How much writing do your 6th graders do?

[mlktwins]

I have 11 year old twin boys (new 6th graders). We have done WWE 1-4, Essentials in Writing Grades 3 and 5, and an IEW themed year (Bible Stories) with an outside instructor. We have also done FLL 1-4 and are starting AG soon. Writing is their LEAST favorite subject to do. They do it because it is required and mostly do ok. They love when I let them spend a day writing about what they want or doing a writing prompt. I don't grade those and I get some of their best stories. Yes, I know all about Bravewriter, but I think I need something a little more structured for my sake.

 

We just started school last week (we do half time in the summer) and are ramping up to full steam ahead. We will be starting WWS1 and IEW Following Narnia Volume 1. I am making them do WWS1 and they chose IEW. I'm not planning to race through them, but want to make sure their writing is solid.

 

I'm fine with this plan, but I'm getting bogged down thinking I should still make them write about history and science (narrations/outlines) like we've been doing. They comprehend what they are reading and can answer review questions (as in SOTW) and do their map work. Another example is do they really need to do the last exercise in each lesson of Wordly Wise where they need to write complete sentences? They do fine in the rest of the exercises and their understanding of the words is great. We also use those words as a spelling test. These are some examples of the things we are doing that are slowing us down because of the writing I seem to require of them. They love these subjects and we could get through so much more information except for all the writing.

 

They know they have to do WWS1 and IEW even if I eliminate a lot of this extra writing. They are also taking a Good Books literary analysis class that started last week. They will read about 6 chapters of select books each week and have to answer questions to turn into the teacher. Obviously they will still have to do that.

 

All this to ask, how much writing do you require your 6th graders to do? I don't know why I feel I need permission to let some of it go -- LOL.

[LMD]

Wws and iew is way more writing than I expect from my 11 year old.

 

She does written narrations from Shakespeare and copywork from the bible daily.

I require one short paper a week (generally about 3-4 paragraphs - I don't require an introduction at this stage). The paper is based on her outlining from history or science readings. 1/3 is a literature paper which is basically a long narrative summary plus an evaluation paragraph. This is all based on wtm writing.

 

She loves to write on her own too so I try to leave steam for her own projects.

[MinivanMom]

My 6th graders have done 30 min of daily writing: 2 essays, 2 research papers, and several stories & poems over the course of the year. They have used MCT Essay Voyage for essay instruction and MCT World of Poetry for poetry instruction. We also use Writers Inc as a reference for writing the research papers.

 

They have also done 3 outlines per week (1 science & 2 history) plus a short WTM-style science report about once per month.

 

I think it works out to about 30-40 min of writing daily or about 3 hrs of writing per week.

[blue plaid]

Wow that is a lot of writing, or perhaps we are slackers! My 11 year old just does WWS. I know her other coursework requires a few sentences here and there but nothing major at this point. Perhaps we will add in Friday free writes again at some point ala Bravewriter, but if she does a good job with WWS for me that is sufficient for 6th grade. I agree that written narrations and outlines in other subjects are a valuable skill but think that would suck a lot of joy out of learning here. That said we will be cranking things up slowly the next couple of years so she is well prepared for high school level work. (So yes I give you permission to drop history and science narrations and the WW sentences 😀.)

[ScoutTN]

My 11 yo is doing WWS 1 and writes a narrative summary or outline from history every week. She writes stories and poems for fun.

[2_girls_mommy]

My 7th grader does: any writing assignments in R&S, (less than 1 a week,) one outline a week from KHE for history, 2-6 science questions answered in sentence form, plus definitions and occasional narrations, 1 copywork paragraph and 1 dictation sentence a week, and 1 creative writing prompt, generally a paragraph, plus if she finishes a book there is a summary to write, but that is only about once a month. We will slowly add in a paper for history as we get the year going, maybe one a month.

[redsquirrel]

my older boy did WWS 1 when he was 11, that would be 6th grade. It came out that year.  My younger boy is currently 11 and would be a  6th grader and he is enrolled in the WTM Academy expository writing 2 class, which uses WWS. 

 

Aside from incidental writing that comes up in other classes, and grammar etc, I don't make him do any other writing. I don't make him write other papers or outlines, for example. WWS provides more than enough for my kid and he adores writing. He spends quite a lot of time writing his own books and short stories, but that is different from assigned writing, lol.  But he does see the point of his writing class and consciously applies the lessons he learns to his own writing, so he works hard in WWS to be a better writer.

