Please critique - WWE 4, Week 33 by ds 11

[ELaurie]

Ds 11 is a struggling speller, and finds writing difficult.

 

I typically provide quite a bit of help with his writing assignments, but he completed this one entirely on his own. I had planned to move him to WWE 5 next year, but now I am reevaluating that. WWYD? (Words in italics are words he asked me how to spell. He also left out the word said, in brackets.)

 

King Alfred worked hard to make England beter, he made sure all juges were fair and that all thieves were hevely punished, and they [said] that you could put gold chains in the street and no man would touch one. Now Alfred needed a way to keep track of time, and the way he did it was he took candles and made noches in them to keep track of the time; he also made boxes to put them in so drafts did not affect them. Next sadly King Alfred died and there was much fighting over the throne but eventually the rightful king came to the throne. Charles Dickens thougt that the Saxons were good and virtuous in every way.

 

Aargh. I am in despair.

[Capt_Uhura]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

 

My almost DS11 is also in WWE4. We are only on week 16. From my untrained eye, it seems he's putting in too much detail. He needs some work on sentence structure. For example, in his sentence "Next sadly King Edward died" there are two separate ideas, that he died and the fighting over the throne. (I think SWB addresses this in WWS). Did you go over the samples in WWE and ask him to compare his narration to those samples?

 

I think for me, I wouldn't let spelling stop you from moving into WWS. I think the beginning of WWS might help him to tighten up his narration. Who is this passage about? It's about King Alfred. Why was he important? "He worked hard to improve his country. He translated latin books in Saxon for his people. He passed just laws and enforced them. He also invented the first lantern to keep track of time." Who else is the passage about? "King Edward." Why was he important? "He succeeded King Alfred, who died of an unknown disease, to the throne. King Alfred united the seven kingdoms into one English kingdom."

 

That covered the gist of the passage in 6 sentences as dictated by SWB's instructions. You could work on sentence structure by combining what King Alfred did into one sentence in the above narration I wrote. Then you'd have an extra sentence to include something about King Alfred's nephew.

 

I do think WWS 5 will help him in this area. I would move forward with it when it comes out. Work on spelling and sentence structure in some other fashion...perhaps Killgallon or just edit his narration passages to work on sentence structure if you're comfortable with that.

 

Those are my 2cents....not an English prof...learning as I go.

 

Don't dispair, it's not that bad.

 

Capt Uhura

[ELaurie]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

 

Did you go over the samples in WWE and ask him to compare his narration to those samples? That's a good idea - I also plan to go over his narration and the examples in the book with him next week.

I think for me, I wouldn't let spelling stop you from moving into WWS. I think the beginning of WWS might help him to tighten up his narration. Thank you for this advice! I may have him continue to work on spelling over the summer. My hope has been that WWE 5 would help him in just this way, but I didn't want to move ahead too quickly and leave him feeling frustrated. Who is this passage about? It's about King Alfred. Why was he important? "He worked hard to improve his country. He translated latin books in Saxon for his people. He passed just laws and enforced them. He also invented the first lantern to keep track of time." Who else is the passage about? "King Edward." Why was he important? "He succeeded King Alfred, who died of an unknown disease, to the throne. King Alfred united the seven kingdoms into one English kingdom."

 

That covered the gist of the passage in 6 sentences as dictated by SWB's instructions. You could work on sentence structure by combining what King Alfred did into one sentence in the above narration I wrote. Then you'd have an extra sentence to include something about King Alfred's nephew.

 

I do think WWS 5 will help him in this area. I would move forward with it when it comes out. Work on spelling and sentence structure in some other fashion...perhaps Killgallon or just edit his narration passages to work on sentence structure if you're comfortable with that.

 

Those are my 2cents....not an English prof...learning as I go.

 

Don't dispair, it's not that bad.

 

Capt Uhura

 

Thank you Capt! I feel better after reading your reply. The run on sentences are one of the issues we've been working on this year using WWE. I agree that he tries to put too many ideas, and / or too much detail in his sentences. I'll go over it with him next week, as you suggested. Thank you again for your encouragement! :001_smile:

[kht2006]

I would download a phonetic spell checker for computer based writing assignments. They really are awesome!

[Capt_Uhura]

I had another thought. Do you have him tell you his narration first? You could try doing that and writing down his narration. Then work on his sentence structure and make sure he's getting the gist of the passage. Then have him read through his edits, then have him write it down w/out looking at what you've written down/edited. Then have him read his corrected version he has written to see how much nicer it sounds/flows compared to his original. I think this is easier for them w/ narrations rather than writing they've done from the heart.

 

Also, as far as spelling. how is he w/ spelling rules? Did that not work for him? We did SWR and and will be returning to it. But we know the rules so that when they misspell a rule, I can remind them of the rule. I don't do this for proper nouns or for large words but for words I feel are on grade level, we do this. So if he's spelling "baking" and spells it "bakeing" you can say, "when we had an ending starting w/ a vowel, what do we do w/ e?" I find this continual, continual, continual reinforcement works and I see my boys going through this self-dialogue now on their own (is that redundant to say self-dialogue? :lol:)

[ELaurie]

Both of your suggestions are helpful reminders.

 

I usually have him tell me his narration orally, then help him with sentence structure and make a simple outline for him to work from when he writes. We've been working through the passages paragraph by paragraph to find the main idea, or to find at least one idea that he wants to include in his narration. Since this is similar to what he'll be doing next year in WWE 5, it seems like a logical way to help him make the transition. Later in WWE 5, I think they students summaries without looking back at the outline, but if I remember what we did in the beta testing, they can refer to the outline in the beginning.

 

I also help him with spelling, etc. as he writes, but I don't think I reinforce the rules as consistently as I should. Your suggestion is a helpful reminder to do that.

 

What dismayed me today was to see what he came up when left entirely to his own devices. I was helping his brother with something, so he dictated his notes into my phone, and wrote his narration from there. I really do think WWE 5 will help him organize his thoughts in a more systematic way next year. I can see that he has a long way to go, but he has also made a lot of progress this year using WWE 4.

 

Thanks again for your suggestions!

[Capt_Uhura]

Ah I see, you did that normally but this time he did it all on his own. It sounds like you're doing all the right things and it will just take slow and steady progress. This year we used How To Teach spelling. It's less time consuming that SWR and reinforces one rule at a time. It was very good for my boys and it was pick up and go. And it's easy to skip around in to do problem spelling rules.

 

I'm counting down to when WWS will be ready. I didn't realize you were in the test group as well. My last two purchases (I hope) for the year will be WWS and AoPS's new pre-alg program.

[ELaurie]

your encouragement Capt.

 

You've helped me put things in perspective, and refocus on things we need to continue to review - spelling rules; finding the main idea in each paragraph, putting thoughts in to more succinct sentences before writing them down. I also appreciate the reminder that WWE 5 will help him with these skills next year :001_smile:

[Capt_Uhura]

I was going to say something lol and then realized I probably shouldn't. But, suffice it to say, look at the beginning parts of WWS again, the narration part. If you don't get it, PM me. :001_smile:

[ELaurie]

I just reread the narration parts - I really do feel better now :tongue_smilie: