If you do both WWE/WWS or IEW and Freewriting (Natalie Goldberg, BW, etc.)...

[Pen]

Could you tell me how the combination (and exactly what and what you are combining) is working, and how you are scheduling the combination (or also other language arts)?

 

I have the feeling that this would be best for my son to have such a mixture, but have not quite figured out how to work it all in.

 

(WWE/WWS: Writing with Excellence/Writing with Skill; IEW: Institute for Excellence in Writing; BW: Bravewriter; Natalie Goldberg: author of Writing Down the Bones) The former are more disciplined and toward the academic forms of writing, the latter more free form and self expressive. I'm thinking there is a need for both.)

[sierramv1]

I have a similar question. I was wondering if you could combine Bravewriter and IEW. I have a very reluctant writer, and much like we did with his reading; I'm trying to engage him to LOVE it, instead of drill the love of it out of him.

 

Both programs are very appealing.

 

:bigear::bigear:

[Halcyon]

We cmbine BW and WWS/wwe. Fridays are freewrite day-the last couple of weeks we havent doneit, but we are going to get back into it! My boys LOvE fridays!

[blakereese]

:bigear:

 

I'm thinking of trying a WWE and BW combo so I'd love to hear experiences with this. Right now we are only using WWE and I think we need a little something else. :001_smile:

[forty-two]

:bigear:

 

I'm trying to combine them at a theoretical level at the moment - figure out the whys behind their different approaches.

 

One difference is that a lot of free writing approaches build on our ability to speak and use oral language to communicate. They see conversational spoken English, of any dialect, as a complete, grammatical system - one that has a lot of crossover with the grammar of Standard Written English (SWE), and so our spoken competence can be used as a base for achieving written competence.

 

Otoh, SWB starts with the assumption that there is *not* a lot of meaningful crossover between conversational spoken English and SWE - that the differences are far greater than the similarities - and so learning to write is comparable to learning a foreign language.

 

And so the WTM approach teaches written language from the ground up, everything explicit, with the idea that sufficient explicit practice (coupled with lots of exposure to good writing via reading) will eventually produce people as fluent in SWE as they are in their native spoken English. And the free writing approach of speaking onto the page (to use Peter Elbow's term) tries to free people to write as naturally as they speak, making a few surface edits at the end as needed to be in line with SWE, and rooting all formal grammatical teaching in giving names to what the voice does intuitively and learning to use intuitive grammar in a conscious, disciplined way.

 

Another difference is that free writing approaches use the process of writing itself to generate ideas and figure out what to say, whereas SWB seems to separate the two - that you first figure out what to say and then you write it down. Free writing approaches (at least Peter Elbow's) do separate generating ideas from revising ideas, but not in a strict, first-one-then-the-other way, but allow for going back and forth between the two modes as needed or wanted. (I keep meaning to investigate the ancient rhetoric canon of invention, to see how it compares to free writing approaches to idea generation.)

Edited September 29, 2012 by forty-two

[forty-two]

Basically, free writing starts with the knowledge that's already inside a person, using intuitive, spoken competence as the foundation for building explicit written competence - explicit knowledge of grammatical terms and conscious ability to manipulate words to achieve desired effects rests on the underlying, core intuitive language knowledge every neurotypical person possesses from a young age. Free writing works from the inside out, giving names to what is already there, teaching people how to consciously use the intuitive knowledge they already have.

 

Otoh, the WTM approach works from the outside in: building up an explicit knowledge of grammar from the ground up, fleshing it out with lots of good reading, so that over time students will internalize the feel of SWE from all the conscious work they did with it.

Edited September 29, 2012 by forty-two

[forty-two]

As I continue to keep spamming this practical-minded thread with more theory :tongue_smilie::

 

This reminds me of a related thread I started (and abandoned :blush), about the importance of approaching learning from both a believing side, which looks for what is true in the idea, and a critical side, which looks for what is false in an idea.

 

Free writing approaches kind of feel like a believing approach to writing to me - focusing on the strengths of what people can innately do and building on them.

 

And the WTM approach feels like a critical approach to writing to me - focusing on the weaknesses, the holes, in what people can innately do and fixing them.

 

(Also, in Peter Elbow's approach to writing, he believes that the generating ideas stage of writing needs a credulous, believing frame of mind - looking for good things, not rejecting bad things - and that free writing is an excellent approach both to achieve that frame of mind and to harness it. And that the revising stage of writing needs a tough minded, critical frame of mind - finding flaws and ruthlessly getting rid of dead weight. But a critical frame of mind makes it hard to freely generate ideas and a believing frame of mind makes it hard to ruthlessly edit. And trying to combine the two steps - generating ideas and revising ideas - into one step is a dangerous approach. It can work for some, but more often leads to writer's block or uninspired, blah writing.)

Edited September 29, 2012 by forty-two

[Walking-Iris]

I do. After searching for a writing program that I liked forever, I've finally settled on the WWE/Bravewriter combo. My oldest ds finished Writing Strands 2 and most of 3, and although it was "meh" okay it wasn't really satisfying his desires to be creative. He hated the "assignments."

