Is there an easy to implement writing plan without using curriculum?

[pocjets]

Any thoughts? Does anyone just teach their children to write a paragraph and or narrations and go from there? Is curriculum necessary?
If you do not use one, what do you do?

Thanks

[stm4him]

Right now my kids just write whatever they want, but they have to fill up a page.  My children that are under 10 can choose copywork and so far this year that is what they want to do.  My oldest (14) is into writing song lyrics right now, but she also writes stories and letters.  She has yet to write me an essay, but that's ok with me at the moment.  My children have never done much free writing, so it is refreshing to all of us that they are doing so.  My 12 year old is mostly choosing to write chapters to his book about Pokemon at the moment, but he also started a book about King Henry (the 8th I think).  Every day or every other day, I sit with them and go over their work and help them correct their errors.  We are all enjoying it so far.

[Lang Syne Boardie]

If you're implementing anything, you have a curriculum. :)

 

An easy way to go it alone, designing your own curriculum as you go instead of following someone else's sequence of topics, is to use Writer's Inc. by Patrick Sebranek (or any other writing handbook) as a guide for assignments. The Writer's Inc. family of books includes Write on Track, a handbook for elementary students, and WriteSource2000, a handbook for middle school to junior high. Just pick and choose the topics and styles that interest you and your children, paying attention to any prerequisite skills, of course. Move from sentences to paragraphs to essays.

 

Then, if you like WTM or Charlotte Mason methods, you can use copywork, narration, dictation, outlining, and rewriting across the curriculum.

[Guest]

If you have a thorough understanding of the writing process in the paradigm of your choice and can communicate that effectively to your students, then no, you don't need someone else's curriculum.

[hollyhock]

I'm a little hesitant to reply because I'm not sure I count as a person who doesn't use curriculum. But I base how I teach writing on SWB's audio lectures about writing. In them, she outlines exactly what to do and how much for all grades, beginning with narration, copywork and dictation and progressing to outlining, rewriting and then rhetoric. So I have my kids write across curriculum according to those guidelines. The only way I deviate from her plan is that I have started to have my kids continue writing narrations in 7th grade and up, but I require longer ones, and by 9th grade, they are very focused (no more just re-telling what they read; I give them a prompt or a topic or a question to answer) and about a page long.

 

My oldest son is a 9th grader and this is what I'm having him do for writing currently. I think his narrations are just going to naturally morph themselves into essays over time, at least that is what I am hoping, and I'm starting to see it happen already (we briefly covered essay structure). Writing programs have just not worked for him, so this is partially why I am taking this approach (I had planned on him doing a curriculum).

 

The other thing I do, for about 6th grade and up, is give them tips and minor corrections on their narrations to help them improve, but only one or two at a time. 

[2_girls_mommy]

I just taught my kids to write using a lot of WTM's suggestions. I just did it across the curriculum.  In middle school I taught the 5 paragraph essay. They took a co-op class once that assigned different types of speeches which gave us a lot to work with and a lot of practice in the 5 para essay dept. We use R&S for English, and it does include writing teaching too, but we have never bought a specific writing curric that we used. I pull things from here or there.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Sure, it's outlined in SWB's A Plan for Teaching Writing lectures, available here:

 

https://welltrainedmind.com/c/resources-for-parents/workshops-seminars/

 

[8filltheheart]

For the most part, I don't teach writing with a curriculum. These posts give a general idea of how I teach writing.

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/239259-bringing-karens-mention-of-essay-writing-to-a-new-thread/?p=2363522

[pocjets]

Wow! These are great replies. Thank you all so much. I'm going to go listen to those lectures and read the other posts. THANK YOU ALL!!

[purpleowl]

Here's a big thread about this with lots of links:

 

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/504322-writing-wo-a-curriculum-lets-create-a-master-thread/

[....]

I'm another one who follows SWB's writing plan.  Sometimes we use curriculum (like Writing with Skill), sometimes we just wing it.

 

For grade school, we do:

 

Copywork

Dictation

Narration

Other writing: sometimes she takes notes if we're doing a project.  For example, we did leaf rubbings and she wrote what kind of tree the leaves came from.

 

Middle school:

 

Copywork

Dictation

Narration - mine will write about something she read

Outlining

Note taking from a lecture (mine all learn to take notes from a lecture at 7th grade)

Other writing: My 6th grader does a lot of creative writing.

 

High School:

 

I don't really know what I'm doing yet.  I'm trying to follow the writing in WTM rhetoric section + the Big Research Paper she describes, but so far, they are just doing a ton of narrations.  They read a chapter in a book and write a summary.  I don't like her curriculum recommendations for high school language arts stuff.  It's a bad fit for my oldest two.  I will probably add in a writing program here and there.