Write Guide review - after one week

[Pegasus]

There is not a lot of information about Write Guide on this board so I thought I'd give a quick review. DD15 has been using it for one week so far; we signed up for 1 month to give it a try. We mainly wanted to have the Write Guide consultant work with DD on revising essays. DD has been working through Jensen's Format Writing and cranking out draft essays. However, we haven't really stressed the need for revising and I know this is a weakness for us.

 

The main "con" of Write Guide that I read about was their ability to stretch out assignments and make them take up the full month. Advice was to be specific about your expectations.

 

So, when we were assigned a writing consultant, I let her know that DD already had several draft essays written and that I wanted them to work on the revision process at the rate of 1 essay per week. In this way, DD could work on 4 of her essays during the 1 month subscription period. The writing consultant has been very amenable to this.

 

What's working well for us: DD was initially very resistant to the idea of having an outside writing consultant but she is working well with our assigned consultant. The feedback is always positively phrased (instead of saying that something is bad/wrong, she states that this part could be improved by. . .) The consultant provides ideas and guidance for improvement but does NOT tell the student what to say/write. I was concerned about this at first as I wanted the finished paper to still be DD's, not some professional writer's! The writing consultant's feedback is always very prompt (we seem to have an assigned time of 11 am and her feedback always pops up on the website at exactly that time). After 1 week, they have finished working on the first essay so the consultant is honoring my request on pacing.

 

What could be improved: First, we seemed to be assigned an 11 am time for feedback while DD would really prefer to work on her writing much earlier in the morning. If we renew our subscription, I'll ask if I can request an early morning time. Second, the amount of feedback that DD is getting on a daily basis can be incorporated into the essay with maybe 10 minutes work. I know they don't want to overwhelm students but I really think they can expect a bit more from high school age students, at least.

 

That's all so far. I'll try to come back and update my review when we finish the month. :)

 

Pegasus

Edited May 6, 2012 by Pegasus

[Candid]

I've been curious about Write Guide and was thinking of using them in the fall. Please update us at the end of the month.

[Matryoshka]

We've been using WriteGuide for almost a year and a half now. I'd say the experience has been overwhelmingly positive.

 

The 11am (or even later) response time to be pretty standard. My dds have gotten used to working on writing in the evenings. This doesn't bother me much, as then writing doesn't take up the main part of the school day. The pace is partly driven by the consultant, but also partly by the student. I have twins, and one just plain writes/revises more at a shot than the other, and hence gets papers done faster. I'd say they get through a paper in about 3 weeks; that's from start to finish and includes them only writing every other day, as they take turns on the same account - so the pace would be faster if they were writing daily.

[Pegasus]

Our one month trial of Write Guide is complete so I wanted to update my review. Overall, I was happy with the experience and would definitely consider using it again in the future for a specific goal. I wanted the consultant to aid DD in revising 4 already drafted essays within our 1 month subscription. They worked well together to complete these and we ended up having several days remaining. The consultant proposed working on a new type of essay and offered DD several suggested topics. DD ended up choosing some different possible topics and narrowed it down to one. This took a few days of one-email-a-day exchanges with the consultant and was the only time that I felt that time wasn’t necessarily being used wisely. Still, DD managed to get the essay drafted, reviewed, and revised by our last day.

 

Pros: Having an unbiased writing consultant work with the student. Positive feedback and encouragement provided to the student. Works especially well if the parent has a specific goal in mind and provides expectations to the consultant. Reasonably priced if you only need it for a month or two. Consultant was willing and able to provide me with an overall evaluation of DDs writing and some suggestions of what to focus on next. Website exchange of emails protects privacy of student and consultant (you are not using private email accounts).

 

Cons: Would get expensive if you wanted/needed to use it for a full year. Not the most efficient use of time; I expect DD to write much more than she needed to in order to satisfy the consultant. Timing of exchange can be a bit inconvenient, depending on what time you receive the consultant’s feedback.

 

I’d be happy to answer any questions about Write Guide.