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I cannot find the right writing 'fit' for my 7th grader this year.  We started out the year working through a paragraph-writing workbook, which was a good review and fairly successful, in that DS was writing better paragraphs by the end than he was at the beginning.   Since finishing that we've been doing bits and pieces from BW Help for High School and another book I have on essay writing.  It's not going all that well -- DS12 has never done all that well with the more free-form BW style, so I don't know why I thought it would suddenly be a hit now.  Hope springs eternal, I suppose.

In middle school my oldest DS worked through WWS, which he disliked but was very useful to him.  DS12 is far less .... cooperative? .. and i am disinclined to die on the WWS hill.  

Any suggestions for middle school writing?

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We have had wonderful success with Lantern English.  The classes are 8 weeks and correspondence style.  (They have a live class option now as well but we have not done that.)

My 7th grader has always been a reluctant reader and writer.  I put him in The Paragraph last spring, and then he took The Composition first quarter of this school year.  He is now taking The Summary.  (These classes are labeled 3rd-6th grade level, but I didn't feel he was ready for the next level up.)  

When my daughter was in 8th grade last year, she took Essay Basics, Intro to Poetry, Intro to Creative Writing, and Intro to Literature: Fiction.  These classes are labeled 7th-9th grade level and a big leap in the amount of work that is assigned each week.  They were a perfect fit for her.  By next year, I think my son will be ready for some of them as well.  

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1 hour ago, kristin0713 said:

We have had wonderful success with Lantern English.  The classes are 8 weeks and correspondence style.  (They have a live class option now as well but we have not done that.)

My 7th grader has always been a reluctant reader and writer.  I put him in The Paragraph last spring, and then he took The Composition first quarter of this school year.  He is now taking The Summary.  (These classes are labeled 3rd-6th grade level, but I didn't feel he was ready for the next level up.)  

When my daughter was in 8th grade last year, she took Essay Basics, Intro to Poetry, Intro to Creative Writing, and Intro to Literature: Fiction.  These classes are labeled 7th-9th grade level and a big leap in the amount of work that is assigned each week.  They were a perfect fit for her.  By next year, I think my son will be ready for some of them as well.  

 

Thanks!  I've never heard of them before but looks interesting. Great price, too.  I'd rather teach myself, though -- it doesn't look like they sell the materials, or do they?

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They do not sell the materials.  It honestly can be like you are teaching yourself but having someone else provide feedback and grades (which I have found to be *extremely* valuable with writing! No more taking my feedback personally! Accountability and deadlines!)  With the exception of the live classes, the lessons are emailed out each week to the student and parent.  My 9th grader often reads through the lesson and does the assignment on her own.  For my 7th grader, I always read through the lesson with him.  He is still at a place where I need to walk him through it.  The assignments are due in a week and the student emails their work to their instructor, then the instructor provides feedback and a grade by the next day.  I have found it to be the best of both worlds! 

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Jump In (gr. 6-9)
Fairly solo working; focus is helping students think of what to say, and how to organize their thoughts. Moves the student from single complete paragraph writing assignments into multi-paragraph essays fairly early in the program. Designed as a 2-year program, but it is by interspersing the units with 4 weeks of "free writing", all from very similar rather lame prompts. We skipped the free writes and did the rest of the program in 1 year -- we also skipped the final unit of the program which is a short unit on creative writing. Cathy Duffy review

Other programs you might find worth looking at:
- Essentials in Writing -- video-based daily lessons; their scoring service fills quickly (sign up in the spring for the following year)
- Write Shop -- level I = gr. 6-8, level II = gr. 8-10 -- scope & sequence
- Writing and Rhetoric -- book 5, 6, 7, or 8, depending on which looks to best fit your student; Cathy Duffy review


You might also look through @lewelma's 2012 thread: "Writing: my evaluation of numerous writing curricula".

