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Classical Writing--Anybody still use/like this?


Homemama2
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Hi all-- I have a few questions about CW. :001_smile:

 

This seemed to be 'all the rage' a year or two ago, but lately I haven't heard much on here about it. I was looking to buy Aesop A for next semester with my 4th grader (or possibly Aesop B), but first I wanted to see if there was a reason nobody is talking about this much.

 

If you have used this, have you dropped it...and if so, why? It seems like it could be pretty time consuming, so that is one drawback...but from the samples it doesn't look difficult to teach. (Looks can be deceiving, however!) How long does this actually take each day?

 

And if you do use this, do you need a spelling and grammar program too? We are using AAS and Abeka grammar right now.

 

Finally, if you are happy with this, do you think the student book/instructor's guides are essential or is it easy to come up with your own examples and just use the core book?

 

Thanks!!

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I used Aesop for awhile with my oldest, but dropped it and sold it because it was too time consuming. I really hated to sell it, because I do think it's an awesome program. Since then we've used some Imitations in Writing, Writing Strands, and WWE/WWS.

 

Yesterday Aesop & Homer for Older Beginners arrived. I'll be starting it with my older two after Thanksgiving. I thought I might be able to do our own thing for writing, but it's just not getting done.

 

I require the Student Workbooks and IGs. I think they're extremely helpful.

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We just raced through Aesop B this semester, and started Homer A this week. I'm still in the honeymoon phase. :D

 

I've read a lot of complaints that Homer is convoluted and difficult to understand. I haven't had any trouble understanding how it's set up. I haven't used it long enough to really see its flaws, though.

 

The student and teacher guides make the program nearly open and go. I wouldn't want to use the program without them. There are too many skills being taught at once and the learning curve for the teacher would be too steep for me to be able to use the program effectively. If I had used Aesop at a normal pace, I don't think it would have been very time consuming. It has 18 weeks worth of lessons scheduled. You can do one week worth of work in the workbook, then spend your next week writing and revising. It was somewhat time-consuming to do the program at double-speed, but it still wasn't terrible.

 

ETA: we spent 45 minutes to an hour on Aesop (this was both the workbook and writing session time). The days dd was doing a rough draft of the writing assignment were probably longer than this, but she was working independently to compose her story.

Edited by bonniebeth4
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We have gone through Aesop, Homer and have just started Diogenes Maxim. Aesop is easy to go through and I didn't find it time consuming at all. In fact, with the second time through with ds, I was able to knock off even more time. One thing with CW, there is alot of convoluted steps to get to the final goal. The trick is to find what steps you can skip over and still reach the goal.

 

Homer is very hard to go through. It is not hard to teach but it is time consuming, extremely so. The repetitiveness just about veered us off of the CW path, but I am glad that we kept on with it. We are now doing Diogenes and both my dd and I love it. It is easy peasy compared to Homer. There is variety in the lessons and the lessons are interesting.

 

After going through the first three books, though, I have decided to not have my ds go through Homer. I know that he would not be able to handle the repetitiveness. This saddens me because after being through the forrest of Homer, I can see what a great program this is.

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We have gone through Aesop, Homer and have just started Diogenes Maxim. Aesop is easy to go through and I didn't find it time consuming at all. In fact, with the second time through with ds, I was able to knock off even more time. One thing with CW, there is alot of convoluted steps to get to the final goal. The trick is to find what steps you can skip over and still reach the goal.

 

Homer is very hard to go through. It is not hard to teach but it is time consuming, extremely so. The repetitiveness just about veered us off of the CW path, but I am glad that we kept on with it. We are now doing Diogenes and both my dd and I love it. It is easy peasy compared to Homer. There is variety in the lessons and the lessons are interesting.

 

After going through the first three books, though, I have decided to not have my ds go through Homer. I know that he would not be able to handle the repetitiveness. This saddens me because after being through the forrest of Homer, I can see what a great program this is.

 

I was going to try Older Beginners for myself and I will be keeping this in mind. It might help me get through Homer if I know that it is "just a season" in the overall scheme of CW.

