Would WWE/WWS with History Odyssey be overkill on writing?

[Hedgehog]

What do you think?

[~Amanda~]

:lurk5:

 

I'm planning on using these...

[abbeyej]

No.

[Capt_Uhura]

Yes, I think so. WWS is designed to be done after WWE4. If your child is ready for the narration exercises at the beginning of WWS, I'd skip WWE4. You may still want to do dictation to address punctuation, spelling, grammar. It also depends on which level of HO. HO Ancients level2 has less writing than HO early modern level 2 I believe.

 

My 5th grader did the WWS beta test and it was difficult to continue w/ WWE4 while doing it. We did the dictations on WWS days that didn't have much writing.

[robsiew]

If you mean either WWE or WWS and HO, I don't think that's overkill. That's what we're planning. We're using HO Level 2 ancients and hopefully WWS. If you are planning both WWE and WWS and HO... that would be overkill in my house! ;)

[HeidiKC]

Which HO? We did Ancients Level 2, and I'd say it isn't all that much writing. I don't think it would be overkill, and I was just looking at WWS last night and thinking that it would have been nice if we'd done that last year with HO. I think they would work well together.

 

But I think there is some difference in the amount of writing, etc. when you continue with HO level 2 (the various time periods, I mean).

[Capt_Uhura]

OHHH if you meant WWE or WWS, then no I don't think it's overkill.

[NittanyJen]

DS10 is not an enthusiastic writer (I actually started him on WWE level 1 this spring, albeit at an accelerated pace-- 1week per day 4 days/ school week) so we are doing WWE and HO2 Ancients together, and it is a pretty minimal amount of writing to require, even at our 'accelerated' WWE pace.

 

Jen

http://hillandalefarmschool.blogspot.com/

[Blossom'sGirl]

I get concerned when I hear people say that HO is not that much writing. (as in my expectations must be way lower) My oldest did Lev. 2 of the Middle Ages last year and he was sick of all the summaries and outlines and papers. His 3" binder was loaded, and he tended to do the minimum possible with the writing. I thought some of the lessons were a lot of writing, but it did ramp up his ability some. I felt like I got quantity but little quality.

[NittanyJen]

I get concerned when I hear people say that HO is not that much writing. (as in my expectations must be way lower) My oldest did Lev. 2 of the Middle Ages last year and he was sick of all the summaries and outlines and papers. His 3" binder was loaded' date=' and he tended to do the minimum possible with the writing. I thought some of the lessons were a lot of writing, but it did ramp up his ability some. I felt like I got quantity but little quality.[/quote']

 

*Remember that each level of HO requires a bit more of the student than the prior one-- Middle Ages will ask more than Ancients did, for example. So, if the question was about WWE and Ancients, really, that is not a lot of writing. But it builds gradually, so that by the next year, the student should be able to handle the amount of writing in the next year's program.

 

*At first I thought Ancients would be a ton of writing, but then I re-read the parent letter more carefully, and one type of assignment only requests 1-2 sentences, and the other, maybe a short paragraph of 5-6 sentences (which for him, is a long one right now, since I'm one of the PP who said she has a very reluctant writer); but in the beginning of the program at least, they don't ask for many of the longer type responses to start with.

 

That may make it sound "light," but I know that it builds, since I read through the syllabus. In the meantime, he is reading a lot, and we do discuss it together, so I know he's getting it (and will get it more deeply on the next go-round in high school) so I'm not worried about that; I like the building-up process that is not discouraging him.

 

I think by the time he gets to the middle ages next year, he'll be ready for what may be somewhat more writing that you are seeing, having been gradually built up for it, kind of like training slowly for a 5k run!

 

I think any child starting mid-way through the program should perhaps start with shorter assignment lengths and build up to the longer ones asked for-- after all, this is essentially 3 subjects worth of writing we are talking about! (Literature, history, and geography; I add in lots of extra books to read into HO).

 

Jen

http://hillandalefarmschool.blogspot.com/

[HeidiKC]

I get concerned when I hear people say that HO is not that much writing. (as in my expectations must be way lower) My oldest did Lev. 2 of the Middle Ages last year and he was sick of all the summaries and outlines and papers. His 3" binder was loaded' date=' and he tended to do the minimum possible with the writing. I thought some of the lessons were a lot of writing, but it did ramp up his ability some. I felt like I got quantity but little quality.[/quote']

 

We did HO Ancients Level 2 last year. It did not seem like all that much writing, but from looking at the online sample of Middle Ages Level 2, it seems like it definitely increases. So maybe the people saying it isn't a lot of writing are the Ancients people! I'm guessing (from the sample) that I won't say Middle Ages "isn't a lot of writing".

 

As a pp said, I like how it starts out slow and builds from there so as not to discourage kids in the beginning. My son's favorite subject last year was history, but I'm not sure he would have said that if he'd had to jump into Middle Ages where he'd be required to do quite a bit more writing.

[dkholland]

but it did ramp up his ability some. I felt like I got quantity but little quality.

 

I wouldn't be concerned about that. For my ds, 12, quantity has helped him. The more you practice writing the better. For him, if I had him work on a paper over and over until it was perfect, he would be so discouraged. If he fixes the one thing I want hiim to fix and maybe there are other little errors, I will let that go and call the paper finished. As I look back at all the wiriting he did, I see improvement, and I can tell which papers he really didnt put much effort into.

 

So, our philsophy in writing here has been write a lot and work on fixing glaring errors one at a time. My dss need encouragement in that area.

[Blossom'sGirl]

I wouldn't be concerned about that. For my ds, 12, quantity has helped him. The more you practice writing the better. For him, if I had him work on a paper over and over until it was perfect, he would be so discouraged. If he fixes the one thing I want hiim to fix and maybe there are other little errors, I will let that go and call the paper finished. As I look back at all the wiriting he did, I see improvement, and I can tell which papers he really didnt put much effort into.

 

So, our philsophy in writing here has been write a lot and work on fixing glaring errors one at a time. My dss need encouragement in that area.

 

I do agree that it was good for him to have a subject that required him to put pencil to paper. That said, I am giving him a break this year from that (constant summaries, outlines, etc.. ) and am having him do the US IEW Theme Based writing along with his younger brother. He did IEW Ancients two years ago and HO was our break from that. After that, I'm sure he will be ready to do something else.

 

He just don't physically like to write, and he has the worst pencil grip but refuses to correct it. I feel like a homeschool failure in that department. I am so grateful for word processing.

[Hedgehog]

Thanks for the input...

 

I did mean either WWE or WWS, not both! That really would be too much!!

 

What if a child was doing the first level of WWS, and History Odyssey (level 2) Middle Ages? Since my first post, I've narrowed it down to being that combo as the most likely. English is probably my dd's strength, but she doesn't do by half enough writing at the moment so I am definitely looking to increase it.

 

A related question, since I don't know much about History Odyssey: I'm presuming you can tweak the writing assignments somewhat to suit the child? As in, start on level 2 Middle Ages but build up the amount of writing required? I don't think it would be fair on my dd to expect a lot of writing from her from the get go, but I would plan on working up to it as we went along. What say you?

[abbeyej]

HO has a ton of very short writing assignments. There's very, very little that's "long" (a handful of assignments that might require more than 3 paragraphs), but lots and lots and lots of short assignments (1-3 sentences at a time). On days when you think there are too many brief assignments (for instance, writing 1-2 sentences each about 8-10 different people), you could simply cross off a few of the small assignments (reducing the total to 5 people to write about, for instance).