 

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On 12/9/2020 at 2:08 PM, kristin0713 said:

They do not sell the materials.  It honestly can be like you are teaching yourself but having someone else provide feedback and grades (which I have found to be *extremely* valuable with writing! No more taking my feedback personally! Accountability and deadlines!)  With the exception of the live classes, the lessons are emailed out each week to the student and parent.  My 9th grader often reads through the lesson and does the assignment on her own.  For my 7th grader, I always read through the lesson with him.  He is still at a place where I need to walk him through it.  The assignments are due in a week and the student emails their work to their instructor, then the instructor provides feedback and a grade by the next day.  I have found it to be the best of both worlds! 

I agree.  It is more like you are teaching it yourself with support but not having to set the pace or provide the feedback.  

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My seventh grade son sounds a lot like yours. I'm drawn to Brave Writer and like to implement some of Julie Bogart's ideas more informally, but the free form/creative assignments didn't work for him. He and my fifth grade dd completed Write Shop 1 last year and it was a success. The assignments stretched them without being too challenging and they enjoyed most of them. The only thing that was a bit cumbersome was flipping between the teacher's manual and the student book, but I got used to it.

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We also use and love Lantern English.

I love how they break the skills down into specific steps. For example, my 6th grader is finishing the Research Basics class.  This is the course outline:
Week One: Beginning Steps
A. Choosing a Topic
B. Finding Sources
Week Two: Researching & Note-Taking
B. Basic Narrative Elements
C. Note-Taking Tips
D. Review of Plagiarism
Week Three: Writing a Bibliography
Week Four: Creating an Outline
Week Five: Writing an Introduction
Week Six: Adding Research Details
Week Seven: Writing a Conclusion
Week Eight: Editing Your Research Project

We use their lessons as a spine. So, when we get the weekly lesson we read through it together and over a few days complete the step together on writing that he won't turn in...often pulled from something he is studying.  This term Lantern was guiding him through writing an essay about a historical event or person, so since he is studying ancient history and earth science, together we wrote essays on the eruption of Mount St. Helens, the Battle of Thermopylae, and Cleopatra.

So, Week 1, I modeled choosing a topic and finding sources for the Mount St. Helens essay, and then scaffolded and guided him through doing the same for one event essay and one historical figure essay. Week 2, I modeled taking notes for the Mount St. Helens essay, and then sat right next to him talking him through doing the same for the other two.

Once he has seen me model the skill once, and has practiced it with me at his elbow a couple times, then he spends the rest of the week completing it independently on the essay he will turn in to Lantern...this term he chose to write about the California Gold Rush.

This has worked well for us. Their lessons give us concrete goals and shared writing vocabulary each week, but their homework assignments are short enough that I can add a lot of instruction and practice either on those skills or others that DS needs (he is a very reluctant writer). I can offer DS tons of modeling and support, but at the end of each week the writing he turns in is completely his own so that we can receive objective feedback from his teacher as to his strengths and weaknesses. The students are graded each week according to a rubric in the categories: Following Directions; Grammar; Spelling, Punctuation, & Capitalization; Ideas & Content; and Understanding & Application of Principles. They also receive specific feedback and suggestions on their writing.

All of my boys have been taking Lantern classes for over a year. This coming term, my 6th, 4th and 2nd graders will be taking Essay Basics, The Narrative, and The Composition respectively.  The following term I think we are going to try their literature class which involves different types of writing about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

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On 12/8/2020 at 6:08 PM, kristin0713 said:

We have had wonderful success with Lantern English.  

Hi - I also had never heard of them - I see their site mentions needing flash.  We have a mac and I think I can no longer use flash as of Jan. 1 - we were switched to a new format with Teaching Textbooks...Is Flash still required?  Their website seems to indicate yes.  I contacted them just now, but was curious of your experience as a user.  Thanks!

 

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8 hours ago, knitupstate said:

Hi - I also had never heard of them - I see their site mentions needing flash.  We have a mac and I think I can no longer use flash as of Jan. 1 - we were switched to a new format with Teaching Textbooks...Is Flash still required?  Their website seems to indicate yes.  I contacted them just now, but was curious of your experience as a user.  Thanks!

