morningcoffee Posted March 29, 2016 Share Posted March 29, 2016 (edited) I bought it on a bit of a whim and it hasn't arrived yet. Now I'm wondering how I will use it since I don't think it's divided into daily lessons :001_smile:. Any tips appreciated! Edited March 29, 2016 by morningcoffee 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morningcoffee Posted April 4, 2016 Author Share Posted April 4, 2016 bumping up .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmrich Posted April 4, 2016 Share Posted April 4, 2016 listening.. it is sitting by my bed for me to start reading..been there a while. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbgrace Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 The book contains exercises, discussion questions for analyzing writing examples, and writing suggestions for various types of writing. Roughly, the book is organized by types of writing forms (thesis writing, narration, description, examples, process, compare/contrast, cause/effect, division/classification, definition, and argumentation). For each type of writing, such as narration, there are suggested writing themes, instruction on writing with this form, and then examples of essays or pieces that use this type of structure. The written examples will have discussion questions to use for analyzing the piece and sections on applying what you learn to your own writing. In outside pieces I've analyzed, mostly in journalism, these structures are normally used at the paragraph level to support the thesis. So even if a piece is mainly meant to compare/contrast two things, there may well be a narrative introduction, a process paragraph to illustrate a portion, etc. So working on these constructs at a paragraph level can be a nice way to start for a younger child particularly. I am not using this with high school kids, so I don't have experience using it as written. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 We used it over roughly 20 weeks, about 2 weeks for each of the 10 chapters. The first day we'd read the introduction to the type of essay, the topic ideas, and the student essay. I'd send dd off to brainstorm her topic for the chapter. Then for each of the next 7-10 days, we'd read and discuss one of the sample essays, while at another time of day she was working on her own essay. Usually she'd spend the first week thinking about the idea, freewriting, brainstorming, and coming up with a thesis, then the second week she'd spend drafting, editing, and polishing. It was a good pace. She wrote a lot of nice essays. I really love the book. It doesn't give you a step by step "do this, then do this, then you'll have an essay," it assumes the student can already write and gets the basic intro/body/conclusion structure, and then it teaches how to use all the different forms in order to support your thesis. The sample essays from students are good, the professionally written essays are great, and often illustrate how more than one form is used when you are writing an actual essay. So essentially, we had a daily short together session reading and discussing, and she had a daily-ish short independent session writing. Ten chapters, ten forms, ten essays, 20-ish weeks. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JadeOrchidSong Posted April 7, 2016 Share Posted April 7, 2016 We used it over roughly 20 weeks, about 2 weeks for each of the 10 chapters. The first day we'd read the introduction to the type of essay, the topic ideas, and the student essay. I'd send dd off to brainstorm her topic for the chapter. Then for each of the next 7-10 days, we'd read and discuss one of the sample essays, while at another time of day she was working on her own essay. Usually she'd spend the first week thinking about the idea, freewriting, brainstorming, and coming up with a thesis, then the second week she'd spend drafting, editing, and polishing. It was a good pace. She wrote a lot of nice essays. I really love the book. It doesn't give you a step by step "do this, then do this, then you'll have an essay," it assumes the student can already write and gets the basic intro/body/conclusion structure, and then it teaches how to use all the different forms in order to support your thesis. The sample essays from students are good, the professionally written essays are great, and often illustrate how more than one form is used when you are writing an actual essay. So essentially, we had a daily short together session reading and discussing, and she had a daily-ish short independent session writing. Ten chapters, ten forms, ten essays, 20-ish weeks. Did you use this after Lively Art of Writing? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted April 7, 2016 Share Posted April 7, 2016 Did you use this after Lively Art of Writing? Yes. It was a great followup. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad S Posted April 7, 2016 Share Posted April 7, 2016 We used it over roughly 20 weeks, about 2 weeks for each of the 10 chapters. The first day we'd read the introduction to the type of essay, the topic ideas, and the student essay. I'd send dd off to brainstorm her topic for the chapter. Then for each of the next 7-10 days, we'd read and discuss one of the sample essays, while at another time of day she was working on her own essay. Usually she'd spend the first week thinking about the idea, freewriting, brainstorming, and coming up with a thesis, then the second week she'd spend drafting, editing, and polishing. It was a good pace. She wrote a lot of nice essays. I really love the book. It doesn't give you a step by step "do this, then do this, then you'll have an essay," it assumes the student can already write and gets the basic intro/body/conclusion structure, and then it teaches how to use all the different forms in order to support your thesis. The sample essays from students are good, the professionally written essays are great, and often illustrate how more than one form is used when you are writing an actual essay. So essentially, we had a daily short together session reading and discussing, and she had a daily-ish short independent session writing. Ten chapters, ten forms, ten essays, 20-ish weeks. This sounds like a good idea on how to use the book. For us, DS had been in a bricks-and-mortar school the previous year and I was less in tune with his writing ability (and that DS claimed he didn't need the exercises), we mostly used it in early 9th grade as a weekly routine of: read the chapter; discuss; and write an essay of the type in the chapter. Although that may not fit others, it worked pretty well for us. DS thought the book was excellent and resonated with him. By going through it in about 10 weeks, it has allowed DS to work on more writing assignments, now with an outside tutor. We've very happy we used WWaT and found it a great way to start the year. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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