Is MCT grammar a strong choice? (child really detests doing GWTM)

[serendipitous journey]

DS the older needs to take grammar (says his classically-educating, WTMish mother), detests Grammar for the Well Trained Mind (he says: it is tedious, boring, there isn't much new, and he reports that it is too easy to make mistakes but IMHO he scores really well on the exercises).  We are maybe 1/4 - 1/5 of the way through.  My general rule is that he gets to do a different program in a subject if he's working well and I think the replacement is of equal or higher quality when taken as a whole. 

Analytical Grammar is too easy. 

He is almost 13 (birthday August 30) and will be entering "7th" but working at 8 - 11th grade level: we're doing grade placement by maturity*; we may adjust the grade level later.  I was thinking that MCT might be a good fit, probably Town Voyage level for now (full disclosure: I OWN this level, which is a great reason to use it!).  But I don't want to spend a lot of time on MCT composition, b/c we're doing a combination of Classical Writing and WWS already, and I don't love the vocabulary: he has a strong Latin background, will be studying Latin and Greek at Lukeion next year, and has strong classical civ. background.   So we find the vocabulary, so far, has been more adding-confusion than adding-knowledge. 

I'm fine doing the grammar, some of literature at least, the poetry, and some writing.

Thoughts?  Suggestions?  and: thanks in advance!

[crazyforlatin]

I have a similar child of the same age who has finished Latin 4, and I wished I had enrolled in Barr's grammar class. I don't remember if he offers one in the spring semester, but I need to see if DD can handle fall semester before adding on. My only hesitation with that class is whether it covers advanced grammar. I gave away Town, but do have AG which we've been working through on and off for a couple of years. It may be easy in a way and too repetitive for my liking, but DD wrote in it so she needs to get through the rest of the book. 

Are you thinking of only using the grammar part of Town with the 4 level of analysis? 

 

[serendipitous journey]

Thanks!  I think DS would not do well with another online class this year, but maybe we should look at Barr's grammar for another year. 

And, eek! it turns out it was Essay Voyage I was thinking of.  I'd thought to do Voyage grammar book + practice book, read Essay Voyage and assign writing as seems useful, and do the poetry book.  If I make the child stick with GWTM we wouldn't use Voyage really, except maybe to read the grammar and use the poetry. 

ETA: I'm wondering if I should just accelerate through GWTM until he gets to something new.  Maybe pick about 1 lesson per "week" until it gets tricky. 

[crazyforlatin]

For us, MCT was great when DD was in elementary school, but now that she is done with 7th and has had an accelerated language arts/foreign languages exposure, the grammar and accompanying items are not suitable. I had Voyage too, but DD took a writing class at WHA making that series unhelpful at this point.

With AG what we do is skip the repetitive lessons or pick 3 sentences per exercise. Even DD who loves languages finds English grammar exercises tedious which is why a live class with Barr would have been great. I've heard that his class is actually fun. For now though, trimming the work sounds fine especially for a student who gets grammar and just needs to finish it up. Not that the grammar section on the SAT is any indication of the depth of knowledge but DD had to take it for CTY purposes and found that section to be the easiest.

[serendipitous journey]

crazyforlatin, may I ask how old that child was when she began Latin 1 (or the first Latin she did online/with Lukeion)?  And how you decided she was ready?  I can PM you if you'd prefer. 

[crazyforlatin]

13 minutes ago, serendipitous journey said:

crazyforlatin, may I ask how old that child was when she began Latin 1 (or the first Latin she did online/with Lukeion)?  And how you decided she was ready?  I can PM you if you'd prefer. 

Prior to Lukeion she was already exposed to Latin using GSWL and Henle from an early age so it seemed natural at that time to enroll at Lukeion in 4th grade. There's no need for prior exposure with Latin 1. DD happened to really connect with Mrs. Barr so she was very happy to be in class and turn in her work on time. Barr has strict deadlines and doesn't really make exceptions. Also Dd's grammar was already strong enough, so she wasn't struggling with that. And because she had done some Latin before, Latin 1 and most of Latin 2 classes did not take up much time during the week. I already knew she liked online classes through CLRC and Athena and preferred interacting with outside teachers and students. Anyway, it's not the age of the student but whether he or she can handle deadlines, is not struggling with grammar, has some ability to memorize, and wants to study Latin. 