 

I can't imagine why it would say that.  These courses are email correspondence.  Maybe there is a flash component to the live classes, which we have not done.  

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11 hours ago, kristin0713 said:

I can't imagine why it would say that.  These courses are email correspondence.  Maybe there is a flash component to the live classes, which we have not done.  

Hi Kristin - that makes sense - I did contact the school as well and Cati responded that it was initially part of their live classes, but no longer - it was just not updated on their website.  Thank you!  

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On 1/16/2021 at 8:15 PM, wendyroo said:

We also use and love Lantern English.

I love how they break the skills down into specific steps. For example, my 6th grader is finishing the Research Basics class.  This is the course outline:
Week One: Beginning Steps
....

All of my boys have been taking Lantern classes for over a year. This coming term, my 6th, 4th and 2nd graders will be taking Essay Basics, The Narrative, and The Composition respectively.  The following term I think we are going to try their literature class which involves different types of writing about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Hi wendyroo - wow - it sounds like your boys have gotten a lot out of classes with Lantern!  My 7th grader is currently taking her first online writing class (not at Lantern English) and I am considering one or more Lantern English classes this coming  spring to work in a more focused manner with her writing, specifically.  It sounds like you've put a not insignificant amount of time with your son on his classwork - can you say if/how the materials support you in this role?  You wrote about modeling the steps of choosing a topic and researching and doing it side by side.  I can tell you that feels a bit daunting to me.  Also, are class samples/materials from Lantern primarily, or partly, Christian-specific?  

Many thanks!

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26 minutes ago, knitupstate said:

Hi wendyroo - wow - it sounds like your boys have gotten a lot out of classes with Lantern!  My 7th grader is currently taking her first online writing class (not at Lantern English) and I am considering one or more Lantern English classes this coming  spring to work in a more focused manner with her writing, specifically.  It sounds like you've put a not insignificant amount of time with your son on his classwork - can you say if/how the materials support you in this role?  You wrote about modeling the steps of choosing a topic and researching and doing it side by side.  I can tell you that feels a bit daunting to me.  Also, are class samples/materials from Lantern primarily, or partly, Christian-specific?  

Many thanks!

Lantern classes really do two things to help me teach my kids writing.

First, they break writing into small individual tasks and give specific goals and guidelines for each.  Before Lantern, I would often struggle to help one of my kiddos with, for example, writing a strong conclusion sentences for a paragraph. They would stare at the blank screen and despair that they didn't know what to write...or they would write something that wasn't really a conclusion sentence. I knew how to write a conclusion sentence, but I didn't know how to break it down and explain to them how to do it. That is what Lantern gives us. The lesson on conclusion sentences laid out the four things a conclusion sentence can do and gave examples of each. Now, when a kiddo is stuck, we can just pick one of the four choices, which is much less overwhelming. And if they write an ineffective conclusion sentence, I can use shared vocabulary to show that the problem is that their sentence does not fulfill any of the choices.

Second, Lantern provides an outside perspective. Looking at my kiddos' writing, I am often overwhelmed: Is this okay? Is it age-appropriate? Is it just the normal amount awkward and clunky you would expect from a new writer? Is it worth it trying to get them to diversify their sentences or reduce repetitive word use? Now I don't have to worry about any of that. It is reassuring to have an objective outsider with broader perspective look at their work and grade and revise it.

I spend a lot of time with all my sons on their Lantern English homework for a few reasons. 1) They are all special needs. 2) The older two especially are VERY resistant to writing. 3) For us, Lantern by itself is not enough practice or daily writing work. For example, my 6th grader just finished Research Basics, and the Lantern class took him through writing one 5 paragraph research essay...in 8 weeks. That means that on the week they were teaching about writing the introduction paragraph, his assignment for the week was to write the intro paragraph for his essay. I do not feel that that on it's own is enough writing for a 6th grader to do in a week. And, writing one intro paragraph for one essay does not give him nearly enough practice with that skill. In the past I have run an entirely separate writing curriculum at the same time as Lantern...that worked fine. Now I tend to double, triple, quadruple the Lantern assignment, so that on intro paragraph week he is writing intro paragraphs for 3-4 essays - more practice, more weekly writing, and an opportunity to write about things he is learning in history and science.

