CC or WWS?

[ALB]

Which of these would you choose for an advanced 5th grader who loves to write?  We have done CC Fable this year and it has gone well, but I'm intrigued by the variety I see in WWS.  We also write across the curriculum, which I definitely want to continue to do.  So, I don't want a composition program that takes so much time or requires so much output that she doesn't have anything left in her for writing about history, etc.

 

WWS looks like it would require much more time to complete since the reading selections are pretty lengthy.  Is it possible to use the ideas from WWS and apply the lessons to writing about our history or literature?

 

We also use Rod & Staff English and complete those writing assignments (and do regular dictation), but I find those easy to adjust to fit our needs.

[SilverMoon]

Of those two choices, CC. SWB herself has said natural writers will probably hate WWS, and writing across the curriculum *and* WWS would be a really heavy workload for a 5th grader. (post 32 of this thread)

 

My advanced 5th grader who loves to write has yet to completely finish a writing book. She loves them at first, and then gets bored in a jiffy. My solution this year (5th) has been to have 4-5 options on the shelf that we've revolved through. Those titles are Writing & Rhetoric, Creative Writer (SWB), Killgallon sentences, STEM to Story (written to a classroom teacher), and just homegrown lessons based on what seemed like the next step at the moment. Recently we've pulled some exercises from Art of Argument and stretched them into writing projects.

 

For 6th I'm going to see how she does just doing Cover Story. This covers a wide variety of writing types and every week looks different from the last. She dabbled in it for 4th grade, adored it, kept up with the writing volume without missing a beat, but her maturity just wasn't quite there. She wasn't getting the full benefit of the program. I cherry picked sections for her then and skipped swaths. She's matured enough now I think she's capable of the whole program as intended.

[ALB]

Thanks, Silver Moon.  I can see how a natural writer might not enjoy WWS.  I have purchased two grade levels of WWE in the past and every time dropped it after a few weeks in favor of choosing our own copywork/ narration/ dictation passages from books we were reading.  Classical Composition was an instant hit with my dd, so I should probably just stick with what is working.

We do get exposure to different kinds of writing in our grammar program, so that's probably sufficient.