Brave Writer LA??? (The Arrow)

[wehave8]

Does anyone use the LA of BW, or just their writing products?

 

If you've used The Arrow, do you read the books that they get their assignments from?  I don't care for one of the books, but the program looks interesting.

 

Are their LA complete in grammar?  I saw in another post this is discussed while using the writing components, but if you use the LA along side the writing do you still have to supplement with more grammar?

 

Pam

[Farrar]

Well, first of all, if you don't like some of the books, then you should pick and choose back issues. I think it's better to start with a smaller bundle of them anyway to see if you like it.

 

You definitely need to either read the book aloud or have the child read the book - both are fine. Parts of the discussion outlines in the guide talk about the significance of the chosen passage in the book and the literary element assignment at the end definitely plays off some element of the book. It's the BW approach to be holistic about language arts - use all the parts of the book, you know? So you're supposed to be taking this one book for discussion, for learning a bit of literary elements, for practicing copywork/dictation, and for learning and bit of grammar and mechanics.

 

Whether or not it's complete really depends on your perspective on teaching grammar and mechanics. From the BW perspective, it's complete. It fits into a greater "Brave Writer Lifestyle" approach. And part of that approach is that you only take a day for copywork or dictation like this once a week. The other days are for other language related activities (poetry tea, freewriting, narration, etc. - depends a little based on the age). In the BW way, grammar is something you learn in context most of the time - through the Arrow or DIY dictation and through editing and revision of writing projects. And then once every few years (from the classical perspective, once per stage), you take a year to do a more incremental, purposeful grammar "year." Or you study Latin or a romance or Germanic language and from that you get plenty of grammar.

 

The Arrow itself is really thin - it's four longish dictation passages from the book along with a guide for how to introduce and discuss each one, using it to teach, typically, some grammar, some mechanics, and some aspect of writing, like strong adjectives or varied sentences or something along those lines. There are pages in the newer ones for the kids to do the dictation on if you need them. BW uses a "fill in the blank" approach to helping get kids to work up to longer dictations. And then there's a page that explains a literary element, with a connection to the book, and a short assignment to do for it.

[wehave8]

Farrar

 

Do you do any other lit. program?

 

Pam

 

[Farrar]

So, full disclosure... we did the Arrow for awhile and then I started just DIY'ing our read alouds in the style of the Arrow. This, to me, is one of the nice things about the BW products - they help teach you, the teacher, who to teach in that style, and if you're a DIY'er for things, then they give you confidence that you can do it that way and that it's "enough." I've been thinking of getting a few of the Boomerangs to learn from them in a similar way now that my kids are getting older. I think it might be useful for me as a teacher.

 

We do a hodgepodge of things for language arts, mostly inspired by BW. For literature, we read aloud, the kids read a few assigned books that we discuss together and I take dictations from both of those. Also, we do poetry teas, and we do one short story a month that we discuss at a poetry tea. That's something we started for middle school. Occasionally, I have the kids do some reflection questions to support discussion or something for active reading to help them with a complex work, but the focus for us is just reading and discussing and using dictation.

[wehave8]

When in doubt, ask the author.  :)

 

I asked Julie...

"Can I drop my literature program if I use The Arrow for 6th & 7th grade sons (with below average reading)? Does it teach literary analysis?"

 

Julie said...

"Yes, it teaches literary devices and gives you discussion questions for literary analysis (this year's Arrow does—new to this season of the Arrow)."

 

Pam

 

 

 

[mo2]

When in doubt, ask the author.   :)

 

I asked Julie...

"Can I drop my literature program if I use The Arrow for 6th & 7th grade sons (with below average reading)? Does it teach literary analysis?"

 

Julie said...

"Yes, it teaches literary devices and gives you discussion questions for literary analysis (this year's Arrow does—new to this season of the Arrow)."

 

Pam

Wow, this is interesting.  I have some back issues of the Arrow but none very recent.  Love the idea that she added literary analysis!

[Farrar]

There's always been literary analysis - there's usually a little in the explanations of how to teach the passage and then there's the literary element that goes with each one that's the tie in for the book and the focus of the little assignment at the end. The newer ones are a bit beefier than the old ones, but not by so much...

[wehave8]

There's always been literary analysis - there's usually a little in the explanations of how to teach the passage and then there's the literary element that goes with each one that's the tie in for the book and the focus of the little assignment at the end. The newer ones are a bit beefier than the old ones, but not by so much...

I'm going to try one of the free weeks to see how it feels.  Might be dropping our lit. programs.  We'll see.

 

I'm still searching out the web site.  I didn't even realize there were back issues.  I'm getting the gist of some of her products now.  I've also listened to some of her periscopes.

 

Pam

[kasien]

I agree with the person above that Arrow is very thin.  It brought up a few neat points, such as the idea of a one word sentence, or repetition to add power...

but boy, there really was not much to it.  We bought a year subscription, used it for 2-3 books, then abandoned it.