I certainly don't think you would have to help much, or even at all, with Lantern assignments if your student were more independent than mine. Lantern lessons are written to the student, assignments are clearly explained, and the teachers are very responsive to emailed questions.

All of the Lantern lessons we have taken are secular. The teacher bios and emails, on the other hand, are strongly Christian. They often mention religion, faith, church, missionary trips, etc in their lives. We are a secular family, and the number of times Jesus is mentioned in simple emails reminding us of due dates seems a bit ridiculous. I think it would feel less heavy handed if any of the teachers ever mentioned any religion other than Christianity, but even after taking a dozen classes, no teacher has ever casually mentioned her weekend retreat with her coven. Go figure! 😃

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14 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

Lantern classes really do two things to help me teach my kids writing.

First, they break writing into small individual tasks and give specific goals and guidelines for each.  ...

Second, Lantern provides an outside perspective.

... Now I tend to double, triple, quadruple the Lantern assignment, so that on intro paragraph week he is writing intro paragraphs for 3-4 essays - more practice, more weekly writing, and an opportunity to write about things he is learning in history and science.

I certainly don't think you would have to help much, or even at all, with Lantern assignments if your student were more independent than mine. Lantern lessons are written to the student, assignments are clearly explained, and the teachers are very responsive to emailed questions.

All of the Lantern lessons we have taken are secular. The teacher bios and emails, on the other hand, are strongly Christian. ... no teacher has ever casually mentioned her weekend retreat with her coven. Go figure! 😃

Thanks for your thorough response.  Multiplying the Lantern assignment is an interesting concept that I honestly would not have considered.  I feel like, as homeschoolers, we are always doing so much that I have been trying to cut back, especially during covid when it seems everything is on its head..  But requiring multiple versions to practice a skill makes a lot of sense to me.  I have become concerned that I don't have enough work samples, especially for my older DD, in regards to writing.  This is giving me pause and I want to try to make a correction before the year is out.  

I also just purchased the conference talks on writing at the different stages by Susan Wise Bauer and look forward to listening to them (you had recommended them on a different thread, along with The Writing Revolution).  I am hoping they don't terrify me.  

We have tried IEW (Fix it and ATFF; I liked, she hated) and we tried WWS1 with my older daughter in 6th grade but I found it so dense and fiddly that we could not stay with it.  She would have continued but I was falling behind keeping track of what she was doing and the steps felt so distinct and robotic - I could not see the big picture through all the tiny details.  We use Michael Clay Thompson for Grammar and vocabulary and love it, but his writing lessons and parent guides are disappointing and lacking almost all direction!  Extremes.   I am hopeful that Lantern will be a good fit for this spring, though - still looking through their site.  I looked at WriteatHome, too, but found it so expensive and the samples seemed weak in substance.  Too bad I won't get a coven retreat update, though - that would be pretty fantastic!   Thanks again,

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1 hour ago, knitupstate said:

I also just purchased the conference talks on writing at the different stages by Susan Wise Bauer and look forward to listening to them (you had recommended them on a different thread, along with The Writing Revolution).  I am hoping they don't terrify me.  