 

I had read a bit about Charlotte Mason (via Ambleside) and picked up a copy of WTM and a friend turned me on to Bravewriter. And I feel like I'm finally at a place where I'm happy with my plans/approach. I started WWE mid year last year with the text and WWE3 and then added BW as I researched and read about it (the blog and TWJ)

 

We alternate using WWE2 and 3. My ds still gets quite a bit out of hearing me read those selections with the questions/narrations, and doing copywork and smaller dictations. The next week he'll read aloud from WWE3 to me and do the dictation. I double up so we do the copywork/dictation right after we read in the same day. WWE is done 3 days a week. I use Bravewriter Arrow guides for our monthly read aloud and literary elements. We use the selections in the Arrows as copywork. And at the end of the month we'll work on the writing project in the Arrow.

 

We do Friday Freewrites as well. I used Bravewriter's blog posts about Freewrites to make a list of possible topics so we can have some prompts to get us started. I'm doing the 8 week Freewrite as detailed in The Writer's Jungle. After 8 Freewrites we'll go through and find 1 or 2 to take through the revision process as laid out in TWJ.

 

I also have JotItDown (from BW) and I have started my 5 year old on some very simple copywork and some memory work.

 

I think the WWE workbooks are a great resource. For reading passages, possible read alouds, listening comprehension questions, copywork/dictation passages. I personally don't have much of a desire to follow them verbatim. I also am in love with TWJ and pull it out nearly constantly to reference.

 

Last year my ds was really contrary and lackluster about "school"--but this year he is happy. He loves Freewrites, he loves doing copywork and dictation and has even picked out his own just for the fun of it. He likes the WWE workbooks and has even started to mark in the inside list some of the books he would like to read on his own or hear read aloud. He loves our ongoing conversation about the literary element of the month.

 

I do use a separate spelling and grammar program though. I'm not entirely comfortable with narration/copywork/dictation being the only thing to cover those skills. We dropped a formal grammar this year since my ds did really well last year, but I suspect I'll pick it up again for 5th.

 

I Love Writing Down the Bones. I love The Artist's Way and The Vein of Gold. I think WWE and Bravewriter are a fabulous combo. They complement each other very well. Julie Bogart seems to bring some creativity and life and humor into SWB's usually dry academic approach.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Walking-Iris

[Pen]

As I continue to keep spamming this practical-minded thread with more theory :tongue_smilie::

...

 

Thanks for adding in the theory too. I found that very helpful! By all means add more if you wish!

[Pen]

We cmbine BW and WWS/wwe. Fridays are freewrite day-the last couple of weeks we havent doneit, but we are going to get back into it! My boys LOvE fridays!

 

Thanks--do you just freewrite on Fridays and leave it at that, or eventually choose a freewrite and work more with it and polish it?

 

Do you find that the two things are starting to add to each other in ways you can notice? Or do they seem completely separate?

[Pen]

My additional questions in purple in the midst of your quote :001_smile:

My oldest ds finished Writing Strands 2 and most of 3, and although it was "meh" okay it wasn't really satisfying his desires to be creative. He hated the "assignments." My ds hated Writing Strands also.

 

I had read a bit about Charlotte Mason (via Ambleside) and picked up a copy of WTM and a friend turned me on to Bravewriter. And I feel like I'm finally at a place where I'm happy with my plans/approach.Great to hear, hope this will work for us too. I started WWE mid year last year with the text and WWE3 and then added BW as I researched and read about it (the blog and TWJ)

 

We alternate using WWE2 and 3. My ds still gets quite a bit out of hearing me read those selections with the questions/narrations, and doing copywork and smaller dictations. The next week he'll read aloud from WWE3 to me and do the dictation. I double up so we do the copywork/dictation right after we read in the same day. WWE is done 3 days a week. Thank your for these specifics.I use Bravewriter Arrow guides for our monthly read aloud and literary elements. Can you explain that more? Would that be like considering metaphors and using a passage that has one or more? Could you give some examples of literary elements you've been covering? I think I'd like to just do that out of what ds is reading anyway rather than adding something special for that. We use the selections in the Arrows as copywork. How do those compare to WWE copywork?And at the end of the month we'll work on the writing project in the Arrow. Could you give an example of an Arrow writing project?

I have TWJ and my son is currently doing Kidswrite Basic. I don't have the Arrow.

 

We do Friday Freewrites as well. I used Bravewriter's blog posts about Freewrites to make a list of possible topics so we can have some prompts to get us started. I'm doing the 8 week Freewrite as detailed in The Writer's Jungle. After 8 Freewrites we'll go through and find 1 or 2 to take through the revision process as laid out in TWJ.

 

I also have JotItDown (from BW) and I have started my 5 year old on some very simple copywork and some memory work.

 

I think the WWE workbooks are a great resource. For reading passages, possible read alouds, listening comprehension questions, copywork/dictation passages. I personally don't have much of a desire to follow them verbatim. I also am in love with TWJ and pull it out nearly constantly to reference.

 

Last year my ds was really contrary and lackluster about "school"--but this year he is happy. He loves Freewrites, he loves doing copywork and dictation and has even picked out his own just for the fun of it. He likes the WWE workbooks and has even started to mark in the inside list some of the books he would like to read on his own or hear read aloud. He loves our ongoing conversation about the literary element of the month.

