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What Writing Program have you Loved/Hated

Denise Allen

By Denise Allen,
in K-8 Curriculum Board

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robsiew

robsiew

Posted
Posted

Well, we've only done 2... I love WWE. I have seen so much growth in my hesitant writers. My ds9 (almost 10) started hsing with me 2 years ago. I hadn't found WWE yet so I just went on what I knew from teaching PS. He would sit, just stare at his paper and eventually end up crying. I never did get him to write much at all. We did very little writing that first year. Then, I found WWE. It was difficult at first because he'd never done anything like it. But, after 2 years (we're just finishing up WWE3) he writes beautiful history and science narrations. His history narration today was over a page long and just beautifully done. He's come a long way and I completely credit WWE!

 

We took a detour last year and I attempted Classical Writing Aesop with him. This did not go as well. I think the program is great, but when I thought about doing it with 4 kids eventually I got overwhelmed. Writing was taking us a long time and ds really didn't like it much. It began to cause him to stress out (and me too) and we'd dread writing time. So, I dropped it and went back to WWE and we haven't looked back! We will finish out the series and PRAY the logic stage writing curriculum SWB is coming out with is out in time for him to use! :D Otherwise, we'll just use the WTM writing recommendations for Logic stage. I'm feeling very good about those.

 

Keeping it simple has proved to be the route for our family. What really convinced me of this route was reading SWB's Writing With Ease: Strong Fundamentals. She gives you a good picture of how writing skills develop. And I LOVE "getting permission" for moving slowly. No, my 4th grader isn't writing 5 paragraph essays yet, but when he does.... he will do it well and with much less effort than the poor kids in PS who are required to do too much too fast with little instruction in how to develop writing skills. There's a lot more to it than just putting pencil to paper! :001_smile:

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Lori D.

Lori D.

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- Wordsmith Apprentice (gr. 4-7)

Wonderful, gentle intro into writing, esp. for writing phobic boys; first time they didn't moan and groan about writing! And they loved the silly one-page comics. Can be used as a lite supplement or a fun break from a more formal/structured program.

 

- Jump In (gr. 6-8)

Similar in gentle, incremental, informal, friendly tone as Wordsmith -- and a more in-depth sequel to Wordsmith Apprentice than Wordsmith! Great esp. for struggling writers in helping them think of what to write, how to organize their writing, and how to come up with specific examples/details/facts to support their writing. Do be aware of "hot button" topics (pro choice; abortion) mentioned a few times as one of several ideas for writing assignments. The program is supposed to take 2 years, by interspersing free writing from prompts after each unit, but... the prompts are very lame, and when using Jump In with an older student, it worked much better to just skip the free writing and take 1 year to do the program.

 

- Scholastic Writing Series (gr. 5-8)

Descriptive Writing; Narrative Writing; Expository Writing; Persuasive Writing. While written for a classroom, and not that great as a stand-alone writing program, lots of creative and interesting informational details and exercises/assignments. Not a good choice for a spine writing program, but makes a great supplement for creative, unusual and fun short exercises and writing assignments. See at Rainbow Resource Catalog.

 

- IEW

Okay, we only have used the key word outline CONCEPT from seeing Pudewa live, and from watching some of the teaching DVD with a friend -- BUT, it was a very helpful idea, and made writing manageable for writing phobic elementary through middle school boys. It helped us to organize thoughts; spread the writing out over several days; by the end, write complete coherent paragraphs -- and if you do another paragraph over several days, and then another paragraph over another several days, in 2 weeks time your writing phobic student actually has a 3-5 paragraph PAPER!

 

- chapter in Windows to the World on how to write a literary essay (gr. 8-12)

So clear, specific, and step-by-step, almost fill-in-the-blank. This is worth the price of the program alone. Really helped our high schoolers begin to make the jump from not only using examples to support their contention, but adding from their own brains the explanation of WHY the example supports the contention.

 

 

MISC. THINGS THAT WORKED FOR WRITING

 

GRADES 1-4

 

- share writing a story

Take turns, each write few words at a time (use dice to determine how many words) -- this and other writing ideas from Peggy Kaye's Games for Learning, or Games for Writing.

 

- write a goofy or fun list

(ex: 4 things I'd take into space; 7 ingredients for a witch's brew; names for 3 Ninja moves; top 5 places I'd go on vacation; etc.)

 

 

GRADES 4-6

 

- free write/journal write (3-6 sentences, 2-3x/week)

Our DSs do NOT like creative writing, so we used prompts like: "What I hate about..." "What I like about..." "Where I'd like to visit..." or things based on their interests at the time, such as Ninjas, gaming, movies, sports, etc.

 

* good list of all-purpose prompts: http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/prompts.html

* another good list of all-purpose prompts: http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/1492.html

* prompts by grade level from Write Source: http://thewritesource.com/writing_topics/

* quotations for use as prompts (for middle/high school ages): http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/1860.html

* prompts for creative writing: http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/

 

- book report

About one every 2-3 weeks, writing answers to various questions from SWB's list here (scroll 3/4 down the page, look under the heading of LANGUAGE ARTS), and then spending 2 days pulling the answers to the questions together into 1-2 paragraph book report -- this part completely involves mom, but it is good practice for how to pull material collected into a coherent paper...

