Rod and Staff / writing with skill

[rebecca.gonzalez]

We are using Rod and staff for English grammar, would you use the writing lessons in it too? Or, skip the writing lessons and use writing with skill? He is 13, and very good and narration and getting his thoughts and narration to paper, but we haven’t done any outlining.

[Ellie]

33 minutes ago, rebecca.gonzalez said:

We are using Rod and staff for English grammar, would you use the writing lessons in it too? Or, skip the writing lessons and use writing with skill? He is 13, and very good and narration and getting his thoughts and narration to paper, but we haven’t done any outlining.

If he does *all* of the writing--the grammar, the writing assignments, answering questions in writing on actual paper--then R&S English is a complete English course (except for literature). To put it another way, if you want only grammar, I would do something else, such as Analytical Grammar, instead of just doing the grammar lessons in the R&S English.

[rebecca.gonzalez]

1 hour ago, Ellie said:

If he does *all* of the writing--the grammar, the writing assignments, answering questions in writing on actual paper--then R&S English is a complete English course (except for literature). To put it another way, if you want only grammar, I would do something else, such as Analytical Grammar, instead of just doing the grammar lessons in the R&S English.

I would like to use the Rod and Staff, I already own the complete collection. I like the grammar portions but the writing doesn’t seem up to par. I have so far felt comfortable using the whole thing but we also do the narration and dictation laid out in Writing with Ease. It hasn’t been too much work so far. I could go on as we have, doing the complete Rod and Staff and doing outlining and narration across the curriculum (literature, history and science) but I don’t feel like there is a good guide for doing it that way. Which really I think is the ideal way

[Syllieann]

I really like WWS.  I think I would probably skip the writing lessons in R&S in favor of WWS.  Since there is plenty of writing in WWS, feel free to do large portions of R&S orally.

[2_girls_mommy]

We did the R&S full curric including writing plus the WTM writing of narration, summaries, outlining, dictation across the curriculum through middle school, and around 8-9th grade started WWS.  My girls did WWS later than WTM suggests, but it worked well for us, then they continued WTM writing assignments in Lit and History and did the suggested Rhetoric/writing after logic. 

[Ellie]

10 hours ago, rebecca.gonzalez said:

I would like to use the Rod and Staff, I already own the complete collection. I like the grammar portions but the writing doesn’t seem up to par. I have so far felt comfortable using the whole thing but we also do the narration and dictation laid out in Writing with Ease. It hasn’t been too much work so far. I could go on as we have, doing the complete Rod and Staff and doing outlining and narration across the curriculum (literature, history and science) but I don’t feel like there is a good guide for doing it that way. Which really I think is the ideal way

Before SWB wrote her own writing curriculum, she recommended R&S for writing as well as grammar.

Have you looked through the books you own? Up through 10th grade, yes? Or looked at a scope and sequence (which is easier than looking through all of the books)? Beginning with Building Securely (7th grade), there is more and more writing. Building Securely covers etymologies, heteronyms,, homographs, hyperbole, inflections, introductory words; effective sentences, elliptical sentences, misplaced modifiers, and parallelism; and character sketches, descriptive writing, gathering information note-taking, organizing information, proofreading, poetry, reports, and social notes. That's a boatload of writing instruction, just for 7th. The two books that make up Communicating Effectively teach every possible kind of writing imaginable.

Again, it's important to do everything in writing, including the grammar lessons, because all of it counts as writing.

R&S English is dry, but it packs a wallop. 🙂

[rebecca.gonzalez]

This is really good to know! I have read up through book 6. Where he is.  I like the idea of using rod and staff to its fullest and then writing across the curriculum and not adding in another rewriting program (WWS)