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prairiegirl,

 

I would love to hear more about the steps you found more valuable and which you skipped. I realize every child is different in how they learn, but I am on the fence right now with regards to buying Homer A & B to look through. We have been working through CC Fable (Classical Composition) and are loving it. Next up is CC Narrative, which I believe is similar to CW Homer. With CC you learn 18 figures of description that are SO helpful with descriptive writing. We are also learning copia exercises, in media res, precis, etc. I was planning to move right into narrative that continued with these exercises but added Agent, Action, Cause, etc. to the mix and the stories are longer.

 

I just keep wondering what is Homer doing that I am not already doing? I know the 6 sentence shuffle is there, but as for the writing .. what else. It seems like there is literary study, modern paragraph study and things like that. How much of it is that? How much of it is paraphrasing scenes from a story?

 

Gosh.. I know I have a ton of questions, but this has just been something I have been thinking about for a week. ;-)

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Perhaps this will help with understanding Homer. Each day focuses on a specific aspect of composition and/or narratives; i.e. reading and understanding narratives, words, sentences, and paragraphs. There are 10 skill levels for each day. Each skill level includes a number of lessons. All of the skills and lessons build in complexity. CW includes more extensive work with analysis and copia than CC. However, the actual writing projects in Homer are similar to Narrative; i.e. retelling narratives. In that respect CC and CW are similar. The student retells a narrative each week.

 

The best way to compare CC and CW is to buy the Homer core and read through it. Deciding what to teach is simply a matter of going through the skills and lessons and determining if your student knows the material. If so, do a quick review and move on. If not, teach it.

Edited by 1Togo
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Oldest is doing Aesop A&B this year, tweaked to fit our schedule. I have the Homer core and have read through it once and am now finishing up a second reading along with an outline of the skills taught (I love a good chart with page references :D). I like what I see and think it will be a valuable part of my dc's writing education. But...

 

I am using CW the way I want to. Although I purchased the IGs and SGs for Aesop, I ended up creating my own student workbook. I wanted grammar definitions to match what we had been learning in FLL. I wanted to change the amount of writing so my ds wouldn't revolt. I wanted to separate the analysis and imitation from the writing projects so we didn't spend too long on composition each day. We started by doing A&I on one story a week for four weeks; we also outlined the story on Day 4. Then we chose two stories to do rewrites on during the next two weeks (we school 6 weeks on/1 week off).

 

We're taking a break during our next 6-week term to do some of MCT's Island program, and when we pick Aesop up again in January we'll do more rewrites, per dc's request. The first two skill levels in Homer seem similar to Aesop so I'll probably move into some Homer-esque work in the last 6-week term of our school year.

 

I plan to do Homer, my way, over 5th and 6th grades. I've decided not to buy the workbooks (although I will download the models for $0.99 from Lulu). I'm sure the workbooks are great, but if I had them in front of me, I would feel compelled to do what they say. I've found that our homeschool runs best when I plan our subjects and drop the curricula into our schedule, rather than following someone else's plan. Besides, if I did the Homer workbooks as written I couldn't skim over some of the in-depth grammar that may or may not be appropriate for my dc and I'd have a hard time fitting in Killgallon and WWS and MCT. :lol:

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We have CW Aesop - core only. It isn't that bad to teach, the shorter pieces are quicker to get through than the longer ones. It tells you to do spelling / phonics, and offers ideas. But the way you do the words is up to you. It includes a little grammar (Homer has more I believe), but not a lot.

 

I'm planning to jump to MP's release of CC:Fable as soon as I have funds. My son likes CW and retelling the story, but after looking at MP's changes (MUCH better teacher's notes), I believe CC will be more effective. This child needs to be taught to slow down and look at details, and CC does that. Could I do this with CW? Sure. But I don't have time. (Might not be an issue with the CW guide books, but the price is prohibitive. Plus, I'm happy with our current spelling and grammar.)

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I have used CW for 6 years and have completed through Chreia. I think it is a fantastic writing program and will most definitely stick with it for the long haul. That being said, my oldest two are taking the year off from CW this year...mostly for my sake. I decided to streamline my own teaching schedule this year by having my oldest two work on Writing Aids assignments for TOG, as well as some creative writing assignments...especially since my 6th grade dd is doing Homer this year, which is especially time consuming.

 

To answer your other questions, I have used Harvey's grammar as recommended in CW and work on spelling in the context of their writing. We do not use a separate spelling program.

