Please talk to me about high school and writing.

[Christy B]

Trying to think through a plan of action for my rising 9th grader. She is a very reluctant writer who struggles not only in expressing her opinions, but in forming opinions. Creative writing is completely out of the question. Expository writing goes a little better, but she still struggles with paragraphs, much less essays (although she did get a very good grade on her first research paper for science this year -- which I have to take with a grain of salt, since her science teacher, when asked about MLA form, said "I don't know what those letters mean" :glare:)

 

Anyhoo.

 

The only program that she has really responded to has been IEW in a co-op setting. I personally don't care for IEW (I find the dress-ups and banned words stilted and awkard) but I'll work with it if that makes life better for dd. I was thinking of choosing the science and history based IEW programs, but I've been informed now that those are *not* sufficient for high school level writing.

 

I'm so intimidated by the IEW program -- I can't even make sense of the names of the courses (student intensive? volume 1 - 4? teacher's guide?) or figure out what on earth I would need to buy to get started. The whole program seems very user-unfriendly and has really turned me off.

 

I would LOVE to have her writing integrated with history and/or science.

 

What are my options? I'm just about ready to start seriously considering TOG or TRISMS, although they aren't my first choices for literature or history, but they include the writing instruction.

 

The other program that has appealed to me is Put That in Writing.

 

Any other thoughts? I wonder if I should ask on a non-classical board; I really and truly do NOT want "great books analytical" writing out of this child -- I want adequate, appropriate writing that will serve her well as she pursues a degree in nursing or some other applied science field. Maybe I should google "writing for science majors" and see what I come up with!

[Cedarmom]

We used IEW.I think it was Student Intensive C. My son sounds very much like your daughter. He hated writing. BUt he founder teacher Andrew very funny. He also liked the formula of IEW. After a bit, I relaxed some of the rules, but he still knew how to vary his writing.

Another thing that helped was we talk and discuss a lot. When we are reading we discuss the books. Before I gave him a writing assignment, we talked about it. I gave him a chance to brainstorm out loud before he was expected to write it out. I think this helped him develop skills necessary for writing.

[Anne]

I really like the *ideas* behind IEW. It's true that it can be quite formulaic - but I know that Andrew never intended that his ideas and structures should be the ending point of a student's writing.

 

I think for your daughter, IEW would be great. She can learn how to write and express herself without the stress of also figuring out *what* to write. Eventually, you may be able to integrate IEW into your history and science. I think using IEW would be much less intrusive into your school plans than switching to TOG or Trisms. I don't think writing is integrated that well into TOG, anyway.

 

Hth,

Anne

[Brenda in MA]

Christy,

 

When I read the beginning of your post and your desire to tie writing in with history and/or science, I thought immediately of the IEW History Based Lessons because your description of your dd reminded me of my ds.

 

I have a son that does not like creative writing at all, but he doesn't mind writing about what he's learning in science and history. He used parts of the Ancient History Lessons & Medieval Lessons last year, and they really helped his writing progress. He is only in middle school, but both the format and the detailed instruction in style was really helpful to him. He also really benefited from the slow but steady progression in the difficulty of the lessons.

 

You mentioned that your dd is 9th grade. I'm not sure what the others meant when they said that the theme-based lessons are *not* sufficient for high school writing. A couple of the theme-based books (US History Book 2 & Life Science) are listed for level C (high school). Perhaps what they meant is that your dd should be writing essays and doing analysis in high school.

 

From what I've seen, though, 9th grade is a building year, and if she needs another year of more intense writing instruction then that's what she needs. One of my goals for the high school years is to make sure that when the child is done, they can write a variety of essays and a research paper. While it might be nice for a child to start high school with these skills firmly in place, not many do not. If you think the IEW books are the best fit for your dd and will get her to where she needs to be, then I'd ignore the nay sayers.

 

I hesitated using IEW for a long time, mostly because of the expense, and I had heard that the program produces 'formulaic' writing. When I finally decided to go ahead with it, I was able to borrow the Teaching Writing with Structure & Style (TWSS) tapes from a friend. After watching those tapes, I understood how the program is structured, and I was able to just get the history-based lessons and use those directly. The history-based programs didn't require a lot of teaching because the directions were all clearly laid out in the books. I did sit down with my son and explain each lesson to him and occasionally showed him some examples, but mostly he did the actual writing on his own. We did go over each draft, and I offered some comments before he wrote the final draft.