We have tried IEW (Fix it and ATFF; I liked, she hated) and we tried WWS1 with my older daughter in 6th grade but I found it so dense and fiddly that we could not stay with it.  She would have continued but I was falling behind keeping track of what she was doing and the steps felt so distinct and robotic - I could not see the big picture through all the tiny details.  We use Michael Clay Thompson for Grammar and vocabulary and love it, but his writing lessons and parent guides are disappointing and lacking almost all direction!  Extremes.   I am hopeful that Lantern will be a good fit for this spring, though - still looking through their site.  I looked at WriteatHome, too, but found it so expensive and the samples seemed weak in substance.  Too bad I won't get a coven retreat update, though - that would be pretty fantastic!   Thanks again,

We have gone on a similar writing journey. I love SWB's writing lectures, and have used Writing with Ease with my kids, but they seem to need more scaffolding and direct instruction. I love the Writing Revolution, and use certain pieces of it frequently, but I could never figure out how to implement it as a complete curriculum.

We have tried IEW, and it had good points, but the kids hated it, I wasn't overly impressed, and we found it hard to implement.

My oldest is working his way through WWS 1 with a lot of support. The instructions and organization are the hardest part, and I have to help him break those down into detailed checklists, but he is making progress with the program.

We LOVE MCT poetry, vocabulary and literature, and have read some of the grammar books, but the writing is decidedly not for us.

I've been to a couple conference talks by the owner of WriteatHome, and I like some of what I see, but those classes are SO EXPENSIVE. I do really like their free ebook Ten Mistakes Teen Writers Make and How to Avoid Them (the Mistakes, Not the Teens). DS and I spent 10 weeks reading one mistake each week and working together to write a short composition focused on avoiding that mistake. It was very productive.

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14 hours ago, wendyroo said:

I certainly don't think you would have to help much, or even at all, with Lantern assignments if your student were more independent than mine. Lantern lessons are written to the student, assignments are clearly explained, and the teachers are very responsive to emailed questions.

I mentioned upthread that my 9th grader is much more independent with these lessons and assignments than my 7th grader. I also wanted to mention that both of my kids are natural writers, even though my 7th grader is more reluctant.  I have not needed to add instruction anything near the depth that wendyroo does for either of them.  There was one class that my DD took last year--I think it was Intro to Literature--where I typed up an outline template to give her some guidance in getting started on a type of essay that she had never done before.  I think it was a character analysis essay.  She had taken essay basics and could write a great 5 paragraph essay, but was floundering with the structure of this one and the assignment did not provide that type of guidance.  Other than that, I have found the teaching to be pretty good and the assignments to be very clear.  

Re: Christian or not.  There has not been any Christian content in the classes that my kids have taken, and they have taken quite a few now.  They have had 5 different instructors between the both of them and there has only been one that frequently mentioned activities about her faith and some comments about Easter and Jesus last year in her emails.  

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16 hours ago, wendyroo said:

We have gone on a similar writing journey....

Hi Wendy - so interesting.  I think I've been in a bit of a vacuum with our homeschool, so it's refreshing to read about your process and efforts.  I will be taking the spring semester to regain some lost momentum with writing which will probably involve outsourcing writing.  I think my kid will benefit from outside/objective feedback, too.  I have Writing Revolution in a cart as I write, just in case. 

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4 hours ago, kristin0713 said:

I mentioned upthread that my 9th grader is much more independent with these lessons and assignments than my 7th grader... Other than that, I have found the teaching to be pretty good and the assignments to be very clear.  

Re: Christian or not.  There has not been any Christian content in the classes that my kids have taken, and they have taken quite a few now.  They have had 5 different instructors between the both of them and there has only been one that frequently mentioned activities about her faith and some comments about Easter and Jesus last year in her emails.  

Hi Kristin - thanks for your comment - one thing that feels challenging to me is my ability to assess the work that my kid is doing at all and being her "writing partner" and Julie Bogart would advise.  I find that role extremely challenging and want to offer my kid an opportunity to write and get feedback from someone who has more focus on it. I also want to observe a process so that I can be a better partner going forward and/or just let her take the online or in-person (someday!) classes with another instructor.  (I can't get through the writer's jungle - so dense and more like a winding story to me.  I still hope to, but my kids may be out of college by then...) The variety is good for us all.  Thanks for your comments.  Also - it is useful to be prepared for individual teacher communications with Christian content, but as long as the curriculum remains (mostly or all) secular, the rest is just learning to relate and work with all people.

