A couple of questions about WWS

[Greta]

I'm planning to use WWS next year for my 7th grader, and I'm curious about two things:

 

1. Do the writing assignments include or introduce some basic literary analysis?

 

2. How much writing would you have your 7th grader do in other subject areas (such as history)?

 

I know 7th grade may be kind of "late" for using this program, but I actually think it will be a good fit for us, from what I've read about it in other threads here, and what I've seen from the samples. I think it looks wonderful! I'm also trying to figure out what resources I want to use next year for literature and history, and how much writing we should or shouldn't do with those. Is WWS pretty intense, or will we have time for other writing? My daughter does lots of creative writing on her own, outside of her schoolwork. I want to preserve her passion for that, and not bog her down with too much writing. But she wants to be a writer someday, so I also want to give her effective instruction. Balance is such an elusive thing sometimes!

[redsquirrel]

I'm planning to use WWS next year for my 7th grader, and I'm curious about two things:

 

1. Do the writing assignments include or introduce some basic literary analysis?

 

2. How much writing would you have your 7th grader do in other subject areas (such as history)?

 

I know 7th grade may be kind of "late" for using this program, but I actually think it will be a good fit for us, from what I've read about it in other threads here, and what I've seen from the samples. I think it looks wonderful! I'm also trying to figure out what resources I want to use next year for literature and history, and how much writing we should or shouldn't do with those. Is WWS pretty intense, or will we have time for other writing? My daughter does lots of creative writing on her own, outside of her schoolwork. I want to preserve her passion for that, and not bog her down with too much writing. But she wants to be a writer someday, so I also want to give her effective instruction. Balance is such an elusive thing sometimes!

 

Yes, it has a whole one month section on intro to literary analysis using short stories. And the year ends with a second section using poetry. So, two sections of the book teach literary criticism. We just finished the first unit and my son has learned so much. He has been having fun looking back on other things he has read and picking out the protagonist and the nature of the conflict. I am looking forward to the poetry unit.

 

For other writing, I have my son do history in the method suggested by SWB in TWTM. So, he reads an encyclopedia and lists 6-8 fact, does a reading and writes a paragraph and does another reading and does an outline. Those assignments are on different days, btw. He also has a spelling book, but I am going to be replacing that next year with vocabulary. His grammar has some writing, but I allow him to do a lot of it orally. His Latin has writing..worksheets and translations and such. We end up doing a lot of science orally, but he does have sheets to fill in for experiments.

[KellyMama]

I'm planning to use WWS next year for my 7th grader, and I'm curious about two things:

 

1. Do the writing assignments include or introduce some basic literary analysis?

 

2. How much writing would you have your 7th grader do in other subject areas (such as history)?

 

I know 7th grade may be kind of "late" for using this program, but I actually think it will be a good fit for us, from what I've read about it in other threads here, and what I've seen from the samples. I think it looks wonderful! I'm also trying to figure out what resources I want to use next year for literature and history, and how much writing we should or shouldn't do with those. Is WWS pretty intense, or will we have time for other writing? My daughter does lots of creative writing on her own, outside of her schoolwork. I want to preserve her passion for that, and not bog her down with too much writing. But she wants to be a writer someday, so I also want to give her effective instruction. Balance is such an elusive thing sometimes!

 

:bigear: I'm considering this for my 5th and 7th gr DDs next year also and was wondering the same things!

[Greta]

Yes, it has a whole one month section on intro to literary analysis using short stories. And the year ends with a second section using poetry. So, two sections of the book teach literary criticism. We just finished the first unit and my son has learned so much. He has been having fun looking back on other things he has read and picking out the protagonist and the nature of the conflict. I am looking forward to the poetry unit.

 

This sounds great! Thanks for explaining.

 

For other writing, I have my son do history in the method suggested by SWB in TWTM. So, he reads an encyclopedia and lists 6-8 fact, does a reading and writes a paragraph and does another reading and does an outline. Those assignments are on different days, btw. He also has a spelling book, but I am going to be replacing that next year with vocabulary. His grammar has some writing, but I allow him to do a lot of it orally. His Latin has writing..worksheets and translations and such. We end up doing a lot of science orally, but he does have sheets to fill in for experiments.

