Where should we be with writing at the end of 4th/5th Grade?

[lilamom]

Hello! How should I figure out a general goal for how DD should be writing at the end of 4th Grade and then into 5th grade?

DD is finishing up fourth grade this semester and I'm trying to figure out where we need to be with writing, especially as I evaluate writing curriculum for fifth grade.

DD is a voracious reader and can write fiction with a great "ear." She writes for fun outside of school time (a magazine for instance! 🙂 and I help her edit those compositions when she asks. We'll keep working on spelling/grammar but we're still struggling a bit with making sure sentences are complete and proper placement of commas, etc. We recently started using Memoria's Intro to Composition toward that end, as well as their English Grammar Recitation I. We use Rod and Staff for Spelling and have dabbled in MCT Grammar.

In our area, fifth grade is the end of elementary school (is that true nationally in the US these days?) and we are planning to re-evaluate homeschooling when she gets ready to enter middle school. If she goes to a traditional school, there is a chance it could be a classical school that uses IEW.

I'd really like to focus on formal writing skills now-end of 5th grade (May 2023). So, strong sentence, paragraphs, etc., but also essays of various kinds (persuasive, compare/contrast, narrative, etc.). I think we can address fiction components (setting, characters, etc.) best through reading good literature and discussing it. I'd like her to do a little fiction writing, but it's not my priority at the moment.

So.... is it best to focus on writing "rules" and structure of sentences/paragraphs, etc? Or to let her write and slowly teach those things as we edit together? She prefers to write (and does her best writing) when I'm not sitting by her (I'm the same way when I write! :).

Would love any feedback or thoughts on curriculum choices! I've considered using more Memoria Press, although their Classical Composition program seems a bit pedantic to me. I like MCT but I feel like DD and I would both prefer something with more structured practice.  I'm really not excited about IEW, even though it is super popular, because I'm not a fan of video courses and the IEW focus on style (using certain types of "dress up" words, etc.) seems like it would just confuse her naturally strong "voice."

Thanks so much for any feedback!

[Classically Minded]

Yes, where I am middle school is 6th-8th grades, so 5th grade is still elementary.  I just did a long post on another post about writing, so I thought I would just copy and paste it for you too below.  With both my kids, we did WWE, just the first 3 levels, then WWS after 6th grade, but with my DD18, she did WWS in high school and it worked fine for her.  My problem was finding something that filled in the gap between WWE and WWS, but I found that recently with Writing Strands.

 

Here's my copied and pasted reply to the other post that you might find helpful:

I recommend Writing Strands, the original books, which you can find used (maybe new) on Amazon or eBay.  The Evaluating Writing book will help you understand and know what you are looking for when you grade their papers.  Then there are levels 2-7 and Writing Exposition, (I don't think anyone needs Level 2).  Level 3 is basic instruction on forming sentences and paragraphs in an easy manner and you could go through the books fast.  They even have a Reading Strands book for fiction writing: Understanding Fiction and then Writing Strands: Creating Fiction.  Then there are some extra books I also bought: Essays on Writing and Communication and Interpersonal Relationships.

My DD18 did WWE in elementary and then nothing in middle school for writing, and did WWS in high school and she writes great!  However, I didn't want my son to go without a writing program through middle school, so we started him recently with Writing Strands 3 and I loved it so much, I bought all the rest of the levels and books.

I'm a natural writer and was in Honors English courses in high school but I have no idea how to teach writing.  I think for people like me who need that EASY, step-by-step approach, it can't be beat.  IEW was too much for me, I had borrowed the materials from a friend years ago and my brain still hurts thinking about it lol but everyone is different.  Writing Strands is independent, you just have to grade the work, which the Evaluating Writing book will help you do.

 

Here's some excerpts from SWB from the WTM 3rd edition about Writing Strands, on pg. 69:

"Books 3 and 4 deal with paragraph construction, composition organization, and other elements of style - voice, tense, person, descriptive technique, dialogue, and so on.  Book 5 begins dealing with the logical development of arguments."
 

There's a great chart on pg. 360 of the WTM that shows what grade to what level depending upon if you have a reluctant writer vs. an average writer.  Basically Level 3 is around 3rd grade-5th grade, Level 4 is around 4th grade-6th grade, Level 5 is around 5th grade-7th grade, Level 6 is around 7th-8th grade and Level 7 is after that, followed by the Writing Exposition book.  Although, the author of the series says you just go on to the next level when you finish the one before.

 

For the Writing Exposition book, quote from pg. 360:

"...the final book, Writing Exposition, which contains thirteen lessons that prepare the student for college-writing assignments (story analysis, reaction papers, term papers, evaluations).  Writing Exposition also reviews logic in writing (propaganda technique), library use, comparison and contrast, use of the first person in formal writing, and the SAT II writing test.  This is a course that can be used any time from eighth grade to senior high.  The assignments are demanding, and the student can take three or four weeks per lesson to complete each one of the lessons."

Edited February 26, 2022 by Classically Minded

[8filltheheart]

I definitely do not cover "essays of various kinds (persuasive, compare/contrast, narrative, etc)" in elementary school.  Only 1 of my 8 kids started essay writing in 6th grade.  I only did it with her bc she is a highly gifted student who excelled in all things language, literature, and writing related.  My current 6th grader is not writing essays (and she is also a gifted young lady, but not as advanced in writing as her older sister.)

Essay writing requires a complete mastery of basic writing skills plus the ability to analyze and justify with support positions taken in their thesis.  Essay writing is an overblown ps objective when it comes to students.  The push to write essays at younger and younger ages has certainly not produced better results in writing.  Most high school and college students today are pathetic writers.  (Just a true statement.  When my current college sophomore shared her honors English freshman comp papers that she had to peer review, I could not believe the papers were written by college students, let alone ones that were taking the honors seminar section.)

Essay writing does not take much time to master at all when taught to proficient writers.  Developing a solid writing base should be the primary objective for however long it takes.  Some kids might be ready for essay writing in 6th grade, but a significant number may not be until 8th or even 9th grade.

Edited February 26, 2022 by 8filltheheart

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

4 hours ago, lilamom said:

I'd really like to focus on formal writing skills now-end of 5th grade. So, strong sentence, paragraphs, etc., but also essays of various kinds (persuasive, compare/contrast, narrative, etc.).

Following along as we are right behind you!

We’ve spent 3rd grade primarily focused on paragraphs, with a few multi-paragraph compositions thrown in to build transition skills. We’ll be wrapping up our year with a return to sentences, mimicking the structure of beautiful sentences written by famous authors. I tend to shift back and forth between requiring the use of certain structural & stylistic elements to gain facility, then letting him take the reins. 

My primary goals for the next two years are for DS to become more comfortable with introduction / conclusion paragraphs, to learn to write solid thesis statements, & to develop his outlines independently. We may or may not venture into citations. 

Edited February 26, 2022 by Shoes+Ships+SealingWax

[LauraClark]

My husband taught 5th grade (still elementary here) for a number of years. He said they need to know how to compare/contrast and they did do a persuasive brochure on why you should move to a certain colony. No 5 page papers, or anything. 

Curriculum suggestion on comma placement: Analytical Grammar Junior: Mechanics. I'm using that for ds10 this year and it's been great.

[freesia]

Comma placement honestly is a long term goal. Many kids, even with years of explicit teaching, are still not solid on it in high school. So, I would not expect 100% perfection on commas in fourth grade. 
My fourth grade goals are different for each of my children depending on where they are I writing at the time. I shoot for a solid paragraph with some sentence variety and thought toward word choice. FWIW, so far each of my kids has done well in writing through high school including APs, college entrance essays, scholarships and in college classes. I worried about my first’s writing a lot in fourth grade and he was fine. As 8 says, a lot of essay writing is developmental. Writing longer pieces in elementary is not about building an argument, but about stringing multiple paragraphs together about the same subject.  So, building paragraph skills is what you need.  

[8filltheheart]

I'm going to disagree that 5th graders need to be able to write comparison/contrast and persuasive essays in homeschool setting.  (Public schools have all sorts of arbitrary goals that can be completely ignored in a homeschool.) 

By far, most 5th graders will be better served by focusing on improving basic skills. A 5th grader writing a quality multiple paragraph report with transitions and developed paragraphs that smoothly integrate different facets of the topic is a major accomplishment.  A well-written single paragraph that develops the topic sentence with interesting supporting sentences with varied structures is an attainable goal for most 5th graders.  

All quality writing relies on essentially the same basic skeletal structure.  Stylistic elements are the flesh that gives each skeleton its own unique tone, perspective, purpose.  Far better to put the "flesh" on a solid skeletal structure that controls the composition than stick flesh on deformed structures that lack control and definition.  If a student has mastered the essential skeletal structure, they can adapt their writing to whatever criteria they need to meet.  A student who knows how to write well can sit down and write a comparison/contrast paper without it being anything more difficult than any other writing assignment bc it is simply formulating their research into a logically sequenced comparison/contrast sequence.  

[happynurse]

For what it's worth, which is likely not much, I have done absolutely no formal writing instruction whatsoever with my fourth grader. Zero. He loves to creatively write, so he does that for fun on the computer. We go over grammatical errors in his stories when he writes them. I'm introducing formal writing next year with IEW in 5th. I guess we'll see what this chilled-out, better-late-than-early approach does for us down the road. 🤷‍♀️😆

[LauraClark]

14 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

I'm going to disagree that 5th graders need to be able to write comparison/contrast and persuasive essays in homeschool setting.  (Public schools have all sorts of arbitrary goals that can be completely ignored in a homeschool.) 

Sorry, I should have mention my husband taught in public school. You and Lori D have convinced me it's not necessary in the homeschool setting until much older, but if she plans to send her child to ps in 6th, then learning compare/contrast and persuasive at a basic level seems like something op should look at.

[lilamom]

Hi all-- thanks so much for taking the time to offer some guidance and feedback. I really appreciate it!

After reading the comments and thinking through things, I'm planning to continue using MP Intro to Comp for a bit during this second semester of fourth grade. It's giving her great practice with sentences, outlines, and short paragraphs. The back of the book includes some formal instruction on paragraphs (topic sentences, supporting details, conclusions) which I'll plan to cover, too.

We're also going to continue MP Grammar Recitation for now, and just continue to work on various rules and general habits of revising/editing as we go.

Ideally, it would be nice to get to a short essay/report at the end of this year but we'll see!

For Fifth Grade, I'm considering Writing with Skill or something similar, and possibly Shurley English for grammar. Memory work and jingles are a great fit for her.

I think this will serve her well whether she continues to be homeschooled for 6th grade and beyond or transitions to a traditional school. I've been able to look at some of the curriculum plans for various schools we are considering and that's helpful as a frame of reference.

Thanks again for the feedback, and hope this thread is helpful to others at some point, too! 🙂

[prairiewindmomma]

I've homeschooled a few through late elementary, and I've had a couple in public school for late elementary. 

By the end of fourth grade, our public schools expect that students can write a few solid paragraphs with work.  Sentences should be complete, and not fragments. Basic grammar and punctuation should be in place.  Efforts should be made towards introductory/conclusionary sentences and transition words should be used. Here, the major writing pieces are done in conjunction with history or science projects, so the content for fourth grade does include a compare/contrast element, but it's done with regard to comparing traditional/tribal housing designs. There is a lot of support and modeling that happens with examples given for the students to work off of.

At the end of fifth grade, writing is happening more often, at longer lengths.  Expectations are higher with regard to the complexity of the sentences and it's expected that all of the sentences flow better in a paragraph.  (Not every student is able to perform at this level.)  Fifth grade includes an persuasive essay that often reads more like an opinion piece. Again, examples are given to students to work from, and a decent amount of time is spent on helping students build their writing.

We've lived in states where sixth grade is part of middle school. We've lived in other states where it is part of elementary school still. Meh.

