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Anyone not like CAP W&R?


Janeway
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I always have thought CAP Writing and Rhetoric seemed super interesting and wanted to do it. My 11 yr old does it, but he tends to be compliant about things. My 9 yr old acts like she is being tortured. I really thought she would be the one to like it. And it honestly does not feel like 11 yr old gets much out of it.

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My 7th, 6th and 4th graders are mostly enjoying it.  We switched from Classical Writing, though, so this is much more kid and mom friendly, imo.  We’re wrapping up Book 5 right now, and I’m seeing some decent fruit.  None of us are natural writers, so I appreciate the more gentle progym vs CW or Memoria Press.

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I have liked it very much for my girls, but this past year (doing books 7 & 8), my oldest has really not enjoyed it. I'll be doing something different with her next year, but continuing to book 9 for middle kid.

Is there anything in particular your 9yo seems to dislike about it? Or just general torture? Sometimes things just aren't a good fit.

What level did you start the 11yo on? You said he doesn't seem to be getting much out of it - if it's Fable, I could easily see that, especially if he's an okay-to-strong writer already. 

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On 5/28/2021 at 5:55 AM, purpleowl said:

I have liked it very much for my girls, but this past year (doing books 7 & 8), my oldest has really not enjoyed it. I'll be doing something different with her next year, but continuing to book 9 for middle kid.

Is there anything in particular your 9yo seems to dislike about it? Or just general torture? Sometimes things just aren't a good fit.

What level did you start the 11yo on? You said he doesn't seem to be getting much out of it - if it's Fable, I could easily see that, especially if he's an okay-to-strong writer already. 

When I was doing it with 11 year old, 9 yr old loved it and kept trying to contribute. So I started it with 9 year old, which led to her saying she hates the stories and does not want to hear them anymore. She has her own books she likes she says and it is not the stories from W&R.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've taught through book 9 now, but im using it with my high schooler.  The first few books are okay with younger grades,  but I think it jumps up a LOT.  An older kid will get so much more out of it, I wish they would change the age recommendations.   I've got a 10 year old 5th grader, and I think books 1-3 would be age appropriate,  but book 5+ would be boring.   My 8th graders may do book 5 this year (maybe).  Younger kids can do it, but they won't get as much out of it as the would if you waited until the teen years.  Just my opinion 😉

My 5th grader will be doing Winning with Writing and history narration this year for writing.

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We used Fable and Narrration I this year (4th grade). Fable went well but Narration I was a bit slow for my DD because she writes copious stories already. In fact we stopped before finishing the last few lessons.

Narration II looks much more advanced as compared to Narration I, so I think it will be fine to use at least some of it for 5th. If it starts to drag we will stop. I don't think Chreia (Book 4) or Book 5 (Commonplace?) will appeal to DD yet as a 10 year old, so I'll wait and see what happens. We will also be going through IEW Level A, Level A Continuation, and some Kilgallon sentence work next year so we will have plenty to do anyway.

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My feeling from using it, so far (just finished book 3) is that it's about playing with language and learning gently and with some fun; if you need explicit "teaching" of technique, it's got very little of that, and something like IEW might be better.

But as for your 9 yo, some of that IMO might just be the huge difference between doing something for fun and having it assigned to you. That's something I dislike about "interest led learning" -- as soon as you say "you like this? Ok now it's in your school and now you need to do it!" Then they don't want to. You might just offer a choice; sometimes if they see the alternatives (rod and staff writing assignments, Classical Comp etc) they can be more bought in on the one that looks best (or least boring).

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I worked at a school that used Classical Academic Presses Writing and Rhetoric and it was a huge flop for grades 4-6. I hope that the school decides to do something different next year.

The students were really bored with the stories and mostly frustrated and most of the teachers hated the program after about 4 months. It did not get better as the year went.

 

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  • 1 year later...

This is a slightly old thread, but looking for W&R advice...My dd11 goes to a classical 3 day hybrid school that adopted W&R this year (threw out IEW, much to my chagrin).  They put the 6th graders in Book 5 (will also do Book 6 this year).  My daughter is really struggling.  I'd hoped the teacher would be making up for skipping books 1-4, but it seems she is just plowing through with very little teaching of concepts in the earlier books.  My daughter did great with IEW, but is hating W&R.  It feels like the W&R Book 5 assignments are just "write this" with very little instruction, and a whole lot of work book pages.  Any advice on how to help her?  After 6 weeks of being underwhelmed by W&R, I'm tempted to pull her out of the class and just teach writing (with something else) at home (which is possible but causes some other logistical issues since it isn't the last class of the day).

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I used it for one child last year and MP’s classical comp fable for another. I thought CAP’s version had a Charlotte Mason flavor. I really liked MP’s version for systematic writing instruction, but my son didn’t like it, so we are not using either program this year. I’d love to return to MP writing, but we’re trying MCT.

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