Writing choices for high school..

[saved1112]

Can you share pros and cons about any of the following for a student that struggles with writing? (but is improving)

 

Wordsmith

 

Put That In Writing

 

Writeshop

 

Jensen's Format Writing

 

Writing Skills (saw on RR)

 

IEW B or C

 

or any others you'd suggest or that I should avoid?

 

Thank you!

Edited August 2, 2012 by saved1112
adding another option

[Sunshine State Sue]

Writeshop

We used Write Shop for 6th-7th-8th grade. You may read my review here.

[saved1112]

We used Write Shop for 6th-7th-8th grade. You may read my review here.

 

Thank you, Sue. I appreciate that you answer my questions. (writing and geometry) :001_smile:

 

Hope to hear comments about at least a few of the others.

[jibaker103]

Can you share pros and cons about any of the following for a student that struggles with writing? (but is improving)

 

Wordsmith

I really liked the topics that are covered but the layout was weird and there was no clear way to schedule it. I did use bits and pieces of it the summer before 9th grade but gave up.

 

Put That In Writing

Don't know anything about it personally except that not very many people use it.

 

Writeshop

Looked this over in 7th grade to determine if we would use it in 8th and decided against it. I cannot remember why right now.

 

Jensen's Format Writing

I have heard this is a little dry but gets the job done. More for a science/math type of kid who wants the step by step approach to get it done.

 

Writing Skills (saw on RR)

Never heard of it.

 

IEW B or C

My oldest did Ancient HBWL and TWSS in 7th grade and SWI B and The Elegant Essay in 8th. My son is a fabulous creative writer but didn't care for formal academic writing and needed help with the structure of essays. IEW material gave him an excellent foundation for what academic writing is suppose to look like and the steps for getting it done.

 

or any others you'd suggest or that I should avoid?

 

Thank you!

I also tried Writing Strands but it was very confusing to me. We would both read it and scratch our heads. I could not figure out why we were doing what we were doing.

 

We are now using Classical Writing to take his writing further and focus on rhetoric. I cannot say enough about how wonderful this program is and the difference it has made in his writing and his critical reading skills. The best part is breaking down the stories into scenes, interpreting the essentials, vocabulary analysis, 6 sentence shuffle, and teaching the various ways to paraphrase.

[Pegasus]

EPS Writing Skills is a great place to start with a struggling writer. It starts out with the very basics and teaches in small increments, hand-holding the student through the entire process. They have different levels so look at the contents and samples to determine where to start. There is some overlap between the levels but the higher levels go further. This was a wonderful series of workbooks that finally got my oldest DD to write without such a struggle, tears, etc. I highly recommend it for struggling writers.

 

Wordsmith used to be considered good but I honestly think there are better programs out there now. We tried using it and found it to be scattered, for lack of a better way to describe it. Instead, at the same level as the original Wordsmith but a much better program, IMHO, is Jumpstart. We used Jumpstart after EPS Writing Skills Book 1 and before EPS Writing Skills Book 3 (we skipped Book 2, see my note above about the books having some overlap; after Jumpstart, DD had no problems with Book 3).

 

DD is now using Jensen's Format Writing and it is going very well. It is very cut-and-dried which is much preferred by my DD than something that requires creative writing. However, I don't know that I would START with Format Writing for a struggling writer. I think you need to start with something else and work your way up to it.

 

Best of luck,

Pegasus

[jibaker103]

Wordsmith used to be considered good but I honestly think there are better programs out there now. We tried using it and found it to be scattered, for lack of a better way to describe it.

 

This is a great way to convey it and what I was trying to say as well.