9th grade writing?

[FindingMyWay]

I'm hoping you will be able to help me choose a writing program for my up-coming 9th grader. We delayed formal writing instruction due to pencil allergy and dysgraphia, but he has had some. This year (8th) we've focused on writing across the curriculum, writing frequently, outlining and taking notes. Last year we went through about 3/4 of WWS 1, and we will finish that up this year. Prior to that he's used Killgallon, Writing Strands, and for a brief, painful stint, Winning with Writing. So that's kind of where he's coming from. Other considerations I want to keep in mind would be that he does much better if he sees the big picture (he struggled with that with WWS), he needs explicit instructions and expectations, and he doesn't really need a lot of help with creative writing - I'd like to focus more on expository writing. He probably does have some "catching up" to do, and I suspect that this will be an area in which he shoots for competency rather than excellence, just due to the nature of his giftings. He prefers to be as independent as possible. *I* would like something with rubrics, as I have a hard time knowing what is reasonable in terms of expectations.

 

Right now I'm most interested in The Power in Your Hands. Thoughts on that course, or recommendations for something else, would be great! 

 

 

[Brad S]

We came into 9th grade with several of the same background, except for the pencil allergy and dysgraphia: 3/4 of WWS 1, some Killgallon, some background with creative writing but a goal for more expository writing, and a need to see the big picture (or whole to parts learning instead of parts to whole learning).  While I think that WWS 1 is a good program for some, and you may still want to finish it if you've gotten this far, I wouldn't have done it again.  I really don't have the answer for you, but I will say that my DS really liked Writing With a Thesis by Skwire and Skwire this fall and thought it was really helpful (we only did some of the exercises); it doesn't, however, really have much on rubrics.  We've also worked on a number of shorter essays.  We did bite the bullet and get some outside tutoring, which was really the only area we needed the outside help -- it was largely because my reviewing DS's work was conflicting a bit with his desire for independence at this challenging age.  I'm sure that others will have some good suggestions.

[Julie of KY]

My severely dysgraphic (very smart) son started high school with very little writing experience. He also needed to learn to be more independent as well as have someone other than mom teach. He's done very well with online classes through Brave Writer. It's been amazing how far they've taken his writing. He's gone from sounding like elementary level writing to college level writing in a few short years.

[Mom22ns]

The Power is in Your Hands came out after my severely dysgraphic student was finished with high school writing instruction or we would have used it. We loved Sharon Watson in middle school and I wish we could have used her for High School too!

[Sunshine State Sue]

he needs explicit instructions and expectations

*I* would like something with rubrics, as I have a hard time knowing what is reasonable in terms of expectations.

We used Write Shop for 6th-7th-8th grade.  It would meet these 2 desires for you.  Here is my review:

 

Write Shop website is http://writeshop.com/. We used Write Shop 1 & 2 for 6th-7th-8th grade.   Write Shop 1 consists of 16/30 lessons covering descriptive, informative, and narrative writing. Write Shop 2 consists of 14/30 lessons covering reviewing the basics, expanding your skills, persuasive writing, and essays.

 

Pros:

• Extremely detailed instructions for the teacher (this might be considered a con if the teacher didn’t need extremely detailed instructions)
• Extremely detailed instructions for the student (ditto)
• Teaches a variety of methods for brainstorming
• Teaches many ways to make writing more interesting and varied and requires the student to use them over and over (ex. paired adjectives, present and past participle sentence starters, adverb sentence starters, similes, etc.)
• Helps the student use vivid words by providing them with thorough lists of words to choose from
• Strictly limits dull writing (to be verbs, weak words, repetitive words)
• Towards the end of WS 2, teaches thesis statement, organization, and outlining
• Guides the student to edit their own work by giving them a checklist
• Guides the teacher to edit the student’s work by giving them a checklist
• Nearly secular

Cons:

• Learning curve for the teacher

Each Write Shop lesson contains:

• skill builders (review of synonyms, appositives, adverbs, participles, etc.)
• pre-writing activity
• brainstorming/practice paragraph
• brainstorming/sloppy copy
• 1st revision
• final copy

We spend 2 weeks per lesson, but that is working 3 days the first week and 2 days the second week.   The first 2 days are the most teacher intensive, covering pre-writing lesson (which might involve looking at travel brochures and discussing how they are worded to entice the customer to visit) and the dreaded (for my son and I) practice paragraph.

 

Writing is not my favorite task. Teaching writing is not my favorite task.  I spend more time preparing for each writing lesson than I do preparing for any other subject.  Writing is not my son’s favorite task, either.  We spend more time together working on writing than any other subject.  I have seen his writing improve tremendously with Write Shop.  I have been able to teach writing and help my son improve his writing through Write Shop.  The results have been worth the time and effort.

 

After we completed WS 2, I sent 3 of ds’s essays to Cindy Marsh of Writing Assessment Services for evaluation.  The Write Shop paper earned an A- but she said it was "formulaic".  The literature paper earned a B- because he didn't actually follow the instructions.  The history paper earned an A due to the content. 

 

Overall for 8th grade, I’m pleased.

 

Full disclosure:  During 7th and 8th grade, we had some supplemental help.  Ds completed three 6-week sessions of Home2Teach (so-so) and 6 months of working on revisions to papers with Aubrey from TWTM boards (helpful).

 

Edited February 1, 2016 by Sue in St Pete

[FindingMyWay]

Thank you all. I will check into Write with a Thesis and Write Shop; I love the idea of an online course and have heard great things about BraveWriter, but my budget doesn't have room for that right now. 

[Hilltopmom]

We really like EIW (essentials in writing). There have been a few threads about it this past week.

 

I loved the look of Write Shop, but never got to it with my big kid & tried some of the younger levels with my now 13 yr old, it had too many parts for me to deal with at that point in life, ultimately. I kinda wish I'd saved the beginner levels for my babes, but hey, I can always buy it again;)

[StillStanding]

We are using EIW (Essentials in Writing)for 9th grade and liking it. It has been great to cement the structure of Essay Writing. My child hated writing and she has overcome that hate.

 

She doesn't love it but she is not crying about writing anymore.

 

 

[FindingMyWay]

We are using EIW (Essentials in Writing)for 9th grade and liking it. It has been great to cement the structure of Essay Writing. My child hated writing and she has overcome that hate.She doesn't love it but she is not crying about writing anymore.

How much grammar is in EIW? He'll be on the third season of AG, so he doesn't really need any. I seem to remember there was a fair amount, but I haven't looked at it for a couple years so maybe I'm misremembering.

[StillStanding]

EIW doesn't teach grammar for 9th and up. In our EIW 9 there was some grammar review that was optional, but as we are using our own grammar program we skipped it. Writing lessons starts with writing good sentences, moves on to writing good paragraphs (different types),then goes into writing different kinds of Essays (personal, persuasive, compare/contrast...), and ends with the research paper. We just finished the personal essay paper: 1. What is a personal essay--Choosing your topic 2. Organizing a personal essay--organizing your body paragraphs 3. Writing the opening paragraph 4. Writing the three body paragraphs 5. Writing your closing paragraph 6. Revising 7. Editing and Publishing. I think I got all the lessons (I don't have the DVD in hand). It is broken down into many little steps, making it very manageable for a child who hates writing.

Edited January 31, 2016 by paintmisha