-----

Fwiw, based on my own experiences in sending kids to public school, I have really kind of doubled down on my homeschooling writing program. I do not think that public school teaches students to write coherent focused work as a general rule. They spend a lot of time working on structure, and not a lot of time working on the thinking behind writing.  Writing is literally the expression of thought.  I think most students would be better served working on expressing themselves well verbally in elementary school alongside reading good books and working on grammar, mechanics, usage, and spelling.  They don't need to do the stupid churn and burn writing stuff I frequently see come home with my kids. 

This is ESPECIALLY TRUE if you have a kid with any sort of a learning disability. I have a kid with a writing disability. Ironically, he "writes" at a college level when he uses verbal dictation.  His handwriting is mostly illegible, his spelling is terrible, and if forced to write with a pencil writes at a much, much, much lower level. His brain to hand output glitch is pretty severe. His handwriting is not up to par even for an end of year kindergartner. Thankfully, he can use a laptop or a phone for most of his life and the grammarly add-on will even edit emails and digital grocery lists.  He, very ironically, had a near perfect score on the English portion of the PSAT this fall. My point in sharing this story is to not mix up skill levels. Handwriting doesn't matter, beyond a functional legal signature.  Spelling honestly isn't that important either.  Students make it or break it on how well they think.  Good thinking is the basis of all good writing.

[MamaOum]

On 2/26/2022 at 10:04 PM, happynurse said:

For what it's worth, which is likely not much, I have done absolutely no formal writing instruction whatsoever with my fourth grader. Zero. He loves to creatively write, so he does that for fun on the computer. We go over grammatical errors in his stories when he writes them. I'm introducing formal writing next year with IEW in 5th. I guess we'll see what this chilled-out, better-late-than-early approach does for us down the road. 🤷‍♀️😆

 

I'm going to keep you in mind, because we are right where you are! My son is in 4th, and we've been very unschool-y, however, in the past 2 years he has gotten heavy into judo and karate and it has changed him: he likes repetition and having clear cut assignments (Saxon Math is the only thing we have been very consistent about, we do a lesson daily). He is kind of a jock and doesn't get as excited about reading and writing creatively as I, a total nerd, did-- so for 5th, I want to give him that academic structure.

We have done a lot of research about the various writing programs out there, and we decided to dive into IEW for 5th as well. If I may ask, did you decide to start with the Structure and Style pathway, or the "theme based" program? I am leaning toward the theme-based starting with Ancient History (DS hates Fairy Tales!) We also plan to do the Fix it! Grammar (which seems to provide very structured lessons he can do on his own.)

[happynurse]

10 hours ago, MamaOum said:

 

I'm going to keep you in mind, because we are right where you are! My son is in 4th, and we've been very unschool-y, however, in the past 2 years he has gotten heavy into judo and karate and it has changed him: he likes repetition and having clear cut assignments (Saxon Math is the only thing we have been very consistent about, we do a lesson daily). He is kind of a jock and doesn't get as excited about reading and writing creatively as I, a total nerd, did-- so for 5th, I want to give him that academic structure.

We have done a lot of research about the various writing programs out there, and we decided to dive into IEW for 5th as well. If I may ask, did you decide to start with the Structure and Style pathway, or the "theme based" program? I am leaning toward the theme-based starting with Ancient History (DS hates Fairy Tales!) We also plan to do the Fix it! Grammar (which seems to provide very structured lessons he can do on his own.)

I opted to go with the SSS computer based DVD lessons for this kiddo. I've heard Andrew Pudewa has a silly, dry sense of humor that I think my son will like. Hopefully that will make it more palatable. 

We use Saxon for math, too. This kiddo is creative, artsy, yet still very concrete in his thinking. I think he wants no-frills math so he he can get-it-done and get back to drawing and creating things. I'll keep you posted on how this writing approach works!

