8th Grade Writing-- How much?

[ByGrace3]

We start school on Monday and I am feeling a bit behind. Writing is the last thing to solidify... I have IEW on the way and a bunch of BW products. We have always been a bit eclectic in this subject. She is a decent writer-- can summarize, outline, write basic essays, knows basic MLA citation. She could use some help stylistically (hence ordering IEW-- I am hoping that will help there). She is taking Logic with Schole Academy and they require 7 one page papers and a 3-4 page paper at the end of the year. I need to determine how much to add to that. Last year we did one writing project per month (BW style--  but with assignments each week). My kids enjoy writing -- and had an amazing writing year last year. As I determine what to assign (we tie our writing projects into our other subjects) I don't want to overwhelm her, but I want to give her enough that she is ready for high school. Suggestions on how much writing output? I'm thinking I will not assign writing projects on weeks she has logic essays . . . We also are doing "Commonplace" books in World Georgraphy (I'm not entirely sure I am using them as intended, but our plan sounds fun!) The kids will map, do notebooking, outlining, drawings, freewrites, etc. I also have some planned essays for World Geography... Help me to plan enough but not too much! ?

[acresoft]

Sounds like she already knows something about writing. If she does IEW and 7 one page papers and 1 3 to 4 page paper it sounds like she'll be getting writing practice. You don't want her to be over crammed, to the point it isn't enjoyable.

[PeterPan]

I think your 1 project a month *could* be ok and a good stretch. I probably would *not* do a writing project from you on the month where she has the longer paper due, just to let her focus. For your projects, I would try to make them be in a genre that she isn't writing for the logic class. I don't know if they're doing expository or opinions or what, but I would just go a different direction. It could be response to literature or creative or...

Is the writing you're wanting for geography an increase in addition to the increase in writing for the logic class? I'd probably only do one increase. Like maybe let your geography and monthly writing projects merge. I think the whole ramp up for high school thing is mix. Some kids have a lot of reserve, and you can push them like that and it's GREAT. For other kids, that's more like meltdown, and you should just continue to increase slowly, a bit each year. You still want to work with the dc in front of you. There is no mandate about how much you HAVE to write in high school. Some kids are going to write a lot, and some are going to write less, just like some are going to take scads of APs and some won't. 

If adding writing in logic and geography (both) would be a MAJOR step up, I would try to merge ideas then to make the steps just appropriate and gradual. Are the logic essays going to be done over a week or are they a longer assignment? In college that's a week (respond, crank it out), but sometimes in high school they're worked on over several weeks with scaffolding. It sounds like you've been giving her scaffolding for her monthly projects, which is terrific. I think it's really valuable that she continues to ENJOY writing. She has plenty of time to grow into it. She doesn't have to be on a crank it out train yet.

The other thing you could do is try to bring other forms of output to your writing projects. Like instead of essays, do brochures, videos, powerpoint, etc. Maybe have less writing projects for geography but have them be more potent/valuable and push them into that writing project of the month thing. So no project the month of the long logic paper which leaves you maybe 7-8 monthly projects. Of those, have some connect to lit, some to geography, some to be creative, some to be opinions, etc. She could have something really different, like a book project where she reads every day and keeps a response journal. My dd thought I was crazy having her do response journals, but then she got into college classes that required them, hehe, and was glad! Sometimes we did response journals with philosophy texts. So if your dd has a subject like ethics or apologetics or economics or politics or aesthetics or current events or whatever that you were planning on having a spine for, that could merge into the project of the month, reading and responding. Sometimes it's *just enough* of a way to interact with the book to hit the goal you had for that book/material.

Don't be afraid of high school! It's really just continuing to make steps with her, just like you've been doing. You've got this!

[ByGrace3]

3 hours ago, acresoft said:

Sounds like she already knows something about writing. If she does IEW and 7 one page papers and 1 3 to 4 page paper it sounds like she'll be getting writing practice. You don't want her to be over crammed, to the point it isn't enjoyable.

 

We won't be doing a full IEW program. . . it's still on the way so I am unsure how I will utilize it. . . 

3 hours ago, PeterPan said:

 

The other thing you could do is try to bring other forms of output to your writing projects. Like instead of essays, do brochures, videos, powerpoint, etc. Maybe have less writing projects for geography but have them be more potent/valuable and push them into that writing project of the month thing. So no project the month of the long logic paper which leaves you maybe 7-8 monthly projects. Of those, have some connect to lit, some to geography, some to be creative, some to be opinions, etc. She could have something really different, like a book project where she reads every day and keeps a response journal. My dd thought I was crazy having her do response journals, but then she got into college classes that required them, hehe, and was glad! Sometimes we did response journals with philosophy texts. So if your dd has a subject like ethics or apologetics or economics or politics or aesthetics or current events or whatever that you were planning on having a spine for, that could merge into the project of the month, reading and responding. Sometimes it's *just enough* of a way to interact with the book to hit the goal you had for that book/material.

Don't be afraid of high school! It's really just continuing to make steps with her, just like you've been doing. You've got this!

This is how we usually handle writing  . ..  fun projects/oral reports/power points/ essays/book jackets/historical person diaries/travel brochures etc... I try to have a list of skills to cover and then use fun projects to practice... I definitely will not be adding to logic, just projects for geography. 

Thanks for the input!  

[SilverMoon]

We did something for writing every day. I aimed for one decent writing project a week, rough to final. Occasionally that might have been spurts of daily working through an exercise book (like Killgallon) instead.