 

I also found the "banned words" and "dress-ups" to be a bit awkward, but working under those constraints for a year really helped my son to learn to use more advanced constructions in his writing. He was more willing to accept, "You didn't include a #3 opener here, " from me than a more general comment that he needed a transition. I have read that once the student is familiar with the IEW system for a year or two, you can drop the requirements for specific style types because they will use them naturally.

This year he has been doing a variety of writing outside the IEW program because they didn't have any history-based books that went with Sonlight 7, and he is still using a lot of the techniques he learned last year with IEW's history-based books.

 

My older son used Put That In Writing, and it went OK. Some of the topics are history-centered, but a lot are just random ones chosen to make sure your student covers the basic types of paragraphs. My son went through the whole book pretty successfully, but I really didn't see the huge leap in his writing that I was hoping for.

 

While I was using IEW last year with my younger son, the older one, who was 11th grade at the time, was asking me why I didn't teach him the IEW method because it made a lot of sense to him. What helped the 11th grader's writing the most was an on-line literature course where the teacher was very picky about the use of passive voice and the repetition of sentence openers. Those requirements really made him work hard to make his writing better. He didn't like the requirements of this teacher at the time, but now in retrospect, he is very glad he took that class and glad she was such a stickler. So sometimes the picky requirements really are helpful in the long run.

 

One other thing -- I'm not familiar with the IEW Science Lessons, but we did try the Character Based Lessons earlier this year, and they didn't go well. IMHO, the material the child is supposed to imitate is too high of a level. My 7th grader had a hard time understanding the passages, so much so that he had a hard time taking notes and rewriting the passages. They may be OK for high school, though, but you might want to really look at the samples first.

 

Sorry this got so long. I hope it's helpful to you.

Brenda

Edited February 5, 2009 by Brenda in MA

[Kareni]

....

 

Sorry this got so long. I hope it's helpful to you.

Brenda

 

Brenda,

 

I'm always amused when people apologize for a long post. I'm not Christy; however, I now have a much better understanding of the IEW History Based Lessons. Thanks for such a comprehensive review!

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Christy B]

Brenda,

 

I'm always amused when people apologize for a long post. I'm not Christy; however, I now have a much better understanding of the IEW History Based Lessons. Thanks for such a comprehensive review!

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

:iagree:

 

The more information, the better!

[Laurie4b]

I think I'm the guilty party re: "those who said the theme-based lessons are not enough." What I actually said was that I didn't think the life science by itself was enough. I think that in high school, a student needs to be writing across the curricula: science, yes, but also history and literature. For that reason, I recommended getting the basic IEW course because it shows you how to use the method across the different subjects AND I think it's really helpful to hear Andrew Pudewa explain the method.

 

I dislike a lot of the style stuff, but use it more sparingly. For instance, I require a strong verb and a quality adjective in each paragraph, but NOT an ly word, which clause, etc. I think the sentence openers can also be way overused.

 

What I DO like about IEW is the structure part. That is really helpful for reluctant writers. It breaks things into "baby steps" and if you follow the teaching method advised on the DVD's, writing becomes a positive experience of successes for the student.

[MIch elle]

Ancient & Medieval are not BUT could be used in 9th grade with a poor writer if you were studying those periods.

 

My 9th grade does very little writing at his private high school so far (a little bit in each class but not MLA level). They get to MLA level writing in the upper classes.

[Christy B]

I think I'm the guilty party re: "those who said the theme-based lessons are not enough." What I actually said was that I didn't think the life science by itself was enough. I think that in high school, a student needs to be writing across the curricula: science, yes, but also history and literature. For that reason, I recommended getting the basic IEW course because it shows you how to use the method across the different subjects AND I think it's really helpful to hear Andrew Pudewa explain the method.

 

I dislike a lot of the style stuff, but use it more sparingly. For instance, I require a strong verb and a quality adjective in each paragraph, but NOT an ly word, which clause, etc. I think the sentence openers can also be way overused.

 

What I DO like about IEW is the structure part. That is really helpful for reluctant writers. It breaks things into "baby steps" and if you follow the teaching method advised on the DVD's, writing becomes a positive experience of successes for the student.

 

Well, I'm sure any misunderstanding was due to my confusion on the issue, not your explanation (which somehow makes sense now, and apparently didn't before). Thanks for hanging in there and continuing to offer suggestions, I truly appreciate it.