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On 1/20/2021 at 12:19 AM, wendyroo said:

We have gone on a similar writing journey. I love SWB's writing lectures, and have used Writing with Ease with my kids, but they seem to need more scaffolding and direct instruction. I love the Writing Revolution, and use certain pieces of it frequently, but I could never figure out how to implement it as a complete curriculum.

We have tried IEW, and it had good points, but the kids hated it, I wasn't overly impressed, and we found it hard to implement.

My oldest is working his way through WWS 1 with a lot of support. The instructions and organization are the hardest part, and I have to help him break those down into detailed checklists, but he is making progress with the program.

We LOVE MCT poetry, vocabulary and literature, and have read some of the grammar books, but the writing is decidedly not for us.

I've been to a couple conference talks by the owner of WriteatHome, and I like some of what I see, but those classes are SO EXPENSIVE. I do really like their free ebook Ten Mistakes Teen Writers Make and How to Avoid Them (the Mistakes, Not the Teens). DS and I spent 10 weeks reading one mistake each week and working together to write a short composition focused on avoiding that mistake. It was very productive.

I have a high schooler doing Write at Home’s 8 wk. research paper class. Very similar to Lantern in methodology, scope and price. About $100. Not extremely expensive. 
 

I like the short, focused classes as a supplement. Especially in February! 
 

Echoing pp in needing outside perspective/input for my student’s writing bc she takes my critique too personally.  
 

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In 7th I used The Lively Art of Writing (and the accompanying workbook, available on these boards thanks to Quark) to teach simple essay writing. The prompts are somewhat outdated, but were easily subbed. This was for a student with excellent mechanics who totally withered under the minutiae in WWS (though I did use it as a reference and guide for assignments). 

 

 I don’t really like IEW, but when my high schooler was in 6th and 7th, I did use some extracts from their SWI B course to help Dd identify some tools for good writing, some of which she was already doing. Banned word list, variety of sentence structures etc. This helped add some focus on the micro level since LAoW is macro. I also used some things from CAP’s Writing and Rhetoric books in this way.

 

 

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11 minutes ago, ScoutTN said:

I have a high schooler doing Write at Home’s 8 wk. research paper class. Very similar to Lantern in methodology, scope and price. About $100. Not extremely expensive. 
 

I like the short, focused classes as a supplement. Especially in February! 
 

Echoing pp in needing outside perspective/input for my student’s writing bc she takes my critique too personally.  
 

I just looked, and the 8 week Write at Home classes are $179. For that price, I could sign up all three of my boys for Lantern courses for that same 8 weeks.

I agree it would be a whole different story if I wanted a single child to take a single 8 week class - then I would strongly consider Write at Home. But since I am aiming for 3 (eventually 4) kids to take classes more of less continually for consistency sake, that is a huge price difference.

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On 1/19/2021 at 10:19 PM, wendyroo said:

We have tried IEW, and it had good points, but the kids hated it, I wasn't overly impressed, and we found it hard to implement.

My oldest is working his way through WWS 1 with a lot of support. The instructions and organization are the hardest part, and I have to help him break those down into detailed checklists, but he is making progress with the program.

@wendyroo, thank you for your detailed reviews. Are you using both WWS and Lantern in parallel with your oldest?

ETA - I found another post that you made in another thread - I see you are using the two programs in parallel. How do you make that work? Some of the WWS assignments can be quite time intensive, and you mentioned that you triple or quadruple the Lantern assignments as well - how do you fit all that in?

What was it about IEW that you found difficult to implement? I just started a thread about IEW and how to implement it, as I’ve tried and failed, and am curious to learn how other families have done it (or ultimately decided not to…)

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7 minutes ago, WTM said:

@wendyroo, thank you for your detailed reviews. Are you using both WWS and Lantern in parallel with your oldest?