 

I do use a separate spelling and grammar program though. I'm not entirely comfortable with narration/copywork/dictation being the only thing to cover those skills. We dropped a formal grammar this year since my ds did really well last year, but I suspect I'll pick it up again for 5th.

 

I Love Writing Down the Bones. I love The Artist's Way and The Vein of Gold. I think WWE and Bravewriter are a fabulous combo. They complement each other very well. Julie Bogart seems to bring some creativity and life and humor into SWB's usually dry academic approach.

 

Thank you for your help!

Edited September 30, 2012 by Pen

[LindaOz]

Could you tell me how the combination (and exactly what and what you are combining) is working, and how you are scheduling the combination (or also other language arts)? I have the feeling that this would be best for my son to have such a mixture, but have not quite figured out how to work it all in. (WWE/WWS: Writing with Excellence/Writing with Skill; IEW: Institute for Excellence in Writing; BW: Bravewriter; Natalie Goldberg: author of Writing Down the Bones) The former are more disciplined and toward the academic forms of writing, the latter more free form and self expressive. I'm thinking there is a need for both.)

 

I totally agree with you that there is a need for both.

 

I haven't used IEW, but combining more formal English instruction with free writing is something I've done for years and will continue to do because the balance works so well. My kids do freewriting twice a week and they look forward to it knowing that they have a scheduled time where they can work on their own stories. On the other days they use their English program which includes some writing instruction as well as grammar and comprehension activities. This freewriting time has resulted in some wonderful pieces of writing over time. Three of my dc currently have chapter books in progress and one is writing extra episodes for her favorite series of books. Another of my dd's also writes lovely poetry - and much of this comes from our free writing times. I really think it's all about balance - some of each. For us, having scheduled free writing times means that it doesn't get overlooked and the kids know that they will have that time.

 

HTH

[Walking-Iris]

Pen--I'll try to answer your questions. First about dictation/ copywork. Each Arrow guide has a dictation (I have chosen to use it as copywork) for the monthly read aloud. So for instance, we just finished reading Wind in The Willows. Once a week we use the passage selected from that book as copywork. They are long passages for dictation (for my ds yet anyway) so I use them as copywork since he gets plenty of dictation practice with the shorter passages in WWE.

 

As far as how they compare---they are longer and focused on one book a month rather than various selected passages. Also I personally feel that the dictation instructions in Bravewriter Arrow are more helpful than WWE's dictation instructions. WWE basically says "repeat 3 times" but Arrow has various different strategies for learning dictation. If nothing else I would recommend people get an Arrow guide just for those dictation instructions.

 

Alos each Arrow guide has a "literary element of the month." So for Wind in the Willows we talked about imagery. The Arrow guides give adescription of that literary element and then it's up to you as the parent to find examples of that in your reading. So when we would read Willows we would stop and notice examples of imagery. We noticed them in our other readings as well. Nothing too overwhelming and constant, just in a natural conversational way throughout the month. I prefaced this by talking about an author's "toolbox" and that just as building a house requires certain tools, building a great story requires certain tools. Spelling and grammar are only two tools and the literary elements are the others.

 

The writing exercise we did at the end of that Arrow guide was from Writing Down the Bones. It was a fun little exercise in creating sentences with really powerful verbs (imagery). A few of the sentences my ds created were "The blue umbrella marked a dry path through the rain." "The sunlit paper painted shadows on the floor." "The cup traced a circle of water on the table." So he learned to use verbs in unexpected, interesting ways to enhance the "image" of what he was saying.

 

This month we're reading Tale of Despereaux and our literary element is characters. So we have been learning about protagonist, antagonist etc. We've been talking about characters in other books we have read and where they would fit. We also talked about personification since Despereaux has animal characters. The writing exercise at the end of this Arrow guide will be to write his very own story using animal characters, with emphasis on fleshing out his characters before he starts to write. I can see this exercise being a longer ongoing project possibly.

 

You don't need Arrow guides to do this. There's Deconstructing Penguins. And quite a few other literary elements resources out there. I also don't subscribe to Arrow. I just picked out the Arrows based on the books we wanted to read, some old favorites and some new. I think if you're doing Kidswrite basic that is a great start.

 

I agree that it is about balance. Children *are* creative little beings. I wouldn't be comfortable not giving them some gentle direction in "writing as art" as well as basic writing instruction. My ds loves freewriting. I sit and write with him as well. He loves reading what I have written. It's like I'm his classmate or partner rather than teacher telling him what his assignment is that day. I also plan on revising and editing a few of mine as well. I love to write and I think watching me enjoy the writing process with him will inspire him.

 

Also I've noticed that taking away the "editing everything" syndrome has enabled him to open up and express himself. When he knows he can write without worry of punctuation, spelling or grammar then he really has some interesting thoughts. Freewriting almost forces parents to respect their children's thoughts and efforts. No red pen, no mention of the misspelled word, no comments about where a comma goes, no comment about unclear sentences. Just pure respect for the effort.