Writing samples -- need diagnostic help (yoo hoo! SWB, if you have a few minutes...)

[FlockOfSillies]

DD9 is in 5th grade. Over the past few years, I wasn't as consistent with narration and dictation as I should have been. Now it's coming back to bite me in the butt. :glare:

 

I've got some samples of dd's recent writing and I'd like to get some feedback. A) I'd like to know whether I'm on the right track; B) I need a little help charting a course for the rest of the year; C) I am wondering whether there's anything I can do about my dd's mother-maddening lack of attention to detail.

 

Mostly I think I need a checklist for what to assign each week, and what level of work to expect from dd. I went back and listened to the Writing Without Fear CD; I looked through WTM and my WWE text; there are just enough differences in detail among the three sources that my head is starting to swim.

 

FYI, we're using FLL4, and anxiously awaiting the arrival of the bound books. We're also using Editor in Chief Beginning, Evan-Moor's Daily Language Review, 4th grade -- a holdover from last spring -- and Megawords.

 

I don't really have one specific writing program that I'm using with her. Last year she was working in Wordsmith Apprentice. She liked it, but it seemed to move too slowly. She tested out of WWE4 (or so I thought), except for dictation. I'm trying to follow TOG's Writing Aids, but the schedule is not lining up well with where my dd is. I'm feeling rather adrift, as you might imagine.

 

Anyway, on to our samples. Here's an outline from science:

 

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Amphibian Metamorphosis

I. Only amphibians metamorphose. (She originally wrote "metamorphosize." How cute is that?)

II. Most frogs lay their eggs in water.

III. A baby frog is called a tadpole.

IV. The tadpole starts to change into a mature frog.

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Here's one from science from this week. I told her to use phrases instead of sentences:

 

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Fish

I. Fish features

II. Bony fish and cartilaginous fish

III. Differences beetween (sic) cetaceans and fish

IV. Fish breath (sic) through gills

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Here's a paragraph from history. She outlined a section from SOTW1, then wrote from the outline. I'd show the outline she did, but I can't find it right now. This is the second draft, after I'd made corrections and left her to copy it. Did she do a good enough job of summarizing, or do I need to back up and have her work on oral narrations?

 

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Egyptian pyramids

There was treasure in rich people's tombs. There were underground tombs and mastaba tombs. Pharaohs had special tombs (called) pyramids. Cheops owned the Great Pyramid. It had many rooms and dead ends. A Sphinx guarded it. Robbers stole Cheops's mumy (sic) and treasure.

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As you can see, capital letters are often optional in her book (see the title), along with periods at the ends of sentences. At least this time she did well with the periods. She's also prone to errors when copying -- misspellings, leaving words out, etc. She knows how to spell "mummy" -- she just can't be bothered to copy things accurately. How do I handle this? I asked her whether she wanted to go back and make it perfect on another day, or whether she'd rather take a lower grade for the second draft. She said she'd rather leave it as is. Should I force her to go back and make it perfect in future assignments? How many drafts do I require from her? This is extremely frustrating for me, since I am very detail-oriented and she is most certainly NOT. At least when she does it in her workbook stuff, I take points off for these mistakes.

 

So today, after listening to the CD and reading my books, I gave her the first dictation selection from WWE, Level Four -- a selection from "The Emperor's New Clothes." FYI, I would have caught more of her spelling errors if I hadn't dozed off at the table (serious insomnia here). This is what she did after four repetitions of the passage. Who knows whether her eyes wandered over to the original in my book while I snoozed. Words in parentheses were dropped from the original.

 

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The Emperor's New Clothes (original)

The impostors requested him very courteously to be so good as to come nearer their looms, and then asked him whether the design pleased him, and whether the colors were not very beautiful, while at the same time pointing to the empty frames.

 

 

The Emperor's New Clothes (dictation)

The impostors requested him very couteously to come nearer their looms, then asked him if the colors were not beutiful, and if he did not like the design, while at the same time pointing at the empty frame.

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Is this close enough to move on to another curriculum (I don't think so), or should I start here with WWE Level Four, or do I need to go back to the beginning of Level Three for dictation practice with her?

 

And here's the perennial favorite: am I doing enough with her to get her caught up to 5th grade writing? How many times to outline, to do dictation? How many summary pieces per week and how long should they be? Is it too soon to ask her to write a paragraph from an outline?

 

I'm sorry to be asking so many questions, but they all seem to be tied together in my mind, and I don't know of any other way for y'all to see what I'm talking about.

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

[FlockOfSillies]

Pretty please, anyone who can answer even a few of my questions???

[coffeegal]

I'll give a shot at answering a few of your questions. :) First at 9, she's a young 5th grader. She's writing a lot like my 5th grader, who's 10 turning 11. My advice is going to be... don't push, but rather reinforce what she knows and give her practice. Go ahead and do WWE level 4, and concentrate on details. Using an easier level will allow her to concentrate on punctuation, spelling, and content without overwhelming her with new writing instructions. You might want to use WWE level 3 for dictation practice alone, again so she can work on details. She's doing well, just needs to learn to focus on the details. So use an EASY program and work on the details. :D Oh, and do a little everyday. It's amazing how a weak subject will improve if you work on it everyday.

 

HTH!

[sagira]

Typing here with one hand and nursing baby at the same time:

 

Is she done with Wordsmith Apprentice? If not, have her finish it and perhaps move a little faster with it.

