4th grade writing...is this overkill?

[ShutterBug]

Hi all :)

 

Let me preface this by saying that I made a decision while planning our 4th grade curriculum to put some extra focus on writing this year. Up until this year we've stuck pretty much to TWTM method for elementary writing. Some years we've used WWE and some years we've done narrations, copywork and dictations from across the curriculum.

 

I've listened to Susan's lecture on writing in the elementary years and I wholeheartedly agree with the philosophy behind the approach.

 

Ds (9) writes easily and beautifully when it's a self motivated creative writing (stories, journalling, etc..) but tends to completely freeze and go into panic mode when it comes to narrative summaries and expository type writing. Also, (and I know I should be able to) I couldn't shake that voice in the back of my head that kept nagging me in regards to what the kids in ps are doing writing wise.

 

Soooo, I made the decision to continue using TWTM method in combination with a more traditional writing program (ended up deciding upon Winning With Writing Level 4) so he could learn a bit more about paragraph construction, forming ideas, topic, detail and ending sentences along with practicing the different kinds of writing....narrative, descriptive, persuasive, etc..

 

Right now we're doing about 1 1/2 hours per day of writing. Our total school day takes anywhere from 4 to 5 hours. The work doesn't seem to be too much, and I'm slowly seeing some improvement....I just can't help but worry it's tooooo much.

 

Here is what our current schedule looks like....

 

Monday

- Ds reads a chapter in CHOW out loud and then we sit down and do a rough outline of important details from the chapter. Next he takes the details and writes a rough narrative summary of the chapter (generally one to three pages of writing). Then, we sit down and edit the rough copy together. I'm hoping this process will begin to come quicker, but for now it takes an hour to an hour and a half.

 

Tuesday

- Dictation - a paragraph taken from whatever literature he's currently reading. This year he's been reading through the unabridged children's classics. Sometimes I'll choose from his assigned reading for history..we're doing a brief overview of World History and he has daily reading from a booklist of Sonlight, TWTM recommendations, Beautiful Feet books, etc..

- Ds writes a final copy in cursive from Monday's edited rough draft and draws a picture to go along with the narrative summary. These then go into his history notebook.

 

Wednesday

- Lessons 1 - 3 from that week's Winning With Writing Assignment

- Ds reads a chapter from CHOW out loud and gives an oral narration

 

Thursday

- Lessons 4 - 5 from that week's Winning With Writing Assignment

- Dictation

 

Friday

- Ds reads a chapter from CHOW out loud and gives an oral narration

- I assign some sort of themed writing assignment that correlates with our current literature, history or science studies. For example, last week I assigned him to write a paragraph describing the differences between Earth and Mercury. Sometimes it's a paragraph, sometimes it's a book report, sometimes it's a letter to a friend.

 

Is this too much? How much writing are you expecting out of your 4th graders?

 

Thanks so much in advance for any input you may have to offer!

 

Jenn

Edited December 8, 2011 by ShutterBug

[ShutterBug]

I'm not sure why this isn't showing up when I hit "new posts"...maybe a bump will help :).

[Embassy]

 

Right now we're doing about 1 1/2 hours per day of writing. Our total school day takes anywhere from 4 to 5 hours. The work doesn't seem to be too much, and I'm slowly seeing some improvement....I just can't help but worry it's tooooo much.

 

 

 

I bolded one of your sentences. I think that answers your question. It doesn't seem to be too much for your family and you are seeing results. It looks like you have a well thought out plan. So carry on :)

 

My 4th grader probably spends about 2 hours a week on writing, but we don't follow the classical education model when it comes to writing. We use Jump In and Killgallon along with a few book reports here and there.

[...................]

Everything is relative and individual...but this seems excessive to me.

 

I don't know why you can't just stick with WWE or find another program that would take less time...

[GingerPoppy]

My first-glance, gut-level reaction--and I do have a 9y.o.--is that this is a LOT of writing for this age. I'd personally scale it back by half. We're doing a lot less (WWE and some Bravewriter, plus Killgallon) and she's still making lots of progress and now writing lovely, well-constructed sentences. I want her to get very proficient at quality sentences and oral narration at this point, without burning her out.

[Jenny in GA]

FWIW, my fifth grader does not spend this much time writing. But maybe we are too lax. She does WWE 4, M-TH, and a SOTW narration about once a week. She also writes in her journal or writes letters to friends here and there on her own. But if everybody seems happy, keep on! :)

[....]

Ya' know...:D This is similar to the writing my 4th grader does. It's not pulling teeth, is it? I mean, the more my kids write, the easier it is for them. I don't see anything wrong with it. They do more writing than that in ps. 1 1/2 hours is a long time, tho. I don't know. I'm wondering if you put all the time that my kid writes throughout the day together, if it would come out to 1 1/2 hours of writing. Maybe an hour. We do Classical Comp and that has outlining in it. It takes a good 40 minutes sometimes - just for that. Yeah, if you add other writing on that day, it would be 1 1/2 hours.

