WWS is not working for us -- any suggestions

[Shellydon]

We are trying WWS for the first time with my 3rd child and it is just not working.  It is too ... complex?.... for her to handle.  DD is bright, creative and excellent at memorization and learning new languages.   WWS is too detailed for her, too many small steps and instructions.  Any suggestions on another writing curriculum to try?

[forty-two]

We started WWS last year, and dd12 was very inconsistent - good at outlining, in tears at the summaries.  I stopped after 6 weeks or so and did a hodge-podge of other things.  This year we started IEW SWI-B, and dd12 just told me this morning that she much prefers this way of doing summaries (making a key word outline and then rewriting from it) to the WWS way.  DD12's also bright, creative, and good at memorization.  She's also a voracious reader, very visual-spatial, very intuitive, and in general has found putting what she knows intuitively into words to be hard, especially in the "explain how and why you know this is true" sense. 

[Junie]

1 hour ago, Shellydon said:

We are trying WWS for the first time with my 3rd child and it is just not working.  It is too ... complex?.... for her to handle.  DD is bright, creative and excellent at memorization and learning new languages.   WWS is too detailed for her, too many small steps and instructions.  Any suggestions on another writing curriculum to try?

How old is she?

[Shellydon]

56 minutes ago, Junie said:

How old is she?

She'll be 12 in a week.

[Shellydon]

2 hours ago, forty-two said:

We started WWS last year, and dd12 was very inconsistent - good at outlining, in tears at the summaries.  I stopped after 6 weeks or so and did a hodge-podge of other things.  This year we started IEW SWI-B, and dd12 just told me this morning that she much prefers this way of doing summaries (making a key word outline and then rewriting from it) to the WWS way.  DD12's also bright, creative, and good at memorization.  She's also a voracious reader, very visual-spatial, very intuitive, and in general has found putting what she knows intuitively into words to be hard, especially in the "explain how and why you know this is true" sense. 

Thanks!  She did IEW-A last year in  co-op. I'll look at IEW-B. 

[Shellydon]

1 hour ago, --- said:

I once asked my kids which writing things helped them.  They said ABeka grammar and composition program, along with other odd things here and there, mostly creative writing type stuff to balance out the more structured and technical side of ABeka.  (However, if you're not Christian you may not like ABeka.)  

When we began, we hadn't been doing intense grammar or writing.  So I quizzed my kids orally from a few different levels of the workbooks and chose the workbook for each one in which they missed about 50% of the answers - not too hard, but not too easy.  That seemed to work well.

 Thanks.  I have not yet looked at ABeka.

[SoCal_Bear]

Hmmm... if you did IEW-A (plus being 12), I think you would want to do IEW-SICC B. IEW-A would be redundant.

 

 

[PeterPan]

13 hours ago, Shellydon said:

She'll be 12 in a week.

Maybe just wait 2 years. My dd, very ADHD but bright, wasn't ready for WWS till 8th. It's worthwhile but the dc needs to be ready. 

[8filltheheart]

Is it too complex or too micro-focused?  I am wondering if she possesses the necessary skills/ability to construct a well-written, well-organized paper and the steps in WWS are too limiting/restrictive/micro-managing or is it that the expectations of WWS are too hard?

Some kids need step by step instructions and skill development. Some kids just need the big picture and can fill in the details automatically. Kids in the first group are lost with big picture instruction and kids in the second group are frustrated by detailed writing programs that ultimately restrict their ability to express themselves in their writing.

Edited September 26, 2018 by 8FillTheHeart

[Targhee]

My ADHD kiddos, who are also very global, detested WWS because they couldn't see the big picture.  We use LTOW.  It is different, in that it is focused on persuasive writing and critical thinking instead of general academic writing/reporting, but it does a good job of going from the specific to the general and back again.  It gives specific tools, but gives them in context.  We have to use other things for report writing, but if you've ever heard something called the persuasive principle you can see how all writing is a form of persuasion.  Anyway, they don't love LTOW but oldest did well with it, and DS is doing ok (we just started), and they are learning from it.  They may never love academic writing.  They would much prefer to write fantasy stories…  But LTOW reaches them so much better than WWS.

[PeterPan]

13 hours ago, Targhee said:

My ADHD kiddos, who are also very global, detested WWS because they couldn't see the big picture.

The only reason I got it to work was because I went through it with a highlighter and made sure the most important points were OBVIOUS. I agree it was almost to the point of rambling it was so verbose. With the highlighting and the notes I made in the margins and the outlining I did (marking point 1, point 2, point 3, and so on), she could get the big picture and mostly do the work. The series also lacks audience, point, anything, mercy. It's just soulless, and my very ADHD, creative student just could not deal with that. So I'd go in and talk with her about creating an audience and a purpose in her mind. Curricula written by professional publishers usually set kids up with audience, with purpose for the writing, etc. My most hilarious one was the assignment where I told her to channel Trump and what he did on The Apprentice and castigate the guy. This was years before he ran, lol. 

Bonus was that by hitting this demon head-on, she got really good at realizing there WAS a point in writing that goes on and on, and so she has done pretty well with college note taking, textbook reading, etc. But it took a LOT of time for me to go through the books like that, absolutely. I probably spent about 45 minutes a week going through the lessons and pre-reading them and highlighting and organizing and writing notes. 

[Familia]

IEW  

Our children deplore writing, but their writing is exemplary and used as examples in their college classes.  They were imaginative and casual story tellers at young ages, not often writing, but not hating it.  Adolescence shut down their creative flow.  "I don't know what to write," they'd wail.  They found WWE grueling - I must admit most of that was due to the fact that we had to spend so much time together executing it LOL...we love our time together, but while having FUN.  

At a time when they just weren't listening to me anymore, IEW came into the picture.  I began IEW with each child with the B student package in 7th grade.  Progressed slowly through their main programs through high-school.  They found Andrew Pudewa different than me, i.e. funny.

Admittedly, we did not write across the curriculum in high school.  In high school, in order to not over-tax our non-lovers-of-writing children, they did very little writing outside of their English/Composition courses.  During those years, we used either IEW or signed up our children for online IEW based writing classes (depending on the trustworthyness of the child being able to work autonomously).  (added to this was extensive test-prep based grammar program) 

Again, much ease and success in their college writing assignments because IEW taught them how to do research or on-the-fly-writing...they may need to write on-the-fly even for a research paper when procrastination rears its ugly head LOL.   Anyway, I believe IEW works by getting it done and being easy to implement.  That is what I needed here.  I didn't care if they loved writing, but I did care that they become excellent writers.

Edited September 27, 2018 by Familia
grammar - which still may need assistance!

[kbutton]

LTOW? I am drawing a blank on what this stands for. 

[forty-two]

7 minutes ago, kbutton said:

LTOW? I am drawing a blank on what this stands for. 

Lost Tools of Writing

[kbutton]

1 minute ago, forty-two said:

Lost Tools of Writing

Thank you! 

[EKS]

Is she doing it independently?  If so, the first thing I'd try would be working with her.  You can gradually hand it off to her when she's ready (which might not be this year).

[Shellydon]

Hi everyone.  I've ordered a couple of different programs based on the recs here. I'll update when we pick one.

[strawberryjam]

Check out "Know and Tell: The Art of Narration" by Karen Glass. I realized the worthlessness of all the writing curricula I've ever bought after reading this book. It doesn't have to be so hard!