HRAAB Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 I've compared the table of contents but can't really get a feel for how these two programs compare. Does Lively Art of Writing spend more time on developing a thesis? If you were thinking about using one with 8th graders, which would be a better choice? eta: tag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 Janet - You'll probably get more answers if you cross post this to the high school board. Until then, I found a whole SLEW of threads to link you to for hours of reading enjoyment. First, the comparison threads: Help with writing? Elegant Essay or other ideas? Composition and literature...would this work for one year? Teaching Essay Writing Lively Art of Writing...anyone made up a schedule for this? (strangely enough from the title, this one answers your question the best of the bunch, I think - hang on until the end of the thread) Need an alternative to The Elegant Essay by IEW Essay Writing. . . Lively. . . Elegant. . . Voyage. . . help!! Then, more threads just on either Elegant Essay or Lively Art of Writing (although sometimes the other one is mentioned): Windows to the World or the Elegant Essay? How do you use The Lively Art of Writing? Not Loving Lively Art of Writing Lively Art of Writing & The Elegant Essay (combining thread!) The Lively Art of Writing for a 7th grader? Lively Art of Writing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HRAAB Posted June 3, 2014 Author Share Posted June 3, 2014 Janet - You'll probably get more answers if you cross post this to the high school board. Until then, I found a whole SLEW of threads to link you to for hours of reading enjoyment. First, the comparison threads: Help with writing? Elegant Essay or other ideas? Composition and literature...would this work for one year? Teaching Essay Writing Lively Art of Writing...anyone made up a schedule for this? (strangely enough from the title, this one answers your question the best of the bunch, I think - hang on until the end of the thread) Need an alternative to The Elegant Essay by IEW Essay Writing. . . Lively. . . Elegant. . . Voyage. . . help!! Then, more threads just on either Elegant Essay or Lively Art of Writing (although sometimes the other one is mentioned): Windows to the World or the Elegant Essay? How do you use The Lively Art of Writing? Not Loving Lively Art of Writing Lively Art of Writing & The Elegant Essay (combining thread!) The Lively Art of Writing for a 7th grader? Lively Art of Writing Thank you so much. I feel like an utter failure. I did search for Lively Art of Writing but didn't come up with much. Wonder if I was only searching this board. :blushing: Now to brew a pot of tea and get ready to read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 Easier to search this board using Google. You go to Google and type in "site:welltrainedmind.com" and then type your search words afterward. So, mine would have been something like: site:welltrainedmind "Lively Art of Writing" "Elegant Essay" I put the quotes in so I didn't get "Art" by itself. Another way is to find one of those threads & then click on one of the tags to get other threads with that tag. Unfortunately, when the board was redone, the tagging became less helpful since only the original thread author can tag posts. It is helpful to go back and tag your initial post if it turns out to be helpful but most of us don't remember. For example, the "schedule" thread that looked like it answered your question was tagged "Lively Art of Writing". Clicking on the tag gets you to this list which has some older posts that are good. With that list of dc, I don't know how you could be considered a failure. :hurray: If my mom-skills ever equal my board-searching skills, I'll be pleased. :coolgleamA: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 I have to say that LAoW wasn't as helpful as I'd hoped in terms of teaching thesis statements. There are two short chapters on the topic, for a total of 15 pages. Developing a strong thesis and supporting it with evidence are the areas where my DD most struggles with writing. I haven't figured out yet what we're going to do in the fall in terms of writing. I've got a stack of books that I'm working my way through for my own self-education. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HRAAB Posted June 3, 2014 Author Share Posted June 3, 2014 I have to say that LAoW wasn't as helpful as I'd hoped in terms of teaching thesis statements. There are two short chapters on the topic, for a total of 15 pages. Developing a strong thesis and supporting it with evidence are the areas where my DD most struggles with writing. I haven't figured out yet what we're going to do in the fall in terms of writing. I've got a stack of books that I'm working my way through for my own self-education. This is the one area where my twins need the most help. On the one hand, they still have a few years, but at least one of them might be attending the private classical school their sister attends, and I want her prepared for the expectations of that school. They both did a lot of writing this past year, but when it came to developing a good thesis and giving supporting arguments, they need some help. Maybe I need to find some books that focus on that as well as writing an essay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cosmos Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 I don't know anything about the second program, but Lively Art of Writing is a small, cheap paperback book. Used copies starting at $0.01 on Amazon! I found it a worthwhile read for myself. It's quick to get through if you just read the text, and then you can decide if it will be helpful for your student or not and how (fully read the text + assignments, simply read a few key chapters, or something in between). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angela in ohio Posted June 5, 2014 Share Posted June 5, 2014 I have taught them each to various co-op classes. If you are going to use both, Elegant Essay would make more sense first. It is more basic and limited in scope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HRAAB Posted June 5, 2014 Author Share Posted June 5, 2014 I have taught them each to various co-op classes. If you are going to use both, Elegant Essay would make more sense first. It is more basic and limited in scope. After reading through all the threads linked above, I'm leaning towards The Elegant Essay. One thing that gives me pause is that several people have mentioned that it is hard to teach and that the TM doesn't match up easily with the SB. I wonder if this has been improved since they separated the TM from the SB. In the TM sample I saw lesson plans for a co-op and a 4 wk boot camp. Are there lesson plans for working through the book over a semester? I will be teaching and working through the book with my girls so I'm not looking for something that can be done independently, but I don't want something that is going to give me headaches before I even get to the point of teaching. I need it to be 'easy for me' to put together so I have time to work with them and not be frustrated with the layout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 There is a schedule for a one-semester course (about 16 weeks). They also give you an electronic schedule (one page e-doc) when you buy the book - but it is pretty close to the one that is in the book. I'm putting together my plans with both the TM & the student book in front of me. I need both during the planning stages as the TM doesn't have the student book info in it and that's annoying, but not insurmountable. It is set up to teach to a class (stuff in the TM) but most is easily adaptable to 'home life.' It is decidedly Christian, BTW. I'm Christian, but not really enthused by the constant references (in the TM) to helping the kids pick a bible verse or the Spurgeon stuff in one of the chapters. (Turn his whatever into an essay.) But I'm a tweaker, so it is likely I'd be changing stuff anyway. :closedeyes: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nansk Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 OP, will you please tag this thread as "Lively Art of Writing"? I want to be able to find RootAnn's super-helpful post in future. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HRAAB Posted June 6, 2014 Author Share Posted June 6, 2014 OP, will you please tag this thread as "Lively Art of Writing"? I want to be able to find RootAnn's super-helpful post in future. :) I would be more than happy to tag this thread if I could figure out how to do it. Can a thread only be tagged when the initial post is made? Seems to be an issue with tagging and the new boards. Or I'm clueless, which is totally possible. Help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HRAAB Posted June 6, 2014 Author Share Posted June 6, 2014 There is a schedule for a one-semester course (about 16 weeks). They also give you an electronic schedule (one page e-doc) when you buy the book - but it is pretty close to the one that is in the book. I'm putting together my plans with both the TM & the student book in front of me. I need both during the planning stages as the TM doesn't have the student book info in it and that's annoying, but not insurmountable. It is set up to teach to a class (stuff in the TM) but most is easily adaptable to 'home life.' It is decidedly Christian, BTW. I'm Christian, but not really enthused by the constant references (in the TM) to helping the kids pick a bible verse or the Spurgeon stuff in one of the chapters. (Turn his whatever into an essay.) But I'm a tweaker, so it is likely I'd be changing stuff anyway. :closedeyes: Could you give me an idea how much Christian content is in the TM? In every lesson or just sprinkled infrequently throughout? Is there any in the student book? My children are Catholic (I am not religious but can deal with general Christian content) so Spurgeon does not excite me. Thank you so, so much for all your help and especially the quick tutorial on how to search. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 :blushing: Go back to your first post & hit "edit". This is the only way you can edit your topic title & add tags right above the post. I would be more than happy to tag this thread if I could figure out how to do it. Can a thread only be tagged when the initial post is made? On Christian content, I'll have to get back to you. I'd admittedly not a detail-oriented person, so I'll have to look. That one lesson is the only one that looks :blink: really secular-unfriendly so far, but I'm usually able to overlook things that aren't overt. (Apologia's elementary books make me :ack2: for several reasons - and one reason is that they are so overt in their God-praise. I don't mind Abeka's or CLE's missionary/conversion mentions in occasional story problems, on the other hand.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted August 11, 2014 Share Posted August 11, 2014 SPAM reported. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space station Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 We started school this morning, and I assigned the first chapter of LAoW to dd13. After a while of busily working in her notebook, I asked her how she liked it. Her response: "I love it! This is the best writing book ever. I really want to start writing an essay right now!" Well, OK then, I guess we have our writing curriculum worked out for this semester!😃 ETA: My grammar typo was driving me crazy, and I had to fix it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 :party: We'll be doing this book this year too. I hope I get a similar response! We started school this morning, and I assigned the first chapter of LAoW to dd13. After a while of she busily working in her notebook, I asked her how she liked it. Her response: "I love it! This is the best writing book ever. I really want to start writing an essay right now!"Well, OK then, I guess we have our writing curriculum worked out for this semester!😃 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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