 

FWIW, my two oldest kids are great writers (for their age). If something happened and they went to ps, they would probably blend right in. :tongue_smilie:

 

If your student is doing all this and it's becoming a fight, or the kid is crying...then I wouldn't push so hard. However, if she's whipping out paragraphs like there's no tomorrow, then I would keep going.

 

Some kids need to be challenged or they lose interest, too. I have this situation in my house. Also, mine get offended if something is "for babies" - quote from my 6 yro when she saw MEP. :glare:

[....]

FWIW, my fifth grader does not spend this much time writing. But maybe we are too lax. She does WWE 4, M-TH, and a SOTW narration about once a week. She also writes in her journal or writes letters to friends here and there on her own. But if everybody seems happy, keep on! :)

 

Do you follow TWTM? There is a ton of writing for 5th grade in TWTM. Some of the weekly writing includes outlining from history reading, preparing a written summary of history reading, one-page narrative summary of literature selection, listing of facts/places in history notebook and writing a weekly science lab report.

[Haiku]

Is this too much? How much writing are you expecting out of your 4th graders?

 

I don't expect this much writing from my fourth grader, but if it's working for you and your son, then don't worry about what other people are doing. If he is able to accomplish this, then it sounds like it's perfect for him.

 

I think it sounds like a great plan, and I wish I had the time to dedicate to a plan like that.

 

Tara

[Another Lynn]

I bolded one of your sentences. I think that answers your question. It doesn't seem to be too much for your family and you are seeing results. It looks like you have a well thought out plan. So carry on :)

 

 

 

:iagree: Can't argue with results. As one who did not have my oldest write enough at that age, I can heartily encourage you to keep it up.

 

Everything is relative and individual...but this seems excessive to me.

 

I don't know why you can't just stick with WWE or find another program that would take less time...

 

I don't know why this struck me funny. Why should she just stick with WWE if her ds is responding well to the challenge? Actually she is doing some WWE type writing (though she is taking it to a higher level), and adding in WWW. I think there are a fair number of folks doing that this year.

[Beth in SW WA]

 

I think it sounds like a great plan, and I wish I had the time to dedicate to a plan like that.

 

Tara

 

:iagree:

It is an ambitious routine but it looks fabulous! Is the coloring exercise necessary? Could be busy work.

 

This inspires me to ramp up my writing. I anticipate 4th grade to be a busy writing year.

[ShutterBug]

Thanks so much for the input everyone! :001_smile:

 

As I mentioned...I still do adhere to TWTM's philosophy on elementary writing..hence the written/oral narrations and dictations. We have used WWE in the past...I guess what I didn't like about it was that it seemed disjointed from the rest of our curriculum. I went back to my copy of TWTM (I think its the 2nd edition) and went with what SWB has outlined for writing in 4th grade. She actually recommends that by 4th grade narrations should be written and should be in the form of longer paragraphs/short compositions.

 

Once again..I know I shouldn't let what ps kids are doing sit in the back of my head and bother me, but I really wanted to give ds at least some fundamental instruction on the basics of writing beyond narration and dictation and Winning With Writing has filled that gap nicely :). I love homeschooling. Ideally I'd like to homeschool through high school, but you just never know what life has in store and I'd feel terrible having to send ds to school at some point without having prepared him for what will be expected.

 

I think the biggest change I've noticed is that since we've started this, ds's confidence in his ability to write has improved. Before, when I'd tell him to write a narrative about what we'd read, he'd immediately melt. Now that he has been given some basic instruction in writing and has a structure in mind that he can follow, there is less freaking out and more "okay, I have a plan that I can follow step by step to get this done".

 

Thanks again everyone!!!!

 

Jenn

Edited December 9, 2011 by ShutterBug

[mytwomonkeys]

my daughter is in 4th grade. i think we do less than your son. we use:

 

1) bju english 4 (which rotates english & writing).

 

2) she has to write chapter reviews from whatever book she is reading (her choice). we don't outline the chapters though - she just has the freedom to write in her own words what the book is about.

 

3) in history, there are a lot of comprehension questions in our curriculum, so she does that 2x week.

 

4) lastly, she has to write a paragraph using misspelled words from her spelling list & tie them all together somehow - this makes it challenging but fun at the same time.

 

 

each kid is different though, and if isn't too much for your son & you see improvement, i'd say stay with it :)

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

 

How much writing are you expecting out of your 4th graders?

 

 

 

Wow. My 4th grader does not do even a fraction of that. She is working through Meaningful Composition book 4 semester 1. She also outlines her science. This year other than meaningful composition our main goal is getting her outlining skills down.