the child things he didn't learn yet. So, based on that I'll say that it depends on what your kids, each one, already have learned about writing, grammar and spelling, and that's the level you should *demand* and the level you shall correct to. 


 


Another aspect of *my* correction procedure is that I have the child read his work to me (because I can't decipher it  :ack2:), then he stands by me while I correct spelling and gross grammar mistakes (with a red pen, and basically, just capitalization, punctuation and complete sentences at this point). Then he goes back to his seat with his paper, erases (he writes in pencil) and rewrites correctly. If the handwriting is really, really horrible and the paper looks very sloppy he ends up copying his corrected work! But all I insist on at this point, are spelling, gross grammar mistakes and handwriting. (We have not learned yet how to format the text.)


 


I see myself, the home educator, as an acrobat doing my own balancing act.. I have to figure out my *equilibrium point*. On one hand, I have to demand the maximum from the student. On the other hand, this maximum has to be the maximum that *this* student CAN deliver. So, the demands have to be *within* reason. Student should apply as much of what he has already learned, but, at the same time, it is wise, not to expect that he'll submit absolute *perfection*. After all, learning (anything, writing included) is about the process, the addition of a *sliver* of newness, a *slice* at a time, not so much about producing perfect products. There is a trap here. It is a sort of "to be or not to be" situation, it IS and it IS NOT a compromise, on the part of the educator. There is sort of a compromise hidden in the "what to require, what to accept, what to reject from a student". But it is a necessary compromise for keeping the balancing act. Every mom has to find HER *equilibrium point* where she feels good about how she *occupies* her stand as an educator or she'll loose the act (she'll go crazy, or have to *outsource* the teaching). That's more or less how I do it, and I am a barefoot cobbler some of the time..


 


 


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