Scheduling Writing with Skill & The Creative Writer

[Guest]

My daughter is going to be starting WWS 1 this year for 7th grade.  She really loves creative writing, and I wanted to add in The Creative Writer.  How should I schedule these?  I figured doing both at the same time might be overkill.  Could we alternate using them every other week, or would that confuse the progression of things in WWS?  Also, is The Creative Writer meant to be done independently like WWS?

[Melissa B]

We are doing WWS Monday - Thursday and Creative Writer on Friday (& Saturday if needed.)

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I would also like to hear the answer to this....

 

It seems like a student would produce more

, and of better quality in the "challenge" exercises if she isn't also burdened with 3-4 other days of writing alongside it. So my thinking was, that since my dd did two years of essays in 4th and 5th, she could jisy enjoy creative writing for a year or two, before going back to essays and outlining in 8th or 9th ...?

[Reefgazer]

This is an interesting discussion.  DD completed WWS I in 6th grade (she is young for grade, so she was 11 years old).  It was do-able, but she worked hard and it was a handful.  We worked 4 days a week, and took Friday off.  I am looking longingly at The Creative Writer, but I don't see a way to do that and WWS II for a year (she will be 13 this year) without seriously burning her out. 

[Reefgazer]

I am curious about this.  How old is your student who is doing this, and does the combination of the two cause burn-out or exhaustion? 

We are doing WWS Monday - Thursday and Creative Writer on Friday (& Saturday if needed.)

 

[Guest Ellie72]

My daughter started WWS 1 half-way through 5th grade.  After a while we slowed down with it, and ended up finishing it with a bang (lots of work and fun with the final project) about 14 months after starting it (taking a break for the summer).  Then she did the first part of The Creative Writer I.  It was a nice change of pace and so very different from WWS1.  Part I: Fiction is laid out in 7 sections and broken into 18 weeks of assignments, but we compressed it into about 10-11 weeks.  After the rigor of WWS 1, this seemed quite manageable.  

 

She read the lessons on her own (she's 11 now) and then she would bring me her assignments to look at and discuss with her.  Sometimes I would ask her to revise and edit, sometimes not.  I saw it as a fun creative writing endeavor and didn't want to critique too much.  She finds she prefers typing on the computer them so she can go back and edit easily.  Sometimes I would help her figure out what was expected.  There are "Mentor Materials" but I didn't use them very much.  

 

After a summer break she will start WWS 2, and I'm thinking we will take a break part way through to work on the Poetry section of The Creative Writer.  I don't envision doing them at the same time unless she really wants to.