[Bocky]

We used MCT because DD14 enjoyed it. I think for some students, MCT really connects. You could start Grammar Voyage with your DS and see if it works for him. But just for another perspective, I think Latin and Greek will teach him grammar and classical vocabulary a lot faster and more efficiently than studying grammar without the same immediate application. At least, that is how it worked for me when I studied Latin and Greek, when my prior instruction in grammar consisted of "use should have not should of." 

[EKS]

I would use Magic Lens 1 rather than Voyage.  Voyage tries for the whimsy of the first two levels and fails miserably.  Magic Lens dispenses with all that. 

I think that MCT is very good at giving a big picture overview that can be easily transferred to editing one's own writing. It also gives a strong foundation in clause identification and punctuation.  But if you're looking for a program to drill all of the details, MCT isn't it.

I will be using Magic Lens 1 and practice book with my advanced 11th grader next year.  Here is a post I wrote the other day about writing, grammar, and MCT that sort of applies here.

[crazyforlatin]

After chatting with you, OP, I looked up MCT grammar and thought that Lens III looks pretty good for DD. I didn't look at the pdfs for Lens 1 or 2. I'm not sure I want to spend money on the entire Lens series. I have to say that Lens looks more fun than AG. I know that DD enjoyed the lower levels when she was in elementary school.

Does anyone happen to know if a student needs to know what's in Lens 1-2 in order to do Lens 3? The sample pdfs are not enough for me to determine that, but from what I can tell with Lens 3 sample, it's about the same as in other series but with more information at the bottom of the analysis.

I also noticed that one of the Lens level now has diagramming, but I can't tell if there are diagramming exercises in the practice books.

[Targhee]

Magic Lens is solid, to the point, and no tedious work. Include the 4 Practice series to work on applying the grammar analysis.  I learned more about verbs than I ever knew doing Magic Lens (and I have an English - writing minor!).

[Bocky]

I don't remember any diagramming in The Magic Lens 1 or 2. MCT uses his own 4 level analysis instead, which basically is parsing the sentence. The 4Practice book is 100 sentences, one per page, for analysis using his system.

I think the usual advice is to start with Magic Lens 1, rather than jumping ahead. We used it in 7th to good effect. Magic Lens 2 does go over the same ground, but spends less time on parts of speech and parts of sentence, and more on phrases and clauses. There are also excellent notes on usage near the end of each section. I have racked my brain but I can't remember if these were basically the same in Magic Lens 2 or if they were different. I haven't got my hands on Magic Lens 3 yet.

[crazyforlatin]

Since the website doesn't give enough info, I called the company. I ordered Lens 3. There's no diagramming at all, just an example of it. I want to use AG, but after DD looked at the Lens sample, she liked the extra notes at the bottom. We'll still use AG to diagram during the coming years (because I can't give up on this idea), but I think rounding out her grammar education now with Lens will be more enjoyable for both of us.

[serendipitous journey]

On 6/25/2018 at 8:38 AM, EKS said:

I would use Magic Lens 1 rather than Voyage.  Voyage tries for the whimsy of the first two levels and fails miserably.  Magic Lens dispenses with all that. ...

Yes, we're finding that here.  Thank you for putting it so clearly!  Wish I'd known to ask this question before we ordered Voyage.  {wry grin here}  Any experience with/thoughts on the newish Literature level? 

Given our experience, and your comments, and the place Literature Level sits in the MCT chart, the most conservative option (ie, best odds of a good price-to-benefit ratio) seems to be Magic Lens. 

[EKS]

29 minutes ago, serendipitous journey said:

Yes, we're finding that here.  Thank you for putting it so clearly!  Wish I'd known to ask this question before we ordered Voygage.  {wry grin here}  Any experience with/thoughts on the newish Literature level? 

This is the first time I've even heard of that level.  I don't see why there needs to be a level between Voyage and ML1.  ML1 isn't that different content-wise from Voyage.  What he should be spending his time on is completely rewriting Voyage.  IMO ?

[serendipitous journey]

On 6/27/2018 at 7:01 PM, crazyforlatin said:

Since the website doesn't give enough info, I called the company. I ordered Lens 3. There's no diagramming at all, just an example of it. I want to use AG, but after DD looked at the Lens sample, she liked the extra notes at the bottom. We'll still use AG to diagram during the coming years (because I can't give up on this idea), but I think rounding out her grammar education now with Lens will be more enjoyable for both of us.

crazyforlatin, could you summarize your thinking RE your child's placement?  I am pretty sure that we'll be beginning with ML1, but would be glad to know more about how different folks are using the MCT materials. 

