BrettW Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 My dd (just turned 11), has never done WWE. We did complete WT1. We've gotten though WWS up to the "Titanic" paragraph. Quite honestly, it's been a struggle for her (and me). I'm wondering is we should back away from WWS and go back into the WWE level... I'm really discouraged by her writing... Here's her first version of the Titanic completely unedited...(spelling and all) ******************* The Titanic collided with the iceberg at 11:40 pm. 37 seconds after sighting it passengers didn't know what had happened so they were playing with ice chunks wile the ship began to sink. Immediately the captin reilized the ship was sinking and sent out life boats. "Give the command for all the passenjers to be on deck with the life boats on." said Captin Smith. The life boats could only carry half of the people on board. So they put on the women and children. Not long after that, the ship sank. And only one life boat came for the many men in the water. ************** I'm looking at other posters and seeing 8 year olds with better writing than this. Her writing (to my non-professional ear/eye) just doesn't flow well. Her grammar and punctuation are pretty bad, as well. Any thoughts from experienced WWE/WWS users? She's still young...should I go back to basics? Or continue on....? Brett Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebacabunch Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 It really isn't that bad. Honestly. It made sense to me. WWS is about the writing. My dd had the same kinds of spelling issues until we started using spelling power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebacabunch Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 Also, wws is meant to be independent. WWE 4 is great for grammar and seeing really well written paragraphs. Your kiddo wouldn't be behind if you went back to wwe4. WWS is middle grade curriculum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrettW Posted October 8, 2012 Author Share Posted October 8, 2012 Thanks, Bacabunch, for your advice. I have WWE3 (which I bought for my younger - he's currently finishing WWE2). Would I want to do WWE4 specifically, or do you think WW3 would work as well? And then move back to WWS... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebacabunch Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 wwe3 would probably be just fine! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrettW Posted October 8, 2012 Author Share Posted October 8, 2012 Thank you :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Create Your Ritual Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 Brett my dd11 completed 5th grade last year and the entire year of WWS. I will say that the beginning of the program is difficult to sink your teeth into. The first 14 weeks or so are good, but can also be confusing to really grasp what you are trying to accomplish. You can't really SEE the big picture with it, but I have found so much value in it that now I wouldn't use anything else with my dc at this age. By the end of the year you are writing full compositions in Science and History as well as literature & poetry analysis. I definitely walked dd through all of the assignments. We learned more about the topics before she wrote about them. My son, eight at the time, also came along for the ride and worked through the assignments. I would say that if she is struggling with how to summarize or what to say then by all means use some of the assignments in WWE4 to get her in the swing of things. Summarizing is a harder concept than it appears. So is outlining. It took some time to grasp. Then you add in your own compositions taken from reference notes and you are in a whole new ball game. My dc also did WT1 and the difference that I noticed between something like WT or CC Fable (Classical Composition that we used also), is that it felt like creative writing to them. Retelling the story was fun. This was a great place for me to start at the time because I had brought them home from public school and they had never been required to write much at all. So this helped them just write A LOT more .. physically write a lot more. The writing was fun for them for sure. WWS is way more academic in it's approach. I could get beautiful sentence structure out of a piece that she wrote from CC Fable, but when it came time to complete a composition on history it just felt dry and boring. It's like her brain couldn't do BEAUTIFUL writing and get all the facts in there at the same time. I almost gave up WWS because of it, but I am so glad that I didn't. Helping her care about the topic a bit more through history channel dvds or whatever should help. I know for me talking about the subject and having her ask herself what she wants to impart to the reader is still an important part of the equation for us now that we are beta testing WWS2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Create Your Ritual Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 Brett my dd11 completed 5th grade last year and the entire year of WWS. I will say that the beginning of the program is difficult to sink your teeth into. The first 14 weeks or so are good, but can also be confusing to really grasp what you are trying to accomplish. You can't really SEE the big picture with it, but I have found so much value in it that now I wouldn't use anything else with my dc at this age. By the end of the year you are writing full compositions in Science and History as well as literature & poetry analysis. I definitely walked dd through all of the assignments. We learned more about the topics before she wrote about them. My son, eight at the time, also came along for the ride and worked through the assignments. I would say that if she is struggling with how to summarize or what to say then by all means use some of the assignments in WWE4 to get her in the swing of things. Summarizing is a harder concept than it appears. So is outlining. It took some time to grasp. Then you add in your own compositions taken from reference notes and you are in a whole new ball game. My dc also did WT1 and the difference that I noticed between something like WT or CC Fable (Classical Composition that we used also), is that it felt like creative writing to them. Retelling the story was fun. This was a great place for me to start at the time because I had brought them home from public school and they had never been required to write much at all. So this helped them just write A LOT more .. physically write a lot more. The writing was fun for them for sure. WWS is way more academic in it's approach. The subject material is not easy for them to get a handle on initially. I could get beautiful sentence structure out of a piece that she wrote from CC Fable, but when it came time to complete a composition on history it just felt dry and boring. It's like her brain couldn't do BEAUTIFUL writing and get all the facts in there at the same time. I almost gave up WWS because of it, but I am so glad that I didn't. Helping her care about the topic a bit more through history channel dvds or whatever should help. I know for me talking about the subject and having her ask herself what she wants to impart to the reader is still an important part of the equation for us now that we are beta testing WWS2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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