 

I agree with the PP that she's a young fifth grader. I'm a meticulous editor and noticed a little bit of sloppiness here and tendency to be short, but that could be the age (don't know yet, I have younger children). It's not bad, though. Hang in there.

 

I also agree with the PP about doing a little bit every day. Do copywork, dictation, narrations faithfully and across the subjects. By now she should be copying and taking longer passages for dictation (middle-length paragraphs).

 

If you feel she still hasn't improved and you're worried, you can always have her do FLL 4 or something CM like Intermediate (Secondary) Language Lessons.

 

Good luck!

Edited October 17, 2008 by sagira

[Titus.Two.Five]

She's quite young yet. I would really work on narration, dictation, and copywork and use those to hone those skills. Really, I don't think she did too bad at all for a 9 yr old.

 

;)

[Carol in Cal.]

I found with my DD that if I required perfect output in subject areas at that age, she wrote in a short, wooden fashion. She didn't make use of her extensive vocabulary, for fear of needing to look up a spelling in a dictionary, and she wrote short, choppy sentences that were very easy to punctuate.

 

I addressed this by separating the skills, keeping my fingers crossed that they would come together in time. So DD did copywork, but it was never from her own writing. I graded her on perfection for that, and I required it. If she had two mistakes in a passage she had to do the whole thing over. If she had one, she could find it and erase and fix it. (I was SO mean!) She did handwriting separately. Ditto spelling (we used Phonetic Zoo.) She did punctuation as part of Rod and Staff grammar, and also intermittently used Editor in Chief for practice. In parallel, we worked hard on her compositions--evaluating them solely for clarity and excellence in writing, but not perfecting them from a proofreading standpoint. (This was very difficult for me, as I had only turned in fully proofread work from 3rd or 4th grade on. I was so scared when I made this decision. But it seemed right for my child.)

 

So, now she is in 7th grade, and she can write well. She punctuates well, her spelling is much, much better, and she can compose a tough, complicated piece and then proofread it to a polished form.

 

We do not have a beautiful book of history outlines and elegantly colored maps--and I wish we did!--but I do have a daughter who writes very well now, and so I'm feeling that my gamble paid off.

Edited October 17, 2008 by Carol in Cal.

[FlockOfSillies]

OK, but let's pretend she's ten. How is she doing as a 5th grader?

[Colleen in NS]

Mostly I think I need a checklist for what to assign each week, and what level of work to expect from dd. I went back and listened to the Writing Without Fear CD; I looked through WTM and my WWE text; there are just enough differences in detail among the three sources that my head is starting to swim.

 

Should I force her to go back and make it perfect in future assignments? How many drafts do I require from her? This is extremely frustrating for me, since I am very detail-oriented and she is most certainly NOT. At least when she does it in her workbook stuff, I take points off for these mistakes.

 

Is this close enough to move on to another curriculum (I don't think so), or should I start here with WWE Level Four, or do I need to go back to the beginning of Level Three for dictation practice with her?

 

I'm sorry to be asking so many questions, but they all seem to be tied together in my mind, and I don't know of any other way for y'all to see what I'm talking about.

 

Mostly bumping, because I am very interested in what people have to say - you have a LOT of the same types of questions that usually go around in my head!

 

I just ordered WWE for ds10, who I thought was doing pretty well with WTM/Writing CD recs the past four years - the diagnostic tests revealed gaps. I'm thinking that if I just go with WWE, all the gaps will be filled, because it is the most recent of the three - WTM, CD, and WWE. SWB has probably refined how she teaches writing since the other two things were published, and WWE is the detailed fleshing out of them.

 

For now, I'm going to take him through WWE, probably level 3 or maybe part of 2, and go forward. I'm still contemplating whether I should continue with outlining alongside WWE, because it seems to be a struggle and I don't know why. It might be because the foundation isn't secure yet a la WWE.

 

So, I have no answers for you, only sharing that it sounds like we are at the same place, and bumping this up! The only thing I'd say, is to try just WWE for awhile, and work on all those details (and her thinking about them). I do think the details are important before moving on to other skills.

 

Also, I read, I think on the PHP site, that SWB's next level writing book is due out in late 2009 (I hope, I hope, I hope!!). I *know* that book would solve all my worries! :)

[FlockOfSillies]

Also, I read, I think on the PHP site, that SWB's next level writing book is due out in late 2009 (I hope, I hope, I hope!!). I *know* that book would solve all my worries! :)

 

I didn't see anything about a pub date on the site (maybe it's in one of those sticky threads here on the curr. board?), but 2009 would be great! My ds is doing so well with WWE/FLL. I'm sure I'll have a much easier time teaching him writing, even though he's my math brain kid.

[Colleen in NS]

I didn't see anything about a pub date on the site (maybe it's in one of those sticky threads here on the curr. board?), but 2009 would be great! My ds is doing so well with WWE/FLL. I'm sure I'll have a much easier time teaching him writing, even though he's my math brain kid.

 

Here is a quote from the PHP site:

 

"The second installment in the series will be a book that covers writing for grades 5–8 with workbooks for each grade. Writing with Skill is scheduled for publication by late 2009. Eventually, all 12 grades (levels) will be covered."

[FlockOfSillies]

:drool5::thumbup::toetap05: