Which Writing and Rhetoric books can be skipped without issue?

[Sarah0000]

We like this program and plan to continue with it till the end, however, there is some overlap as skills are slowly being practiced. That's great, but perhaps there's room to skip a few books here and there just to give DS space to try other writing programs. Just to switch it up sometimes.

He's about to finish Book 3 and just started fourth grade. We also heavily practice grammar and incorporate other writing practice so I'm not really worried about skills being lost that can't easily be recovered.

[caffeineandbooks]

This might be a good place to jump ship - book 4, Chreia and Proverb, teaches the 5 paragraph essay.  There are people who do it and love it, but it seems to me that there are more people who thrash about and pick something new half way through.  You could do other writing for a couple of years, teach the essay with another format when you think he's ready, and then jump back in later when you feel like it.  SWB has a list of possible writing progressions in Writing With Ease that you can find here, and one of those ignores the first six books altogether, then teaches books 7-12 over two years in grades 10 and 11.

My 5th grader will do book 3, then work on outlining and start Writing With Skill later in the year, probably at half pace.  My 3rd grader will also do book 3, alongside Writing With Ease 2/3, then perhaps try Killgallon in 4th.

Good luck - there are so many options!

[Emily ZL]

This is a great question because there actually is a podcast where the author of W&R was asked this very question. It is the Classical Homeschool podcast episode 14. My memory is that he gave some basic response and they really pressed him and were like, "no seriously, which exactly should be skipped" and he went through and pretty much addressed each and every book and which ones were more important than others.

 

I personally like the series and don't want to jump ship. But I do frequently look at the scope and sequence and table of contents for each book, and skip some lessons. Not all the lessons introduce new skills. So if you want to make time for other programs (I do), you can just focus your time on some of the lessons and leave out some of the extra practice stuff. 

[Sarah0000]

On 9/22/2021 at 1:45 PM, caffeineandbooks said:

This might be a good place to jump ship - book 4, Chreia and Proverb, teaches the 5 paragraph essay.  There are people who do it and love it, but it seems to me that there are more people who thrash about and pick something new half way through.  You could do other writing for a couple of years, teach the essay with another format when you think he's ready, and then jump back in later when you feel like it.  SWB has a list of possible writing progressions in Writing With Ease that you can find here, and one of those ignores the first six books altogether, then teaches books 7-12 over two years in grades 10 and 11.

My 5th grader will do book 3, then work on outlining and start Writing With Skill later in the year, probably at half pace.  My 3rd grader will also do book 3, alongside Writing With Ease 2/3, then perhaps try Killgallon in 4th.

Good luck - there are so many options!

Perfect info! Thanks! We'll skip book 4 entirely because I definitely don't want to do essays yet. We're going to do Killgallon and section three of Treasured Conversations.

[Sarah0000]

On 9/26/2021 at 7:55 AM, Emily ZL said:

This is a great question because there actually is a podcast where the author of W&R was asked this very question. It is the Classical Homeschool podcast episode 14. My memory is that he gave some basic response and they really pressed him and were like, "no seriously, which exactly should be skipped" and he went through and pretty much addressed each and every book and which ones were more important than others.

 

I personally like the series and don't want to jump ship. But I do frequently look at the scope and sequence and table of contents for each book, and skip some lessons. Not all the lessons introduce new skills. So if you want to make time for other programs (I do), you can just focus your time on some of the lessons and leave out some of the extra practice stuff. 

Yes, I like the series too and I don't want to jump ship entirely. I love that it encompasses so many elements of LA.

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

Listening in! We also like to incorporate several different programs; DS8 has used MCT Island, W&R Fable, & a couple of IEW “Level A” theme books so far along with yearly participation in NaNoWriMo.

I really like how IEW approaches the essay: a few related paragraphs are written, one at a time, then only at the end tied together with an introduction & conclusion. So by the time the student knows they’ll be “writing an essay” the bulk of the work has already been completed & it’s not so intimidating. That said, we’re only lightly touching on the idea for now - I don’t plan to make them a regular exercise for quite some time. 

Next fall we’ll circle back to W&R with Narrative II (skipping Narrative I). I just looked at the sample of Chreia & Proverb; I really, really like it! 

Edited October 4, 2021 by Shoes+Ships+SealingWax