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Thanks everyone! I will look into CC too. I hadn't heard of that one...and the price seems much better. If anyone has used both CC and CW, do you have a strong preference for one or the other? Or do you find they are pretty similar (minus the grammar and spelling that is included in CW.) Since I already have grammar and spelling for the year, (and actually next year too. :blush:), I don't 'need' that included.

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prairiegirl,

 

I would love to hear more about the steps you found more valuable and which you skipped. ;-)

 

When I was talking about skipping, I was referring more to Aesop. There were some things that I did skip with Homer but I am not sure if they were the wisest things to leave out. We didn't do all of the steps of Day 1. We did the dividiing of scenes and applying Theon's six categories as well as the precis but that was about it. The in-between steps seemed too diddly for me and dd.

 

I would think that if you wanted to skip anything it could be the grammar portion. You wouldn't have to do the parsing or the diagramming if that was not important to you. For us, dd needed the work on grammar so we did that part faithfully. Another thing we did faithfully was the 6 sentence shuffle. The shuffle is brought over into Diogenes so I am glad that we continued on with that.

 

As I look back on Homer, I see it more as an analysis program rather than a writing program. We learned alot about analyzing but I don't think it helped her writing all that much. With Diogenes, though, I can see how this is helping her writing skills a great deal.

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I emailed Memoria Press this morning about future CC guides -

 

"We are shipping the Fable Student and Teacher and the Narrative Student. We anticipate having the Chreia/Maxim Student by the end of the year. The Teacher Manuals for Narrative and beyond will not be available until next Fall. We are focusing on the student books at the moment since those are needed for the online course."

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I've felt tempted to jump ship with Homer, but am now very glad to be sticking with it. As stated, I know it's only a phase to the grander picture:) What has saved my sanity is we do it at our own pace and skip things that are too repetitive. As long as my dd understands the concept, I don't make her do as much as asked. It took me until about week 9 to get to the point of being comfortable making it our own, but I'm so glad since I know it's such a quality program. HTH some:) Gina

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I started using CW:Aesop, Core book only this fall with my boys. Before that we used WWE, core book only. I'm not too fond of open and go, so both have worked well for us. I decided to go to CW Aesop because I felt that the in-depth analysis of a complete thought (a whole fable, or a whole story told in a paragraph or two that did not need extensive back-story) was a better choice for my guys. I also liked integrating grammar and spelling into the writing program, in addition to having a separate grammar and spelling study. To me this is applied study which had been lacking. Since we are new to it, I can't say for sure if it works better for us than WWE, but so far it has seemed to. We enjoy it more than WWE, although the programs do seem to be similar at this point. They are beginning second grade, and the Core has to be modified a bit for them.

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Hi all-- I have a few questions about CW. :001_smile:

 

This seemed to be 'all the rage' a year or two ago, but lately I haven't heard much on here about it. I was looking to buy Aesop A for next semester with my 4th grader (or possibly Aesop B), but first I wanted to see if there was a reason nobody is talking about this much.

 

If you have used this, have you dropped it...and if so, why?

No we have not dropped it. My 7th grader is in Diogenes Maxim, my 5th in Homer, and my son will hopefully start Aesop next year.

It seems like it could be pretty time consuming, so that is one drawback...but from the samples it doesn't look difficult to teach. (Looks can be deceiving, however!) How long does this actually take each day?

Aesop is not very time consuming. I usually schedule 30 minutes for 4 days a week, but the full time is not usually required every day.

 

And if you do use this, do you need a spelling and grammar program too? We are using AAS and Abeka grammar right now.

Technically, you wouldn't need separate spelling or grammar. We have programs that we like, so we stick with those. Instead of spelling in Aesop, we work on alphabetizing, dictionary skills, and thesaurus skills. We use CW to reinforce grammar.

 

Finally, if you are happy with this, do you think the student book/instructor's guides are essential or is it easy to come up with your own examples and just use the core book?

I don't consider the student book or instructor guide to be essential. We use just the core here.

 

Thanks!!

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No we have not dropped it. My 7th grader is in Diogenes Maxim, my 5th in Homer, and my son will hopefully start Aesop next year.

