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MCT's sentence island?


TABmom
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I'm looking for something for writing for my soon to be 5th grade ds. He's very smart, but probably not gifted. He's an excellent reader, but terrible speller. He hates writing and I'd like something that really guides him through the process of writing. I liked the idea of focusing on writing a sentence for awhile- he won't balk at that, it's the length that he hates, not the actual composing. But I know this is written for gifted kids- so maybe not a good fit for a reluctant writer? Thoughts? Thanks.

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I'm thinking it's not what you're looking for. Not because of the gifted/reluctant writer but because you'd like something that really guides him through the process. MCT is written for kids who can be presented with a "big picture" of writing with little specific instruction, and take it from there.

 

Maybe Killgallon Sentence Composing is what you're looking for?

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I agree with Jackie. It's not what you're looking for at all. It's really more about grammar than about the process of writing (MCT generally approaches writing as something learned through grammar). The writing assignments associated with it are a little bit odd and whimsical and creative.

 

I think Killgallon might be a good fit. You do exercises about the sentences and then write your own sentences modeled on the ones in the exercises.

 

You might also try something like Wordsmith Apprentice, which is workbook based and really non-threatening. The assignments are mostly very short, though it's not sentence focused.

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Wow! Thanks for those suggestions! I liked the looks of both of them. Especially the wordsmith apprentice, because it says that they get to pretend to be writing for a newspaper and he is going to be taking a homeschool class where they are going to write a newspaper.

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Sentence Island is the opposite of what you're looking for.

 

That said, I've come to the conclusion that no resource can guide a person through the process of writing because the process is different for each person and evolves over the course of a person's life.  I also think that reducing the "process of writing" to a procedure is in direct opposition to what actually happens when a person writes.  I find the process of writing to be more like what happens when I go to clean and organize the vast amount of stuff in my basement.  At first it seems doable, then in the thick of it it seems overwhelming, then it gets to a stage where it still seems overwhelming but actually, it is about to come together.  Then it seems like it suddenly comes together, and it goes on to the polishing stage.

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Last fall I decided that my 5th grader's writing needed work - every assignment took forever, I dreaded the occasional writing assignments at co-op...my kid was smart and had plenty of words to speak, but writing was awful. I decided to try MCT's island level. It didn't really do a lot for writing, but its long discussion of how adjectives and adverbs modify (change) rather than describe made and impression - we stopped looking for the shortest way to write everything. My kid loved the series and I liked the poetry books, so I got the town level. As with Island, the grammar was good. When we moved into Paragraph Town, there were more writing assignments and I was dreading them. They were weird at times but they seemed to make a difference. My kid tended to write as a 'brain dump', and the silliness of rearranging sentences to put them in random order (turning the paragraph to nonsense) seemed to flip a switch - of course structure mattered! One paragraph needed to flow to the next! Rough drafts turned from chaos into something that looked reasonable.

 

I don't know that this weird approach will work for every kid, but it made a difference for mine. Since he loves the vocab books (full of history) and I've been pleased with the poetry (my STEM self needs lots of help teaching that) we've ordered the Voyage level for next year. I've also gotten the kilgallon grammar, and I'm hoping that if we do each a few days per week, we'll continue to improve next year.

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