birchbark Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 I'm unsure what we are going to do next year and thought it might be good to pick the brains of veterans. We spent DS's early years doing CM writing, and the last couple going through Understanding Writing. So he's done a lot of work on style; not as much on formats. Is that going to be a "hole?" What would be a good program to prepare for high school work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mbelle Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 I hope you get some reply's! I have a similar type of question so I'll check in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlsdMama Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 Okay, so this isn't very traditional... DS is getting ready to begin WWS2, but I decided to pick up MFW Lit Supplement, which teaches the argumentative essay. Three pages into it and while I understand what she's saying and it is quite clear, I put the book down and called for Ana to bring me her laptop. I'll say first, before I go further, that it depends what type of writing you want to teach, but frankly PWN the SAT for Essays is great. I loved it. Loved it. CJ is in ninth and I think my time is going to be best served by stopping and working through that book with him. Now if argumentative essays is not what you're aiming for, definitely do not buy that book. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie in MN Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 I can't say what I *wish* I'd done, but what I liked to do in 8th. I liked to focus on writing, as you seem to be, so I'm all for that. However, I find it best to focus on each child's strengths and weaknesses in that last year before high school. For instance, you mention style. My youngest does not need one.single.second wasted on style; instead, he needs to be reigned in to be more factual. Each of my kids was a very different writer. By 8th grade, I wouldn't spend time on a program that doesn't suit the individual child, except as far as a plan that involves simply writing and giving reader feedback. Do as much as you can to insure the student can write a logical, organized paragraph with a main point and supporting details. Julie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 I'd iron out any remaining grammar issues at that point. One of mine needed some work with commas then (don't we all)! And I'd work on paragraph, and then essays. The resources mentioned are all great. I like A Writer's Guide to Powerful Paragraphs and The Elegant Essay from IEW. My 9th grader is using Lost Tools of Writing -- Level I in her local history/lit/writing class, and I'm still getting used to it after years of IEW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 I have one thing I did that I'm happy with - Windows to the World: Introduction to Literary Analysis. This was a great introduction to topics of literary analysis (conflict, setting, figurative language) as well as writing solid essays. It did assume that students could write clear sentences and were familiar with the basics of paragraphs. But it walked them linking together quotations and analysis into a short essay. I do wish that I'd done more sentence diagramming before we started hard core Latin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
birchbark Posted January 10, 2014 Author Share Posted January 10, 2014 My 9th grader is using Lost Tools of Writing -- Level I in her local history/lit/writing class, and I'm still getting used to it after years of IEW. What do you think of LToW? That one has been on my radar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 What do you think of LToW? That one has been on my radar. Still not sure. I teach paid IEW classes for grammar-stage kids, so I'm most familiar with their products of course. My own have used Elegant Essay and parts of the literature books. LToW is more analytical, but it also seems to go very slowly from my perspective. My DC is definitely writing good persuasive papers, but I suspect that is LToW on top of six years of IEW. I need to sit down with her teacher at some point and see what she thinks. Her teacher also came from IEW, and teaches with LoTW both in this class and at Classical Conversations. This is the first year she's used LoTW though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mbelle Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 We are doing Classical Composition and I wonder about adding just plain 5 paragraph essay supplement to that. We are very happy with CC but just thinking ahead to HS Literature if we take an online course and need to write for that. My 8th grader does well with writing so I'm wonder how quickly we could progress through Elegant Essay or something like Teaching the Essay from AG? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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