 

Thanks for responding! I noticed in your sig that you have older children in Omnibus and CW. Omnibus is something I'm seriously considering for the future as well. Do you do the writing in Omnibus as well as CW? Thanks!

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Deanna from Narrow Gate Academy and any others in the upper levels, would you be willing to post a sample of your dc's writing in the High School Writing forum?

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=315165

 

If it's a matter of not wanting to make it public, I would gladly accept something scanned and emailed to me to read through. I have been trying to see upper levels... Chreia, Maxim and beyond and the style of writing they produce. We are at the beginning stages of the progym. but would love to see where it might lead to in the future, and as of yet I have been unable to see much in the way of examples on the high school writing board or elsewhere.

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Thanks for responding! I noticed in your sig that you have older children in Omnibus and CW. Omnibus is something I'm seriously considering for the future as well. Do you do the writing in Omnibus as well as CW? Thanks!

 

We are doing some of the writing currently, not all. I'm planning to slowly increase it over the year as we get into more of a flow.

 

Deanna from Narrow Gate Academy and any others in the upper levels, would you be willing to post a sample of your dc's writing in the High School Writing forum?

 

I don't have any samples to post right now. It would appear that her unit 1 assignment vanished (most likely was accidentally recycled). She should finish unit 2 in the next couple of weeks. I was planning to post it on my blog and give an update on how it's working for us.

 

Is this true for the Homer level as well?

 

Yes, we just use the core for Homer as well. My prep work is printing the model, writing down which lessons/pages we are covering for the week using the schedule in the back for the analysis, and dividing the writing assignment up into daily chunks. Each day, I open the core guide to the lesson and go over the skills in the core. Then, I help DD work to use the skills on a portion of the model. I also assign a portion of the writing assignment to be accomplished.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Deanna at Narrow Gate Academy,

 

I noticed that this past week your dd in 5th grade was working on "The Face That Launches a Thousand Ships" for CW Homer. Is that a model that CW gave you, or something that you came up with. I am trying to figure out if the Homer Core Text supplies everything you need to work all 10 units (I think that is what they call them), or if you have to find your own samples to use.

 

Also, does the Core provide everything in the way of instruction for parsing and the 6 sentence shuffle, or would I need the additional books for that level? I am about half way through CC Fable and wondering if it might be helpful to take a look at Homer and how it relates to CC Narrative. I would love to see samples, although I know you have your hands full teaching! ;-)

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Deanna at Narrow Gate Academy,

 

I noticed that this past week your dd in 5th grade was working on "The Face That Launches a Thousand Ships" for CW Homer. Is that a model that CW gave you, or something that you came up with. I am trying to figure out if the Homer Core Text supplies everything you need to work all 10 units (I think that is what they call them), or if you have to find your own samples to use.

 

The core has two schedules in the back a forty week one for younger students and a twenty week one for older students. The first six models are in the back of the book after that they can be found online with a little effort (http://www.mainlesson.com is a good site for this). The schedule lists the name of the model and the author, so for week 12 for examples it says The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships (Colum) so it is a chapter from The Children's Homer by Colum. I was pressed for time when my oldest was starting Homer so I opted to purchase a pdf of the Homer models from CW. It was worth 99 cents to me for the time savings.

 

Also, does the Core provide everything in the way of instruction for parsing and the 6 sentence shuffle, or would I need the additional books for that level? I am about half way through CC Fable and wondering if it might be helpful to take a look at Homer and how it relates to CC Narrative. I would love to see samples, although I know you have your hands full teaching! ;-)

 

Other than a thesaurus, I don't use any additional books. Each new skill lesson has directions and then a gray box with a step by step example of what you are supposed to be doing. I find that to be sufficient for me. HTH

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The core has two schedules in the back a forty week one for younger students and a twenty week one for older students. The first six models are in the back of the book after that they can be found online with a little effort (www.mainlesson.com is a good site for this). The schedule lists the name of the model and the author, so for week 12 for examples it says The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships (Colum) so it is a chapter from The Children's Homer by Colum. I was pressed for time when my oldest was starting Homer so I opted to purchase a pdf of the Homer models from CW. It was worth 99 cents to me for the time savings

 

Thanks for this! I just received my Aesop books and I'm planning to return the instructor's book and student book. I was hoping Homer would work without the extra workbooks as well.

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