 

It wouldn't occur to me to have a student do both WWS and IEW.  To me, each is a complete writing program. I would pick one and stick with it. I haven't used IEW personally, but I have had friends that did, and I was under the impression that was enough to be the entire writing component of a language arts curriculum. You would need grammar and literature etc, it's the same with WWS, but I thought it was all the composition instruction you needed? 

[Momto6inIN]

We didn't do near that amount of writing either. Last year my 6th grader wrote:

 

events on a timeline for history

summary of the history chapter she read (once a week)

2 power point presentations for history

summaries of the literature selections she read (about 15 or so I think)

spelling dictation

Wordly Wise sentences for the last section

Wordsmith (about half the lessons)

[The Governess]

My dd12 was a sixth grader last year. Here is the writing she did, all through online classes:

 

WWS 1 - this was a lot on its own

 

History: Every week or two she had to turn in an outline, a 1-2 page written summary of a historical figure or event, or an analysis of a primary document. She also had to answer and pose questions on a discussion board each week. And she wrote a 1500 word paper with citations for her end-of-year project.

 

Science: Usually one written assignment per week to turn in - end-of-chapter questions, lab write-up, etc.

 

Literature: comprehension questions to answer in complete sentences each week plus a project with at least some writing once a month or so.

 

Chinese and Latin: lots of workbook exercises, and a lot of sentence/paragraph writing for Chinese.

 

ETA: She also did the last half of R&S 7. She skipped the actual writing lessons but did all of the written and review exercises for the grammar lessons.

 

It was a lot of writing. Maybe too much. That said, she has even more writing this year and she is much more confident with her assignments and they are getting done faster and without as much help from me. So I think she really benefitted from all of the practice.

Edited September 14, 2016 by lovelearnandlive

[PeachyDoodle]

Our homeschool is very language heavy. My 6th grader is about two-thirds of the way through WWS1 (we started last year in 5th). We have slowed down some of the longer assignments and spread them over multiple weeks, although she completes most of it on the timetable in the book.

 

In addition, she writes an outline and 4-6 short summaries (2-3 sentences) most weeks for history. She also outlines or takes notes on her science readings and prepares a weekly summary (2-3 paragraphs) of what she has learned. Sometimes we combine history/science with WWS assignments, but it usually works best at this stage to use the topics/sources provided in WWS. We use R&S for grammar but skip most of the writing assignments there. We incorporate a few creative writing projects through the course of the year, but I don't require any written literary analysis yet (aside from what's covered in WWS); we handle all of that orally.

[Roadrunner]

I think we are overdoing the writing. My 6th grader is taking WWS2 class online along with a lit class which requires also a ton of writing, but we like both classes and aren't willing to let go.

[Guest]

I really try and limit to one paper a week. If it ends up being multiple papers, then I require less per paper. Generally, though, he turns in about 3 paragraphs/week. They are normally written and re-written (for neatness!!!!) 1-2x during the week. Some weeks, I say go read about volcanoes and earthquakes and tell me about one or compare the two. For history, writing will generally be putting himself in a certain place and tell me about life during that time. We have also done biographical papers. Sometimes we will cover a literature book more in depth and I'll give 3 writing prompts to pick from and he'll write on one of those. Some light weeks, like this week, we will be doing a freewrite. Our last freewrite week was one when we were studying South America, so he pretended he was Adam Savage (Mythbusters) and told me a story about being shipwrecked in South America and all the different things he encountered there. That was fun. :) We are about 10 weeks into our current school year, so we are well into our routine, and this is working well.  All that being said, my daughter who is in 4th grade, will often write much more than required. But for someone who doesn't love writing, I feel like this is a decent compromise. I occasionally will feel guilty and make them whip out an outline, but that's not the norm.

[mlktwins]

Thank you all for the replies! It is so helpful to hear what others are doing. In the last couple of days, I've re-read the LA sections in the WTM 3rd edition and the new 4th edition. I've also been listening (again) to SWB's talks on writing. This, along with your input, has given me much food for thought and I'm going to spend the weekend looking through what we are doing and making some adjustments.