 

- Ready, Set, Revise -- write 1-2 sentences as a writing warm-up 2-3x/week

 

 

GRADES 6-8

 

- practice research AND writing a solid structured paragraph:

Look up/read about a country 2 or 3 times a week and write 1 paragraph with key or interesting facts about it -- the paragraph has to have an interesting intro sentence with a "hook", 3 to 5 "body" sentences of different interesting details with transitions from sentence to sentence -- or all 3 to 5 "body" sentences all about a single event/person/tradition, etc.; and end with a single "clincher" concluding sentence.

 

 

GRADES 9-12

 

- practice timed essays from past SAT essay prompts (scroll to almost bottom of page)

After the IEW key word outline concept and research/writing paragraphs in middle school, this has probably been THE single most helpful thing we've done for writing that has truly helped writing become easier and more natural for DSs.

 

Write the essays together and critique each other's essays; start with 15 minutes and write 1 long complete paragraph; after 2 months, progress to including a good "hook"; after 2 more months, go to 20 minutes and 2-3 paragraphs with at least 3 specific examples/facts/details to support your contention; after 2 more months, go to 25 minutes and practice thinking/jotting a quick outline, and making sure to conclude the essay and taking 1-2 minutes to go over it for spelling/grammar errors.

 

 

 

WANTED IT TO WORK, BUT...

 

Wordsmith (gr.6-8)

Gentle sequel to Wordsmith Apprentice; it worked fine with older son, but after finding Jump In, Wordsmith just doesn't have as much to it as I originally thought.

 

- Wordsmith Craftsman (gr. 10-12)

Written to student, for independent use; good program, it just didn't connect here -- probably because neither DS likes writing and being responsible for it on their own just wasn't going to work for them.

 

- Stack the Deck (gr. 1-12 -- we used the gr. 8-12 books)

While a lot of the individual bits of these programs are great, it is written for a classroom and is difficult to gear down to homeschool use without a lot of mom's time and effort. Of the 4 we've tried, the last one has been easiest to implement, and the only one we've been able to stick with -- and they have a very helpful, inexpensive (under $3!) booklet on how to write an essay exam for high school ages:

* Cut the Deck (gr. 8-9)

* Stack the Deck (gr. 9-10)

* Master the Deck (gr. 9-10)

* Fan the Deck (gr. 10-12) -- this one has actually been do-able

* How To Write An Essay Exam (gr. 11-12) -- booklet

 

 

 

DID NOT LIKE

 

- Writing Strands 3

B-O-R-I-N-G. Did not even last 1 week here.

 

- Jensen's Format Writing (gr. 9-12)

Good information, but too dry and formal for us; never even got out of the starting block.

 

- Put That in Writing 1 (gr. 8-10)

While the explanation and exposure to the various types of writing in PTIW1 is pretty good -- and covers a few types of writing not usually seen, it was only useable (for us) after extensive modification: drop the repetitive grammar exercises; substitute our own writing assignments for the single dull assignment for each lesson; skip the long, dull examples of "good writing"; grit our teeth to read through the unnecessarily formal and elevated language/sentence structure of the explanations of the different types of writing. Ultimately (for us) too little benefit for way too high a cost -- and only after too much modification

Edited by Lori D.
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littlebug42

littlebug42

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I am using Write Source this year with my kids using the older editions that I got off of Paperback Swap. It is a program written for use in school and I probably don't use it as intended but I like that it is straight-forward and easy for me to use. We currently have a focus on writing strong sentences so I am starting out working more on mechanics and with these mini-lessons that they have that are short writing assignments. I am really happy with it and honestly, it is the only program I have found thus far that does not bore me to tears.

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Mom22ns

Mom22ns

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- Wordsmith Apprentice (gr. 4-7)

Wonderful, gentle intro into writing, esp. for writing phobic boys; first time they didn't moan and groan about writing! And they loved the silly one-page comics. Can be used as a lite supplement or a fun break from a more formal/structured program.

 

- Jump In (gr. 6-8)

Similar in gentle, incremental, informal, friendly tone as Wordsmith -- and a more in-depth sequel to Wordsmith Apprentice than Wordsmith! Great esp. for struggling writers in helping them think of what to write, how to organize their writing, and how to come up with specific examples/details/facts to support their writing. Do be aware of "hot button" topics (pro choice; abortion) mentioned a few times as one of several ideas for writing assignments. The program is supposed to take 2 years, by interspersing free writing from prompts after each unit, but... the prompts are very lame, and when using Jump In with an older student, it worked much better to just skip the free writing and take 1 year to do the program.

 

 

I could have written these two exactly. Ds used Wordsmith Apprentice in 6th. They used Jump In together last year (5th & 7th) and it was outstanding. I've never used IEW, but both of these programs were a great success for my previously writing phobic ds.

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FloridaLisa

FloridaLisa

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Posted

Severely disliked: Writing Strands (the early lesson to write a page describing your pencil sent me over the edge).

 

Really liked:

*narration in the early years (no program; but oral and written narration are such a natural and solid foundation for later writing)

*IEW (much to my surprise)

*Creative Writing program by Rosie Watson

 

Am just about ready to dive into:

*Classical Writing -- excited and mired in plans!

 

 

Lisa

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