 

Thank you for describing how you guys do things. I haven't been requiring a lot of writing from my dd. We do things orally much of the time. So I think we'll have to ramp up gradually.

[Amy in CO]

Ds is in 7th and doing WWS. We usually only do 3 lessons a week due to coop. I also have ds do a narration paragraph and an outline (1-2 level) for history. For science, he is in a coop and has some writing weekly, usually a report or lab write-up. His other subjects have small amounts or writing, but these are his major assignments.

 

I do have to constantly remind ds of the time limit. He tries to complete an lesson every time he starts one. And sometimes the lessons are long. So I have had to limit him to 30-45 mins for WWS. If he is really close to finishing, he will, but there are days that he sits there for 1 1/2 to 2 hours trying to do an assignment. And we are working on being able to set it aside after the 30-45 mins and finishing it tomorrow.

[Greta]

Ds is in 7th and doing WWS. We usually only do 3 lessons a week due to coop. I also have ds do a narration paragraph and an outline (1-2 level) for history. For science, he is in a coop and has some writing weekly, usually a report or lab write-up. His other subjects have small amounts or writing, but these are his major assignments.

 

I do have to constantly remind ds of the time limit. He tries to complete an lesson every time he starts one. And sometimes the lessons are long. So I have had to limit him to 30-45 mins for WWS. If he is really close to finishing, he will, but there are days that he sits there for 1 1/2 to 2 hours trying to do an assignment. And we are working on being able to set it aside after the 30-45 mins and finishing it tomorrow.

 

Thank you so much, Amy!

[Colleen]

Greta, thought I'd chime in and say that my 7th grader will use WWS as well. He's a very capable writer, but by no means do I think this age is too "late" for the program. On the contrary, my impression is that it's an ideal fit for 6th/7th grades.

 

Do the writing assignments include or introduce some basic literary analysis?

 

I wondered about this as well, and am glad to hear some lit analysis is included.

 

How much writing would you have your 7th grader do in other subject areas (such as history)?

 

WWS will be my son's primary writing focus. He does enjoy creative writing, and will have that opportunity via freewrite prompts and forays into Bravewriter offerings. But I don't require history & science writing a la TWTM recommendations; to me, it's overkill.

 

Glad to be taking the WWS plunge with you!:)

[Greta]

Greta, thought I'd chime in and say that my 7th grader will use WWS as well. He's a very capable writer, but by no means do I think this age is too "late" for the program. On the contrary, my impression is that it's an ideal fit for 6th/7th grades.

 

I am glad to hear this! I think it will be a really good fit for my dd, so that had me slightly concerned at first, when I thinking that it was designed more for 5th graders. But when I read some threads here about it being pretty advanced, I breathed a sigh of relief. :D

 

WWS will be my son's primary writing focus. He does enjoy creative writing, and will have that opportunity via freewrite prompts and forays into Bravewriter offerings. But I don't require history & science writing a la TWTM recommendations; to me, it's overkill.

 

And I am really glad to hear this! We've been doing much more of our work orally (narrations, Q & A, and simply discussing) and I haven't required anywhere near the amount of writing that TWTM suggests. I do want to gradually increase that, but I am very comforted to know that we are not completely alone in that regard! She does do tons of creative writing on her own, and I really want to honor that and leave the time and energy for her to do that. Creative writing was simply not something that I was capable of at her age. Really. I remember getting some creative writing assignments in school, and to a non-creative person like me the response was a blank stare, a blank page, and does not compute . . . does not compute . . running through my head. :lol: Now I could have done TWTM type writing assignments without any trouble, because that's the way my brain works. But she is so different. And while I think expository writing is critically important, I just don't want to risk her love of creative writing by giving her too much other writing to do.

Glad to be taking the WWS plunge with you!:)

 

Me too! Keep me posted on how things go for you guys. :001_smile: