Splicing WTM and CC IEW--Has anyone tried this?

[buoyant]

We've been doing WTM for 6 years and CC for 3, where I've gone along to get along. Now my oldest has reached "5th grade" so I am trying to fuse WTM Writing/History/Science "spines" with IEW's Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons that we do in Classical Conversations's Essentials program. But I am having a Dickens of a time figuring out how to interweave everything so that we cover necessary skills and don't ride the child roughshod. Since I have three children younger than him, it's especially important to me to use time wisely. Has anyone attempted this? Here are my ideas so far:

1. Use the spine texts as the source material to complete the IEW assignments, handpicking them each week, or some weeks (the con being he won't get to use the KWO created during class time) (and I worry that our spines are too high a reading level for him, my fault obv.) (which would be just as much of an issue if we were doing WTM on its own, I guess), 

2. Do history, science and lit separately from writing, not summarizing or outlining, and just doing IEW as is--it's own separate thing.

3. Use the IEW source texts as a history text and build our study in the spines around the IEW schedule of topics. This is my least favorite, as the IEW source texts are written for the specific purpose of being outlined and summarized

4. I had a real good one while I was worrying about this last night instead of sleeping but of course I've forgotten it now.

Has anyone attempted something like this?

[Momto6inIN]

We don't do CC, but we do use IEW for writing and try to follow WTM guidelines for history. What we do is most similar to #2. We do some summarizing in history, maybe once a week or so. I remind her to make sure she has a topic sentence and a clincher sentence and let it go at that for summarizing, as my main goal is to have her synthesizing some history ideas, not necessarily working on her writing skills. We have a spine we like (sometimes recommended in WTM and sometimes not) and add in literature suggestions (pulled from WTM and lots of other lists as well). We do timelines and mapwork as suggested in WTM each day. We do not do the WTM method of outlining, as I prefer the IEW method. Then we do IEW lessons from a theme book completely separately to specifically teach the writing process. I do not worry at all about lining up the topics of the IEW Ancients book with what we are learning in history. It's enough for me that it's all about the same rough time period.

Hope that helps!

[buoyant]

Thank you--it always helps to know what has worked for other people. Do you adjust the amount of time spent on history because you know you're going to hit it again in writing?

[Momto6inIN]

On 8/24/2018 at 2:18 PM, buoyant said:

Thank you--it always helps to know what has worked for other people. Do you adjust the amount of time spent on history because you know you're going to hit it again in writing?

Not really ... I consider the topics in IEW to be a "bonus" but the goal/focus is on the writing process, not the history information.

[MeganW]

We just did IEW as it's own separate thing.  It kinda went along with our history, but anything that they learned history-wise was just a bonus.  

[fourisenough]

#2

When we did CCEssentials your option #2 is basically how we handled IEW + WTM.

[Ausmumof3]

We basically do number 2.  I’m using the Australian history unit because it lets us cover Australian history enough to keep our education department happy while we do world history for the other stuff.  The thing with IEW is it’s very easy to change an assignment while still following the unit structure.  So you might use their sources but occasionally substitute in one from your other history either because you feel it’s more important or where for whatever reason your kid isn’t getting along  well with the IEW source text.  The other thing we’ve done is because it’s our first go through with IEW is I’ve used the IEW source for a demo/ work alongside the student writing then given them another text to do the same type of assigment.  Our curriculum is taking closer to 18 months than 12 but I feel we’ve got more out of it with the extra reinforcement.

IEW is very very customisable.

[buoyant]

Thanks for all the input. Most of all, it helps not to be alone in this!