Aaah! Middle School Writing Curric

[alisha]

I've spent quite some time researching past threads on this topic, and researching various items that I have found from there.

I have an upcoming 6th grade boy who is not fond of writing. He always writes the minimum possible, and even with that, I've often scribed for him. 

We've tried IEW-pointless because we he could always tell back the story-almost word for word, so doing the outline and writing a new story was difficult to be any different from the original. It was dreaded by both of us. We've tried CAP W&R. (Bks 2 & 3 on Narrative) It's ok, but we don't seem to be getting anywhere, and I really don't want to have to go through 12th grade in order to get the entire concept. I have WWS1, but I'm pretty sure he's not ready for that yet-even if we do go slow. 

I think I like "Twisting Arms", but that only covers 1 aspect of writing. I like "The Paragraph Book(s)", but again that covers paragraphs, not essays, or other types of writing. (from what I can tell). "Winning with Writing" looks good also, but it seems to be a 'beat you over the head with it' type of process, and DH only needs to be taught something once and he gets it. 

Partly, I don't really know what I want, just what I don't want. I want something that covers the basics of academic writing. I guess I'm looking for something that can teach the basics this year, and in future years, we'll build on it just by me giving him special writing assignments? But I don't really know! I'm pretty sure I don't want something grade leveled, especially since I'd have to go down a level or two to find where he's at. I almost want to go the unit study approach to various writing types. 

I'm just at a loss and so confused, I thought I'd post and see what kinds of wisdom y'all have for me. Thanks!

[MerryAtHope]

Have you ever looked at Essentials in Writing by Matthew Stephens? It was really helpful for my reluctant writer. It probably wouldn't be necessary to go down in levels in this one, just take it at his pace. It's spiral, so each year you cover a lot of the same basic things but with emphasis on different things (some years have some different types of essays), different topics, and so on. Grades 1-6 also include grammar. Grades 7-12 start with sentences, then paragraphs, then essays and a research paper. Here's a review I did years ago when I used level 7 with my then 9th grader (that was the first year it was out, and 7 was the highest level out that year). I ended up using levels 7-11, and each of my kids used it for 4 years. It worked really well for us, and it was easy to take a break from it and sub out an assignment if I wanted to, or choose our own topics for the essays. 

[mmasc]

After pouring over many threads and seeking advice here on the forum, we tried Essentials in Writing for 6th with my DS. It worked out well and we used it this year for 7th also. We will use it for 8th, unless I decide to outsource writing!

[PeterPan]

That's a challenge when kids have a phenomenal memory, because they are able to retell stories so closely. I think if you got something like Writing Tales 2, the models would be long enough that wouldn't happen. Really though, he's at an age where it's time to push that and develop his skills of paraphrasing and voice. It's absolutely not acceptable for him NOT to be able to combine sources and put things into his own words. My ds has autism and can script paragraphs out of books, scenes out of movies, monologues out of documentaries. It will sound like he's talking to you, when he's scripting the whole thing. It's allowed with young children, but my middle school it's really time to be teaching paraphrasing, voice, etc., simply because kids with that phenomenal strength are going to have to avoid plagiarism. 

As far as preferred things for that age? I can't remember when we did the Jump In writing prompts from their tm, but they were good. It's a great age to do challenges like https://www.rainbowresource.com/product/Writing+for+100+Days/000607 It might be that he just needs a filler year before WWS. He might like to spend it focusing on voice, paraphrasing, summarizing, being able to put things into his own words and have it sound like him. WTM recommends outlining for that age. Since you're interested in having him pursue more complex writing, you might like to have him outline well-written magazine articles, travel or science essays, opinion pieces, etc. He could outline them and then discuss and retell. This would situate him well for WWS. When my dd was at that stage, we outlined Muse magazine articles. Almost anything that interested him (science magazines, anything) would do. Instead of a writing curriculum, study and discuss well-written writing.

If you need sources for essays, you might look at collections like thishttps://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Science-Nature-Writing/dp/0544748999  We used them extensively all through high school across a variety of volumes/topics. 

[tmstranger]

Have you looked at Writeshop? It is kind of teacher intensive, but my 5th grader loves it.  He does not like to physically write stuff, but he enjoys the pre-writing activities, brainstorming, and other activities.  He likes coming up with the stories, but not physically writing them down. It's been a good writing year for him. 

[Ellie]

I love Writing Strands and Understanding Writing. 

[Wren's Nest]

Have you considered Cover Story?  I'm going to try that with dd next school year.  I hope she'll find it fun and something to look forward to doing.  I think she'll like the dvd's and the journal.  

ETA: I'm so glad I read your post and linked Cover Story.  I went to their site to get you the link and I see they have another writing program called Byline.  It's for 8th - 12th though, but it looks great too!  I'll keep that in mind for the near future.  

[Holly]

Has he done WWE?  My upcoming 6th grader will be doing WWE 3 (and maybe something else for a year) before moving to WWS. 

[SporkUK]

2 of mine are similar - reluctant to write, good at parroting back, but using their own words seems a struggle. 

What is working well for us, and I think would fit well into your idea of a unit study approach to different kinds of writing, is Write On*. It literally goes from words through various types of language play and sentences to letters and paragraphs, to different kinds of outlines and essays including thesis writing. There are 100 lessons through with their scheduled repeats of certain lessons (most are easily repeatable but it's planned in the book that every 5th is done a few times) is closer to 175+. My older two ( 11/Year 6 and 13/Year 8 who is one of mine who struggles with this) are currently in the 50s range and it has made a phenomenal difference. It'll likely never be my 13 year old's favourite but I can assign work outside of Write On, we'll outline 3 points together, and he can expand on that from other sources on his own and not just copy word-for-word. I think what helped him most beyond the little and often that Write On does but how each of the lessons has an example on the page that he can compare his work to but knows he can't copy. Quite a few lessons are specifically designed to bring in what's being done in other lessons which they find fun as well. 

My 8 year old (who is my other reluctant writer and until this year an equally reluctant reader) is also using it though she hit her level soon after 40 so we now actually 4 10 sided dice to pick a repeat. She loves it, this is really the first thing to get her writing. The only lessons I don't have her repeat (and the only ones I've disliked so far) are the ones on accents which is on writing the same sentence in different accents and 'dialogue from days gone by' which is similar but using pseudo-ye-olde accents which I think could easily be skipped. As one off they might be fine but all my kids struggled with those and the idea that different accents should be written differently. That's possibly because their father and I have very different accents but write the same though even surrounded by different accents and dialects they struggle with them written down rather than heard (my older two read the Tiffany Aching novels and it took to novel 4, and me reading a section outloud even though their Northumbrian father has read the first one to them before, for them to figure out that the Feegles use a kinda Scottish dialect...and they've spent quite a bit of time at the Northumbrian/Scottish border). I think, particularly with kids who struggle using their own words, those two lessons stick out as out of place and awkward. 

*I always feel I should warn that their site is a bit odd, sometimes auto scrolls to the bottom so you have to scroll back up, and you can get more samples at Amazon though each time I've checked it's more expensive there than getting the PDF direct from the site.