What was it about IEW that you found difficult to implement? I just started a thread about IEW and how to implement it, as I’ve tried and failed, and am curious to learn how other families have done it (or ultimately decided not to…)

Yes, my oldest is working through both WWS and Lantern. This past year he did WWS 1 and a mix of the highest elementary Lantern writing classes and the lowest middle school ones. So far he has been able to complete them both by working 45-60 minutes 5 days a week. If either the Lantern or WWS work load increases significantly as he moves up the levels, then I will probably drop him down to doing WWS at half speed.

Actually, in the fall he wants to take 2 Lantern classes at the same time - one expository and one creative. As long as he is doing that, we will put WWS on hold, but we will start back where we left off once he wants to drop back down to one Lantern class at a time.

I just don't think IEW was a good fit for DS. He is an extremely reluctant writer, but that is mostly due to his autism making idea generation, perspective taking, narrative language, etc difficult. If he can figure out what to say, then his writing is grammatically sound and sophisticated, his sentences are diverse and interesting, his language usage is strong...if he can figure out what to say. IEW focuses largely on sentence structure (openers, dress-ups, etc) which DS didn't really need much work on...in fact, the IEW system led to his writing being stilted and far clunkier sounding than before. OTOH, for us, IEW wasn't focusing enough on what to say - it wasn't giving concrete advice about making sure ideas made sense - which is by far what DS needed the most help with.

So WWS and Lantern have been a good mix for DS. WWS has a very concrete, parts-to-whole way of teaching what to say...not formulaic like a five paragraph essay template, but rather how to write different types of paragraphs and then how to combine then for different types of assignments. Lots of structure that leads to lots of flexibility.

And then Lantern gives him some outside accountability. It gives him honest feedback and constructive criticism from a neutral audience that can tell him when they don't understand what he is trying to say. It also gives him opportunities to practice some of what he is learning in WWS. For example, his last Lantern assignment was to write an essay about a role model. Peter was able to use a lot of what he had learned about writing a Description of a Person in WWS to complete the assignment.

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2 hours ago, WTM said:

ETA - I found another post that you made in another thread - I see you are using the two programs in parallel. How do you make that work? Some of the WWS assignments can be quite time intensive, and you mentioned that you triple or quadruple the Lantern assignments as well - how do you fit all that in?

We have found WWS to be very uneven, but not particularly time consuming. We don't split it into the four days like instructed. Some of those days would be so fast and easy, and others would take a lot more time and angst.

Instead, we use this schedule:
Day 1 - DS works for 20-30 minutes on "non-writing" work (reading instructions, outlining, copia, etc) and then 20-30 minutes on actual writing
Day 2 - We spend 20-30 minutes reviewing and revising his previous day's work and then 20-30 minutes doing more "non-writing"
Day 3 - He finishes up any writing that is left and then we review and revise it.
Day 4 - We have an overflow time slot if needed, but it is normally only needed due to laziness or deception.

With Lantern, I don't arbitrarily triple all the assignments...just the ones that seem to need it. Some of the assignments are so short...as little as writing one intro paragraph for the entire week. On those weeks, I will often have him write several intro paragraphs to get more practice. My goal is to have him work on writing for 45-60 minutes, 5 days a week, so I adjust my expectations in both curricula to meet that goal.

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On 1/21/2021 at 1:08 AM, knitupstate said:

Hi Wendy - so interesting.  I think I've been in a bit of a vacuum with our homeschool, so it's refreshing to read about your process and efforts.  I will be taking the spring semester to regain some lost momentum with writing which will probably involve outsourcing writing.  I think my kid will benefit from outside/objective feedback, too.  I have Writing Revolution in a cart as I write, just in case. 

I think after a long hiatus, everyone needs to restore the lost dynamics of writing. For me, any break is very noticeable in the quality of writing. Therefore, in such cases, I even need proofreading and correction of some points in my work. I refer to this source if I need to fix something or help writing https://supremedissertations.com/ But for me, it's important to get back to the same rhythm and work on restoring my writing skills.

Edited by BrianRameriz
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