apmom Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 The title pretty much says it. We're going into 5th grade with ds. We've finished the Island level, and are part way through Town and will continue it this summer. Do you use a separate writing curriculum or not? I haven't up to this point, just assuming we will get to more writing as we progress through the levels. Is that right? Or do I need something else? Thanks in advance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caitilin Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 From what I have seen here on the boards, the more comfortable with writing mom is, the less likely she is to use a separate writing curriculum. I personally do not supplement, because I feel comfortable with doing my own writing instruction. I did have ds take a year "off" between Town and Voyage and work through Kilgallon because of the big jump in level between them, and I thought the different approach would benefit him.:001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 We've just finished Grammar Town, and are working on CE. We won't start Paragraph Town till August. We only did Sentence Island in the Island level (just so's you know that I haven't got a ton of experience w/ MCT yet, but I do love it!) We also use WWS. I do like some of the writing assignments I see coming up in the second half of Paragraph Town, and I plan on working through it thoroughly, but I wanted the systematic academic writing instruction that I'm seeing in WWS. Miss P was wanting to expand her writing assignments beyond summaries, but her early efforts were kind of sophmoric (actually, that would be a compliment to a 9 yo, wouldn't it? ;) I guess I mean "juvenile") and I wasn't really sure how to tackle teaching this myself - this is my first student, and my first year of teaching, and I guess I really wanted the hand-holding from SWB that WWS offers! I'm actually thinking the two will complement each other well - beyond a brief mention in an early lesson, SWB doesn't really teach how to write paragraphs, she seems to assume the student is already competent in knowing how to divide their writing into paragraphs. Which seems weird to me, because I don't think she every explicitly teaches that in WWE? So, anyway, I think 20 weeks of intense focus on paragraph structure and function will be really good for us, so I think PT and WWS will work together very well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunnyDays Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 I'm having my son work through Winning w/Writing 3 this year, to touch on the basics, and I also hand out "across the curriculum" writing assignments. We also do some WWE type exercises with copywork and narration. Next year when we do Town level, I'm going to just continue with that through most of the year... if I still feel like we need more, we might do a Time4Writing class, or something like Killgallon. My goal at this level is to give him exposure to good writing and make sure he has the basics down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenmamato3 Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 :bigear: thanks for letting me lurk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Yes, because I think MCT assumed use of his books in a PS setting where the students are already getting plenty of writing instruction & practice. WWE/WWS is a solid program that complements MCT very well. I also have my students work through EPS' The Paragraph Book series prior to tackling the writing in "town". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gailmegan Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 I've been using WWE/WWS along with MCT. I like using WWE3 and Sentence Island together (different approaches and neither one is too time consuming. My 5th grader this year was doing WWS1 and the grammar/vocab/poetics part of MCT Town. But he hit a wall with WWS1, so we put it aside and have been doing Paragraph Town with more success. For 6th grade he is going to do MCT Voyage only. I have heard that Voyage is much more challenging than Town, so I think adding anything else would be too much, but he will do some WTM-style (outlines and summaries) writing with history. Depending on how that goes, I'd like him to do WWS2 in 7th grade and we'll consider whether or not to add some MCT to the mix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Yes, 3rd and 4th grade: IEW 5th grade: MCT PT, and it was not specific enough for my son. I did not supplement it and definitely should have. 6th grade: WWS (ds was in 6th when WWS came out or we would have done it in 5th) Ruth in NZ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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