Anyone teach WWS (2) and substitute assignments?

[ByGrace3]

Dd did WWS 1 last year in a live class. I really like WWS and wanted to do level 2 this year but we are doing writing as a part of co-op and writing across the curriculum. I am using LAoW as well but not liking it very much. I am thinking about just getting the WWS 2 teachers book and teaching through it substituting our own assignments from our curriculum. Anyone do this? Feasible? Something better than WWS to do this? I need the handholding as a teacher and dd really responded well to it...

[TracyP]

I substituted assignments in WWS 1 with my oldest. It was easy to do. I haven't seen WWS 2, but I would guess it would be even easier with that book. Since note taking wasn't taught until the end of WWS 1, that had to be taught before using your own topics. Assuming your kids know how to take notes, I think using WWS 2 this way would work great.

[KeriJ]

My only concern with just getting the teacher's book is that I thought I remembered it not having the complete directions that were included in the student book, but I could be wrong.

 

Otherwise, this is something I have wondered about doing also.

 

Another question I have about level 2, if anyone knows: Does it have the assignments where the student is given a list of facts and asked to write a summary from those, or is it beyond that in level 2? We hated writing from a list of facts from a selection we hadn't read ourselves. Maybe it was just a stepping stone to taking your own notes.?? (sorry if this was a hijack)

[Milknhoney]

I haven't tried doing that but I think it would be doable if you are willing to do a lot of extra work coming up with sources and feel confident enough in your own abilities that you don't need to rely on the sample answers to evaluate your student's work. 

 

I just typed out a whole long analysis of all the different things you'd have to adapt and how much work it would be and in the end I deleted it because the final conclusion is that even though it would be doable, it would be very time consuming. I think it would be much easier to just get a writer's manual on how to write various types of pieces and then apply it to whatever topic you are studying. But WWS is so detailed, varied, and scripted that it would be a lot of work coming up with alternate scripts and alternate sources. And I really think you'd need both student and teacher's books to do it right.

 

Personally, I do not think it would be worth the amount of work necessary just so that the two paragraphs my student ended up writing at the end of the lesson were related to a topic we were already studying. At the end of each section the student has a longer project on a topic of their own choosing, and it would be fairly easy and more worthwhile to have that project correspond to something they are studying. (Although I like to let ds pick his own topic completely. Writing is his least favorite subject... letting him write about whatever he wants is the small consolation.)

We're in week 16 (I think), and so far I don't think we've had any 

[RootAnn]

I think you could do it, but I think you might want the student book for the assignments that you won't be substituting. I used the student pdf with the hard copy teacher book in front of me.

[ByGrace3]

I think it would be much easier to just get a writer's manual on how to write various types of pieces and then apply it to whatever topic you are studying.

 

 

Any suggestions? I like the way WWS teaches, and I do not like Lively Art of Writing-- I don't feel it is clear or easy to understand. I would love some sort of writing manual that I could follow steps to teach with my own topics...

[KeriJ]

We are using Writer's Inc. this way. It's gone surprisingly well.

[SanDiegoMom]

My only concern with just getting the teacher's book is that I thought I remembered it not having the complete directions that were included in the student book, but I could be wrong.

 

Otherwise, this is something I have wondered about doing also.

 

Another question I have about level 2, if anyone knows: Does it have the assignments where the student is given a list of facts and asked to write a summary from those, or is it beyond that in level 2? We hated writing from a list of facts from a selection we hadn't read ourselves. Maybe it was just a stepping stone to taking your own notes.?? (sorry if this was a hijack)

 

 

I can answer this question:  It does not.  It has you taking your own notes and then writing from those.  Flipping through,  I see no more lists of facts.  (That was very difficult here as well -- it is hard to write coherently about a subject just from a list of facts!)

 

 

 

To answer the original question of substituting your own passages... you could theoretically I suppose, but the amount of work involved would really give me pause. The support and answers in the teacher manual are all geared towards the passages provided. The lengths of passages, the very specific type of passages (for instance week 28 compares two different types of natural changes, in this instance the Great Red Spot on Jupiter and glaciers)  and that's just day one. Day Two includes more paragraphs from multiple sources about Mt. St. Helens).  There are so many individual passages included, it would be a LOT of substitution. 

 

That being said, there are more assignments (roughly 7 or 8 it seems) that require you to come up with your own topic and sources. And I plan to cut out a few of the weeks assignments myself and do a slightly condensed year, making sure to hit at least all of the assignments that are listed in the one year WWS crash course in WTMA (prep for Rhetoric I think it's called?) 

 

I definitely feel your pain -- some of the passages my kids do well with (anything science related they do pretty well, and definitely all the fiction).  Others don't go over very well at all, especially if they are the teeny tiny photocopied pages from books. That literally made my daughter cry last year.  So we will be trying our best to avoid or substitute for those specific weeks.  

 

We literally just started working through WWS 2, so who knows how it will go. I will say when we got to a long passage about the siege of Stirling castle and my kids were starting to get that glazed over look and fall off the bench in boredom, I had them grab the white boards and try to visually recreate what was being described in the passage. They doodled the entire chain of events and had no problem coming up with the outline after that.  But if I had just handed it to them and told them to do the assignment, there's no way they would have comprehended and come up with a reasonable outline.  We do almost all the thinking part of the assignments together. 

[ByGrace3]

Thanks everyone for the input. I am struggling. My dd did great with WWS 1 last year. She learned a lot and I saw great improvement with her writing. This year, instead of the taking a WTMA class, we are doing writing as a part of a co-op. In the oldest class I am teaching there are 4 7th graders of various skill level. One thing we are doing that I love is integrating our other studies into our writing assignments. We started the LAoW but I am taking a break from it right now as even I am a bit confused by it. 

 

We are doing a writing unit each month based on a BraveWriter project. We did the Wild and Wacky Word project last month. The kids got really into it and it was great. My dd also wrote across the curriculum note taking, outlining, and writing short essays in science and history. 

 

This month they are doing a unit on diaries of an historical person. They are really into it. I am torn between this love of writing they are having and a desire to "improve" the quality of their writing. Ideally I could teach writing lessons and  incorporate them into our monthly unit projects. I love the detail of WWS so thought perhaps that might be the answer. But maybe there is another resource that could do what I want easier? ugh....