Writing Tales question

[Writerdaddy]

The samples look interesting. The questions on grammar and such very simple and confidence building. The copywork and grammer a bit on the easy side, compared to passage selections.

 

Then there is this huge assignment: write it again your own way. And that's it, except for some advice. But no instruction, no graduated work up. The most important part is just "now you go off and write"

 

It seems from the samples that it is just some selected text and the instruction "now you do it"

 

The simple questions put in there are fine, but sort of filler and nothing special or different than in various workbooks. The important part seems to have gone missing.

 

Or is it the samples are a poor representation of the program?

 

Can anyone explain, especially pele who like it?

 

Thanks!

[HomeschoolingHearts&Minds]

I tried WT1 last year with my then 3rd grader and we found it to be as you describe here.  The teacher's guide, if memory serves, didn't really add much to it.  It might have been ok with a different child, but was not a good fit for this particular child.

[Wabi Sabi]

Yes! I bought Writing Tales 1 to use with my third grader this year and have found the same thing so far- some basic worksheets to complete, then just a "write this" with no actual writing instruction. I've ended up switching over to an Evan-Moor workbook that deals more with the how-to aspects of writing. We'll work through it at an accelerated pace since it's short and fairly easy, then revisit Writing Tales later in the year.

[momto2blessings]

I love Writing Tales. The idea behind not having all the writing instruction, I believe, is in line w/Charlotte Mason and Classical Writing/Progym. Let them learn how to write by copying the masters. Then later on work on developing skills, style, etc. Just my .02:) Blessings, Gina

[Mom0012]

Writing Tales developed a love of writing in my dd. WT teaches the child to write by imitating fables. My dd loved the games and stories, and she loved to rewrite them with her own twist. After she wrote her stories, we would edit them together. She also illustrated most of the stories she wrote and made a book with them. I felt her grammar knowledge really blossomed the year we began WT as well because, even though it was very simple, it was applied to the stories and her writing, rather than being taught in a vacuum. We began WT when we started to burn out 2/3rds of the way through WWE 3. We'd already used WWE 1 & 2 and were ready for a break. It was a nice change of pace for us and it was a great tool to help her start writing longer amounts and to work on her style, grammar and punctuation.

[Writerdaddy]

Thanks. I mostly wanted to confirm that the samples were representative. Glad to hear about the positive experiences. I don't doubt that the basic idea of imitation is great: this is exactly how I teach my college and grad school writers!

 

I guess it's just a question of choosing my own samples for my kids and telling them, now you do it, or having preselected samples which may or may not have cleverly designed questions to go with them (haven't really decided about the latter)

 

Thanks again this is really clarifying.