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For those who have done several BW courses, what seems to be a 'logical' sequence?

So far dd did KWI intermediate, Expository Essay (both last year), High School writing projects (this May)

 

I would like to wait with the MLA Research Essay after dd passed the Belgic 12th grade exams for Dutch & English, so that will be after the 2017-2018 school year.

What would be good courses to do in between?

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There is a newly added Expository Essay class that's meant to come after the first one. Dd will be taking it starting the end of this month. Otherwise she's followed a similar progression - KI, EE1, next EE2, with two Creative Writing classes thrown in there - Passion for Fiction and Writing the Short Story.  I assumed we'd do MLA Research essay next year, but I'm also interested in haring about High School Writing Projects and any other high school level classes that kids have done, and in what order. My sense is that once they have done the Expository Essay classes, they could do any of the others successfully, so we may just be picking based on schedule and interest.  

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I'd pick on interest or do your own writing.

Is your student interested in creative writing? There are good creative writing courses.

There is a second expository writing class - it is very good.

There is a new journalism class - don't know anything about it.

There are literary analysis classes.

 

The needs and interests of each child is different so I don't think all of these classes are good for all students.

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How was the high school writing projects?

I'm also wondering about what a writing sequence (aside from creative writing) looks like for a liberal arts kid. Each provider seems to have a slightly different approach so I'm just listening in here.

  

There is a newly added Expository Essay class that's meant to come after the first one. Dd will be taking it starting the end of this month. Otherwise she's followed a similar progression - KI, EE1, next EE2, with two Creative Writing classes thrown in there - Passion for Fiction and Writing the Short Story.  I assumed we'd do MLA Research essay next year, but I'm also interested in haring about High School Writing Projects and any other high school level classes that kids have done, and in what order. My sense is that once they have done the Expository Essay classes, they could do any of the others successfully, so we may just be picking based on schedule and interest.

 

I can answer that at the end of may...

If it covers what I excpect we've covered several loose ends the inspection will like to see to be covered :)

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I'd pick on interest or do your own writing.

Is your student interested in creative writing? There are good creative writing courses.

There is a second expository writing class - it is very good.

There is a new journalism class - don't know anything about it.

There are literary analysis classes.

 

The needs and interests of each child is different so I don't think all of these classes are good for all students.

As we have more but smaller subjects, creative writing will not have space in our curriculum, unless after passing some of the exit exams.

But glad to know the second expository class is good too, we could plan that for next year.

And no way I will coach writing in English by myself :)

I'm glad I can manage to write decently on these boards

(I failed English as Forein Language in Highschool)

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  • 2 months later...

We finished High School Writing projects.

I experienced it as a lighter course, but that can also be caused by the fact dd worked more independently on the assignments.

I'm not sure the things I hoped to be covered are mastered now, but dd did show a step forwards in her writings.

 

I don't know yet what to do next year.

I wish they had a writing course available in French...

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What kind of writing did she do in High School Writing Projects? Were they essays? Two of them? or was it a different format of writing?

 

Dd finished Expository Essay 2. I was very pleased with the assignments, particularly the Summary & Response assignment. We'll do many more essays modeled on that assignment. I thought it did such a great job of teaching the kind of analysis & critique that will be required in all future high school & college essays, SAT/ACT essays, etc. It did a great job of teaching how to write a structured, well-organized essay without slavishly following a "5-paragraph essay" formula.

 

I was a little disconcerted by how mature the subject matter was - an essay about abortion and an image analysis essay of two disturbing images of Syrian refugees - but it actually ended up being an appropriate challenge & stretch for dd. But I think I'd want to be aware of the content before I signed up a particularly young or sensitive dc for the class.

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What kind of writing did she do in High School Writing Projects? Were they essays? Two of them? or was it a different format of writing?

 

Dd finished Expository Essay 2. I was very pleased with the assignments, particularly the Summary & Response assignment. We'll do many more essays modeled on that assignment. I thought it did such a great job of teaching the kind of analysis & critique that will be required in all future high school & college essays, SAT/ACT essays, etc. It did a great job of teaching how to write a structured, well-organized essay without slavishly following a "5-paragraph essay" formula.

 

I was a little disconcerted by how mature the subject matter was - an essay about abortion and an image analysis essay of two disturbing images of Syrian refugees - but it actually ended up being an appropriate challenge & stretch for dd. But I think I'd want to be aware of the content before I signed up a particularly young or sensitive dc for the class.

Like KWI & EE 1 everybody picked their own topic.

As we had a different teacher dd tried to use her ' I only want to write about x topic', so I tried a different direction.

 

The course was 4 weeks and 1 little bit longer but not extremely long essay (750-1000)

They also had to make a powerpoint / prezi / .... presentation that went along their essay.

As dd isn't very computerminded she had to make one this way. Otherwise she would never have made one I'm afraid...

 

It sounds that EE2 might be a good step up for next year.

How many essays they had to write & how long?

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Like KWI & EE 1 everybody picked their own topic.

As we had a different teacher dd tried to use her ' I only want to write about x topic', so I tried a different direction.

 

The course was 4 weeks and 1 little bit longer but not extremely long essay (750-1000)

They also had to make a powerpoint / prezi / .... presentation that went along their essay.

As dd isn't very computerminded she had to make one this way. Otherwise she would never have made one I'm afraid...

 

It sounds that EE2 might be a good step up for next year.

How many essays they had to write & how long?

 

They did two full essays - one in week 3 and one in week 6. During the other weeks they did exercises preparing them for the essays. It didn't take a lot of time, but the essay topics were challenging, like I said, and required a quite a lot of thought. This was probably the first time dd spent more time reading rhetorically and thinking/planning the essay than actually writing it.

 

The first essay was 5 paragraphs, the rhetorical analysis of an essay that was provided. Intro, summary, two types of analysis, conclusion.

 

The second essay - the image analysis - also had 5 sections, Intro, summary, analysis, impact, conclusion - but each was a bit more in-depth. Dd's final essay was 8 paragraphs. Not sure the word count.

 

ETA: one of the good extensions it provided, compared to EE1, was the requirement to write about assigned topics, rather than choosing your own. This was definitely a new hard thing compared to EE1, where dd wrote about topics she was very familiar and comfortable with.

Edited by Chrysalis Academy
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They did two full essays - one in week 3 and one in week 6. During the other weeks they did exercises preparing them for the essays. It didn't take a lot of time, but the essay topics were challenging, like I said, and required a quite a lot of thought. This was probably the first time dd spent more time reading rhetorically and thinking/planning the essay than actually writing it.

 

The first essay was 5 paragraphs, the rhetorical analysis of an essay that was provided. Intro, summary, two types of analysis, conclusion.

 

The second essay - the image analysis - also had 5 sections, Intro, summary, analysis, impact, conclusion - but each was a bit more in-depth. Dd's final essay was 8 paragraphs. Not sure the word count.

 

ETA: one of the good extensions it provided, compared to EE1, was the requirement to write about assigned topics, rather than choosing your own. This was definitely a new hard thing compared to EE1, where dd wrote about topics she was very familiar and comfortable with.

That is what dd claims now: I can only write about my interests.

Considering where our dd is coming she made a huge development since we work with Bravewriter.

But she has to learn to write about any topic (in several languages) as that is what the exit exams require.

 

Her growth in writing is impressive though.

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