Writing Skills vs IEW Narnia vs Jump In

[silver]

Background: My 7th grader is STEM minded and a reluctant writer. He'll be finishing up WWS1 partway through the year, and I'm looking into what to do next. He does best with the steps of writing being broken down for him and with clear assignments/writing prompts. He doesn't like creative/fiction writing unless it's as a summary or narration of an existing work. I'm willing to teach, help, etc; it doesn't need to be independent.

If you've used Writing Skills 2 by Diana Hanbury King, Jump in by Sharon Watson, or one of the IEW Narnia theme books, I'd love to hear from you!

----For any of the options:
* What grade(s) did you use the curriculum? Was your student a reluctant writer, natural writer, or average writer?
* What can you tell me about the program? Pros? Cons? Modifications you made?
* What are the writing prompts and assignments like?
* Once the student is a bit into the program, how many paragraphs are expected from the student each week?

----For Writing Skills 2:
* Can I use the 2nd book (it's the one listed for his grade level) without having used the previous books?
* Is the Teacher's Handbook useful/needed?

----For Jump In:
* How easy would it be to adapt it so that he types everything instead of writing in the workbook? 

----For IEW Narnia:
* Can I use a theme book from IEW without either of us having watched the TWSS or SWI videos?
* My son has read some of the Narnia books already, and the 2nd book in IEW's Narnia series would mean less re-reading of books. Can we do the 2nd Narnia book without having done the 1st writing book?
* Are both the student and teacher books needed? My son would be typing everything for this and not writing in the book; could I get away with just getting the teacher book?  
* Would it be feasible to use our own "dress-ups" instead of the ones IEW uses?

 

Thank you so much for any input you can give!

[Soror]

re: Jump IN

I've not done the other two but to answer your question about Jump In, my daughter is typing her work on the computer, NBD. It would be a bit much to try and write that all and that makes it easier for me to reuse it. At the beginning we also did some of the exercises orally as discussion.

My daughter is 12 in 7th grade, I guess I'd call her an average writer, although she certainly whines about writing she does ok.

We're just at the end of the first section, she is working on her first essay this week. 

I'm not sure if I'm scheduling it exactly as I'm supposed to but she's been doing a skill a day which is often a paragraph a day. She's working this week on writing the 5 paragraph essay from some paragraphs she's worked on in the last 2 weeks. It can be easily modified to suit your student, I thought that would be a good pace with these beginning sections, we'll see how she does.

I'm not planning on doing the freewriting assignments, just the essay work and there are some towards the end we might skip, like the book report. We've done some things orally (really just the beginning not sure that we will do anything else orally).

So far she has worked on an opinion paper, it is great at showing the structure but giving assignments that are interesting and understandable to the kids, I think it is a great intro to essays, especially for this kid.

There is some flexibility on the assignments and several offered that fit into the skills being worked on. She's writing an opinion piece on why cats are awesome pets as she LOVES cats. 

For the previous assignments- writing the intro after we went over different types and styles of intros she got to pick what she liked. But first we worked on talking about opinions, picking a subject and the reasons and ordering those opinions in different ways. Even writing the paragraph is broken down. She learned about different types of paragraphs and picked one to practice. She evaluated an essay written by a kid, this is not literary greatness but a basic essay by a beginner. 

[Lori D.]

5 hours ago, silver said:

* What grade(s) did you use the curriculum? Was your student a reluctant writer, natural writer, or average writer?

Jump in = grade 8, with DS#2 who was not only a reluctant writer, but also struggling writer with mild LDs in spelling and writing. He did well with Jump In. He had done Wordsmith Apprentice the previous year.

