Keeping skills sharp between WWS1 and WWS2

[Jane Elliot]

It took almost two school years, but my writing phobic ds (12yo, nearly 13) finished WWS1 a few weeks ago. He did a few extra final compositions for practice.

 

I don't think I want to start WWS2 until mid-August, although I could be convinced to start it now. Summer will bring an irregular schedule for us with farm work and older kids coming for visits with the grandkids, so we won't be able to work consistently through the summer.

 

What would you suggest for the remainder of the school year and intermittently through the summer to keep his writing skills sharp? Will there be enough review in WWS2? I'm afraid he's going to forget everything.

[redsquirrel]

Well, there is review at the beginning of WWS2, but the writing phobic part makes me understand your concerns.

 

Two things come to mine, but I don't know if they will click with you.  One is go back and do some of the exercises from the beginning of WWS1, just as a refresher. If it took 2 years to get through, it might be helpful to go back for a bit. This might be especially useful if you think he will be able to take some pride in how 'easy' those early assignments are. I think reviewing the basic narration and copia exercises could be valuable.

 

Second, is a bit of a departure, but I think I have a glimmer of an idea here. What if instead of more writing you instead tried going back to something like WWE and did some basic narration and dictation.  Turning incoherent thoughts into words and putting words onto paper is always going to be the foundation of writing.  Both narration and dictation help shore up skills that are absolutely needed for more advanced writing. SWB would return to dictation with her older son when he was having trouble holding words in his head long enough to put them onto paper.

[Kendall]

You could do some imitation work.  Look at Writing in English by Maxwell(google books) or just find paragraphs.  My daughter has done several from Writing in English.  She is older, but I know I have done this kind of work with younger kids in the past.  It is a change from WWS.   Analyze a paragraph and then choose a similar topic and have him imitate it as closely as possible.  

[Kendall]

Or you could have him read articles on topics that he is interested in and write summaries of them.  

[Mrs Twain]

Maxwell's books are what came to my mind also. In addition to Writing in English, you could also look at the one before called School Composition. They are free online if you google them. The selections to imitate are wonderful--higher quality than any modern program I have seen.