ETA: are you doing the writing component and/or poetry?  The writing is one place it seems to me that the levels may different significantly, in terms of challenge.  I'm on the fence about attempting (rather, perhaps, "trialing") the writing portions. 

48 minutes ago, EKS said:

This is the first time I've even heard of that level.  I don't see why there needs to be a level between Voyage and ML1.  ML1 isn't that different content-wise from Voyage.  What he should be spending his time on is completely rewriting Voyage.  IMO ?

!!!  ? 

ETA #2: EKS, did you do the writing component?  Poetry?  Thoughts on those?

[EKS]

32 minutes ago, serendipitous journey said:

EKS, did you do the writing component?  Poetry?  Thoughts on those?

A few years ago I used Essay Voyage by essentially completely rewriting it to get rid of all of the ship trip stuff and add in examples that my son would find more relevant.  It was an amazing success.  Prior to that, I read through Sentence Island and Paragraph Town with my son, but we never did the assignments because neither of us could stand them.  I also have whatever the writing book is called that goes with ML1, which I have read myself, and informs how I teach writing.

I think I may have used the Island level poetry book, but I never used the others.

[serendipitous journey]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

A few years ago I used Essay Voyage by essentially completely rewriting it to get rid of all of the ship trip stuff and add in examples that my son would find more relevant.  It was an amazing success.  Prior to that, I read through Sentence Island and Paragraph Town with my son, but we never did the assignments because neither of us could stand them.  I also have whatever the writing book is called that goes with ML1, which I have read myself, and informs how I teach writing.

I think I may have used the Island level poetry book, but I never used the others.

Thank you so much for helping me with this.  May ask: did you literally rewrite, or did you skip stuff in MCT and substitute examples you'd found, or maybe something intermediate -- jotting notes/an outline for yourself to teach from?  I'm trying imagine the nuts and bolts of doing this. 

Particularly, we actually own Voyage level and I am not sure that purchasing ML1 for this year is going to be a worthy use of our money (no matter how wonderful it is!).  Especially if you found adapting Voyage to be so successful with your son.  What did amazing success look/feel like for y'all?  How did you identify it? 

OTOH, it is my own time that is at a premium this next year, and so maybe investing in ML1 would be wisest. 

[EKS]

1 hour ago, serendipitous journey said:

Thank you so much for helping me with this.  May ask: did you literally rewrite, or did you skip stuff in MCT and substitute examples you'd found, or maybe something intermediate -- jotting notes/an outline for yourself to teach from?  I'm trying imagine the nuts and bolts of doing this. 

Particularly, we actually own Voyage level and I am not sure that purchasing ML1 for this year is going to be a worthy use of our money (no matter how wonderful it is!).  Especially if you found adapting Voyage to be so successful with your son.  What did amazing success look/feel like for y'all?  How did you identify it? 

OTOH, it is my own time that is at a premium this next year, and so maybe investing in ML1 would be wisest. 

I literally created an entirely new document--retyping the parts I wanted to keep and adding what needed to be added.  It ended up being 200 pages long, single spaced, 15 (or so) point type.  So, for example, the beginning of Essay Voyage has stuff about the importance of correctness--of words, sentences, and paragraphs.  I copied that part and then replaced whatever it was MCT had in there to illustrate these points with a passage from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  It took quite a while, but in the end I had something that was meaningful and enjoyable for my son.

We used it over the summer between two years my son spent at a private school.  He was sixth grade age and was in an English class with eighth graders.  I knew it was successful when he was assigned a five paragraph essay and he wrote something really good.  The teacher said he was the only one in the class who was able to do the assignment.

 

[cintinative]

I'm super late to the party but GWTM picks up in intensity and difficulty at about week 16. FYI. I know nothing about MCT.

[carrierocha]

FWIW - We have only used the lower levels of MCT, but have used grammar, writing, poetry and vocab. In my experience the grammar books build slowly one upon the other with a decent amount of review from the year before. The writing books seem to assume that you have learned and internalized what was taught in the previous level as there is far less review and much more new material. Poetry is similar to grammar in that there is review in one level, but I really like that with poetry as I had even forgotten a lot of what we had learned the year before!