5 hours ago, silver said:

* What can you tell me about the program? Pros? Cons? Modifications you made?

pros
- can schedule as big or as small of a daily "bite" as needed for the student
- focuses on helping the student think of what to say, and how to organize their thoughts
- works with all 4 types of writing (descriptive, narrative, expository, persuasive)
- variety of types of assignments (not just essays, things like -- even a final unit on creative writing (which we skipped, as DS did not want to write a poem, lol)

cons
- not a con for us, but there are a few writing assignment prompts that are strongly Christian (can pretty easily be marked out if you wish)
- again, not a con for us since we did it with an older student, but a few of the prompts were on topics that seemed to mature if doing with a 5th grader (program is for grades 5-8 -- I personally would put it at grades 6-9)
- designed to take 2 years, as after each unit you are supposed to stop and do 4 weeks of free writing from the prompts in the teacher guide; the prompts were rather weak (DS#2 called them "lame", lol) and very similar -- I would not find it helpful to take that much time between units for "free writing"

5 hours ago, silver said:

* What are the writing prompts and assignments like?

Variety of types of writing assignments, and usually a choice of topics. It's been too long since we did the program to remember specific assignments, but check out the student book sample pages. For an idea about the free writing prompts, check out page 9 of the teacher book sample pages.

5 hours ago, silver said:

* Once the student is a bit into the program, how many paragraphs are expected from the student each week?

Variety of assignments, working up from 1 paragraph, to 3 paragraph, to 5 paragraph essays. Very flexible to gear it to your student's need -- my DS couldn't manage more than 1-2 paragraphs a week, so for longer assignments, we just took more weeks to complete the longer essay. Easy peasy.

5 hours ago, silver said:

----For Jump In:
* How easy would it be to adapt it so that he types everything instead of writing in the workbook? 

That's what we did, and it was no problem at all. DS#2 struggled with the physical act of handwriting, so typing made his thinking/writing flow much better. We did all the brainstorming together on a lap-sized whiteboard, and then he dictated to me his keyword outline which I wrote on an index card, so he just those 2 items nearby for actually writing/typing up assignments. [One "peeve" --  I hated that the book was "perfect bound" rather than spiral bound, as it would not lay flat when opened -- which, in my mind, is critical if you're expected to write in the book... grrr.]

5 hours ago, silver said:

----For Writing Skills 2:
* Can I use the 2nd book (it's the one listed for his grade level) without having used the previous books?
* Is the Teacher's Handbook useful/needed?

I did not use this program with either DS. However, I did get both books 2 and 3 earlier this year, with the idea I might be able to use material from them with my Lit. & Comp. co-op classes. Both book 2 and 3 seemed very similar in level, and both seem pretty easy. I think an average writer 6th-7th grader would have no problem with book 2 -- probably fine with book 3 as well. Disappointing to me: there is a LOT of grammar and fill-in-the-blank exercises, and much less writing instruction than I thought the program would have. Perhaps that part is in the teacher book -- I only have the student books for both levels 2 and 3.

There is far more explanation and instruction -- and written in a clear and informal way directly to the student -- in Jump In, which also is a much more comprehensive program than Writing Skills book 2 or 3 (or both of those levels combined, as they seem to overlap a lot to me).

5 hours ago, silver said:

...If you've used... one of the IEW Narnia theme books, I'd love to hear from you...

No experience or help with IEW Narnia -- other than my adoption of basic IEW technique into our writing from about grade 3 onward. I saw Andrew Pudewa demonstrate his methods of instruction at a conference when DSs were young, and ever since, used a variation on his key word outline method and his suggestion of breaking the steps of writing (brainstorming, organizing, rough draft writing, revising, proof-editing) into separate short bites spread out over a week, in order to reduce the "pain" of writing for pencil-phobic children, lol. (And it worked!)

5 hours ago, silver said:

...My 7th grader is STEM minded and a reluctant writer. He'll be finishing up WWS1 partway through the year, and I'm looking into what to do next. He does best with the steps of writing being broken down for him and with clear assignments/writing prompts. He doesn't like creative/fiction writing unless it's as a summary or narration of an existing work. I'm willing to teach, help, etc; it doesn't need to be independent...

