Tiramisu Posted January 3, 2016 Share Posted January 3, 2016 I've been planning of using PIYH for ninth next year, mostly because Jump In was such a huge success with another dd and with the kids in a coop class I taught. Then I realized I have Wordsmith Craftsman on my shelf. I got it for free from another hser. Sometimes I get obsessed with using things I already have, and it doesn't always go well. I like that Wordsmith Craftsman includes summary writing and note-taking. I'm not crazy about the letter writing, though. It's moderately useful, but I would prefer to go straight to essay writing after the note-taking and summary section. IRL time is valuable and I have to prioritize. Has anyone used either of these and mind commenting, especially for a kid who needs things clearly spelled out? I work with her, and I think I need things clearly spelled out, too. ;) TIA! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin in DFW Posted January 3, 2016 Share Posted January 3, 2016 Listening.... :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 I haven't used them. I used Wordsmith apprentice and Jump In. From that history and from looking at both, I'd use The Power is in Your Hands. We loved Jump In too. I really wanted to use it with dd, but I outsourced and she did CC composition class instead. Not the voice of experience, just a wistful voice that wanted to get the choice. :) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 (edited) I've been planning of using PIYH for ninth next year, mostly because Jump In was such a huge success with another dd and with the kids in a coop class I taught. Then I realized I have Wordsmith Craftsman on my shelf. I got it for free from another hser. Sometimes I get obsessed with using things I already have, and it doesn't always go well. I like that Wordsmith Craftsman includes summary writing and note-taking. I'm not crazy about the letter writing, though. It's moderately useful, but I would prefer to go straight to essay writing after the note-taking and summary section. IRL time is valuable and I have to prioritize. Has anyone used either of these and mind commenting, especially for a kid who needs things clearly spelled out? I work with her, and I think I need things clearly spelled out, too. ;) TIA! We loved Wordsmith Apprentice (both DSs). And we liked Wordsmith (DS#1) -- although we dropped Wordsmith for DS#2 in favor of the much more in-depth, clear, and incremental Jump In. We tried Wordsmith Craftsman for both DSs in high school, but it was just too scattered for us -- not a logical progression, and felt like we were having to figure out how to "connect the dots" way too often as the instruction was too sketchy for us, so it bit the dust for both DSs early on. If The Power In Your Hands is similar to Jump In, and if it had been available back when DSs were in high school, I would definitely have given it a try, since Jump In worked very well with our struggling writer. :) I really never did find anything I liked for high school Writing… in addition to Wordsmith Craftsman, we tried Jensen's Format Writing, Put That in Writing 1, Stack The Deck, and a few other things, but ended up having to cobble together something from all the bits and pieces. In retrospect, I wish I had outsourced at least one semester of Writing at some point in high school to a good online class. No familiarity with it, but you might check out the DVD-based Essentials in Writing. Otherwise, I'd say find a good local tutor or online class and outsource! :) Edited January 4, 2016 by Lori D. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momto6inIN Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 My oldest DS did well with Craftsman. It was to the point and didn't have a lot of busywork (other than the letter writing) and he appreciated that and did well and learned to write a pretty good essay by the end of it. I found it to be pretty clear and straightforward. My 2nd DS did well with the first section with the summaries and letters and all that. But then he stalled out in the 2nd section. I don't think it's actually anything about Craftsman that didn't work. He's just kind of an immature writer and needs more practice doing academic writing (as opposed to creative writing, which he is really good at). We had a nice long talk about the tone and register of academic writing and now he's going back through the 2nd section and re-doing those assignments. Hopefully he will do better the 2nd time around. I do think you could absolutely leave out the letter writing assignments and still have a solid program. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pegasus Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 (edited) IMHO, Wordsmith Craftsman used to be one of the best homeschool writing programs for high school. . .and then other programs came along that are even better. I used parts of it for one DD but will skip it altogether for the second one. I'm not familiar with Power In Your Hands so no advice there. We found Jensen's Format Writing to be very good for students/parents that need everything spelled out. Edited to add: I just reviewed Power In Your Hands on Amazon's "look inside" feature and I must say that it looks great. I wouldn't hesitate to use it over Wordsmith Craftsman. Edited January 5, 2016 by Pegasus 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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