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4th grade essay. Ready for WWS soon?


Rivka
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The assignment (Mom-generated) was to write an essay explaining how different characters in the book Tuck Everlasting felt about immortality, and then state whether she would choose to drink from the magic spring herself. This is the final draft. I'm hoping people who have done Writing With Skill can comment on whether we have a long way to go to be ready. Until recently she's been quite a reluctant writer, but now I think she's coming along nicely. (Obviously we need to do some major punctuation work, though.)

 

Tuck Everlasting

 

In the book Tuck Everlasting, the Tuck family (Tuck, his wife Mae, and their two sons, Miles and Jesse) find a magic spring and they do not know it. They all drink, and after that they find out that because they drank the water they will never die. As well as that, they will always be all right, even if they have a seemingly fatal accident. After a few years though, they all have to go live a secluded, isolated life, because people think that they have done something incredibly bad so that they will live forever.

 

Most people think that they would be extremely lucky to be able to live forever, but the Tuck family, having actually achieved this, do not agree. Jesse likes the fact that he and his family are going to live forever, because of all the things he and his family are going to be able to do and see. On the other hand though, his older brother Miles doesn't like the water because they have to keep killing things but they don't die themselves. That makes him feel like he isn't pulling his own weight. The boy's mother Mae Tuck does not think it was a good idea to drink the water, and she probably hopes that in the future someone will invent a time machine so that she could go back in time and warn her past self not to drink from the spring; because if you live to long, people will stop trusting you. Her husband, Tuck Tuck (Okay, maybe just Tuck), does not think it was a good idea to drink the water from the spring because they have been dropped out of the wheel of life, the everlasting circle, and have become "stones by the road," unmoving while everybody else is moving along.

 

Personally, I myself would not drink the water from the spring. If I did, I would drop out of life completely and, well, just become a spoke on the wheel of life, that never gives but always gets. On the great rope of humanity, I would become a piece of twine which is only attached on one side. You could travel the world and do cool things, but after you had seen it all, what next? Another one of my many points is you would never know what would happen to you after you die. Ever. For these reasons and many others, I would not drink mysterious water that would make me live forever.

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Yep, she's ready.  That's a very nice piece, and certainly comparable to the level of literary analysis you do in WWS.  The first 10 or so lessons of WWS were easier, we did them in the spring of 4th grade. I'm sure Alexandra would have no trouble with them.  After that, you'll just want to assess as you go, and take more time on various assignments as needed.  The biggest problem Shannon had as a young WWS user was a lack of background knowledge - we had just started studying history, for example, so there were a lot of events referred to that she had never even heard of, and I found it important to provide her additional background readings, documentaries, youtube videos, or what have you in order to provide the background she needed to write about the topic effectively.  In WWS1, the student is provided with notes and asked to write from the given notes, which didn't work well for Shannon - she needed to read and digest the information herself, she had a hard time writing from someone else's notes.  I suspect you are aware of some of the threads about adapting WWS on the Logic Board? If not, there is one started by lewelma where people share various adaptations they made to the  program, including some who used it with younger kids.

 

(and, just for posterity's sake - I wouldn't recommend starting WWS with most 4th graders, but I know from reading your posts for years that your kids are quite accelerated.  So I'd say give it a try if you think she's ready!)

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Thanks for your assessment, and for the extra detail about WWS. I think we'll keep on solidifying her skills at this level for a while, and hopefully build up a good head of confidence and enthusiasm for writing, and then think about WWS later in the spring.

 

I found my copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves and am previewing it to see if I can adapt it for us to use. While I appreciate her love for the semi-colon, she needs to learn how to use it properly. Not to mention the comma.

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Thanks for your assessment, and for the extra detail about WWS. I think we'll keep on solidifying her skills at this level for a while, and hopefully build up a good head of confidence and enthusiasm for writing, and then think about WWS later in the spring.

 

I found my copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves and am previewing it to see if I can adapt it for us to use. While I appreciate her love for the semi-colon, she needs to learn how to use it properly. Not to mention the comma.

I forgot I had that on my kindle. Isn't there a workbook to match?

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