My overall thoughts: WWS1 is pretty advanced, so your DS may be beyond all 3 of those programs you are looking at -- esp. the Writing Skills. Jump In does break down the steps, and does have clear assignments/prompts. There is only 1 short creative/fiction writing unit at the end which you can skip (we did). Some of the "free writing" prompts are more creative writing based -- but, above, I explain how we skipped those and what we substituted. I found it was very nice to have the instruction part of Jump In written to the student and that it could be more independent of me, so then I could be more involved with the stages of actual writing, without DS#2 feeling like I was always right there and telling him what to do, lol. At grade 7, studenthaving some independence really helps the parent-student relationship. 😉 

BEST of luck in finding what is the best fit for your reluctant writer! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited August 27, 2019 by Lori D.

[silver]

1 hour ago, Lori D. said:

My overall thoughts: WWS1 is pretty advanced, so your DS may be beyond all 3 of those programs you are looking at -- esp. the Writing Skills. Jump In does break down the steps, and does have clear assignments/prompts. There is only 1 short creative/fiction writing unit at the end which you can skip (we did). Some of the "free writing" prompts are more creative writing based -- but, above, I explain how we skipped those and what we substituted. I found it was very nice to have the instruction part of Jump In written to the student and that it could be more independent of me, so then I could be more involved with the stages of actual writing, without DS#2 feeling like I was always right there and telling him what to do, lol. At grade 7, studenthaving some independence really helps the parent-student relationship. 😉 

I know that the options I'm looking at are sort of a "step back" from WWS1. But with how WWS has gone for him, I'm wondering if he might do well with a slightly easier curriculum. He's not a kid that shies away from challenge when it's something he's confident he can tackle, but he has really disliked WWS, which makes me think it was maybe too much for him, even at the slower pace we've been doing (spreading some of the "days" over a whole week). I like what I've seen of the WWS series, but I'm definitely waiting until at least 9th grade to start the 2nd book if we continue in the series.

[Lori D.]

45 minutes ago, silver said:

I know that the options I'm looking at are sort of a "step back" from WWS1. But with how WWS has gone for him, I'm wondering if he might do well with a slightly easier curriculum. He's not a kid that shies away from challenge when it's something he's confident he can tackle, but he has really disliked WWS, which makes me think it was maybe too much for him, even at the slower pace we've been doing (spreading some of the "days" over a whole week). I like what I've seen of the WWS series, but I'm definitely waiting until at least 9th grade to start the 2nd book if we continue in the series.

Got it. 😄

Then of the Writing Skills or Jump In options, I think Jump In might be a better fit, as it has more step by step instruction and lots of types of assignments for solidifying skills before moving on with WWS2. The IEW Narnia could be fine too, I just don't know anything about it.

[freesia]

59 minutes ago, silver said:

I know that the options I'm looking at are sort of a "step back" from WWS1. But with how WWS has gone for him, I'm wondering if he might do well with a slightly easier curriculum. He's not a kid that shies away from challenge when it's something he's confident he can tackle, but he has really disliked WWS, which makes me think it was maybe too much for him, even at the slower pace we've been doing (spreading some of the "days" over a whole week). I like what I've seen of the WWS series, but I'm definitely waiting until at least 9th grade to start the 2nd book if we continue in the series.

I used Jump In after WWS for my strong/natural writer.  She did WWS1 in fifth, I think, and we started 2 in sixth.  I decided it was way too much even for a strong writer.  Jump In was wonderful for her (and her average brother who used it in 7th.)

[hollyhock2]

I attempted Jump In with my then-8th grade son. We only used it for the first chapter. I think he is a natural writer, although I'm not entirely sure of the definition of natural - I came to that conclusion because if I give him an assignment like, "Tell me about the bacterial colonies you were reading about in biology," he'll come up with something great, but if I try to use curriculum with him that breaks writing down into steps, he flounders and has no idea what to say and his writing becomes pretty bad. I'm not sure if that makes him a natural or not.

I did really like Jump In in that the steps and the assignments were very clear. I liked the way it was set up. My son has always typed his writing assignments and did with Jump In also; you don't need to write in the book. I can't speak to the kinds of writing prompts because we didn't stick with it that long.