[Janeway]

On 2/25/2022 at 6:57 PM, Classically Minded said:

Yes, where I am middle school is 6th-8th grades, so 5th grade is still elementary.  I just did a long post on another post about writing, so I thought I would just copy and paste it for you too below.  With both my kids, we did WWE, just the first 3 levels, then WWS after 6th grade, but with my DD18, she did WWS in high school and it worked fine for her.  My problem was finding something that filled in the gap between WWE and WWS, but I found that recently with Writing Strands.

 

Here's my copied and pasted reply to the other post that you might find helpful:

I recommend Writing Strands, the original books, which you can find used (maybe new) on Amazon or eBay.  The Evaluating Writing book will help you understand and know what you are looking for when you grade their papers.  Then there are levels 2-7 and Writing Exposition, (I don't think anyone needs Level 2).  Level 3 is basic instruction on forming sentences and paragraphs in an easy manner and you could go through the books fast.  They even have a Reading Strands book for fiction writing: Understanding Fiction and then Writing Strands: Creating Fiction.  Then there are some extra books I also bought: Essays on Writing and Communication and Interpersonal Relationships.

My DD18 did WWE in elementary and then nothing in middle school for writing, and did WWS in high school and she writes great!  However, I didn't want my son to go without a writing program through middle school, so we started him recently with Writing Strands 3 and I loved it so much, I bought all the rest of the levels and books.

I'm a natural writer and was in Honors English courses in high school but I have no idea how to teach writing.  I think for people like me who need that EASY, step-by-step approach, it can't be beat.  IEW was too much for me, I had borrowed the materials from a friend years ago and my brain still hurts thinking about it lol but everyone is different.  Writing Strands is independent, you just have to grade the work, which the Evaluating Writing book will help you do.

 

Here's some excerpts from SWB from the WTM 3rd edition about Writing Strands, on pg. 69:

"Books 3 and 4 deal with paragraph construction, composition organization, and other elements of style - voice, tense, person, descriptive technique, dialogue, and so on.  Book 5 begins dealing with the logical development of arguments."
 

There's a great chart on pg. 360 of the WTM that shows what grade to what level depending upon if you have a reluctant writer vs. an average writer.  Basically Level 3 is around 3rd grade-5th grade, Level 4 is around 4th grade-6th grade, Level 5 is around 5th grade-7th grade, Level 6 is around 7th-8th grade and Level 7 is after that, followed by the Writing Exposition book.  Although, the author of the series says you just go on to the next level when you finish the one before.

 

For the Writing Exposition book, quote from pg. 360:

"...the final book, Writing Exposition, which contains thirteen lessons that prepare the student for college-writing assignments (story analysis, reaction papers, term papers, evaluations).  Writing Exposition also reviews logic in writing (propaganda technique), library use, comparison and contrast, use of the first person in formal writing, and the SAT II writing test.  This is a course that can be used any time from eighth grade to senior high.  The assignments are demanding, and the student can take three or four weeks per lesson to complete each one of the lessons."

Should I buy one book for each child? Or just one and then they write on their own paper?

[Ellie]

On 2/28/2022 at 5:54 PM, lilamom said:

After reading the comments and thinking through things, I'm planning to continue using MP Intro to Comp for a bit during this second semester of fourth grade. It's giving her great practice with sentences, outlines, and short paragraphs. The back of the book includes some formal instruction on paragraphs (topic sentences, supporting details, conclusions) which I'll plan to cover, too.

Don't get too hung up on things like topic sentence and whatnot. Those kinds of details only apply to certain kinds of writing, such as essays. Most of the things that we write as actual grown-ups are not packaged in tidy little things called "paragraphs," with topic sentences, supporting details, and conclusions. I love the way that Dave Marks wrote "Writing Strands." His goal was to teach children how to write, not how to put things in paragraphs, or to follow rules such as every paragraph needing [insert favorite number] of sentences.

[Classically Minded]

On 3/7/2022 at 8:01 PM, Janeway said:

Should I buy one book for each child? Or just one and then they write on their own paper?

If you are talking about (the original version of) Writing Strands, you just need one book and then, each child can write on their own paper.  The Evaluating Writing book helps you know what some assignments from each of the Writing Strands books should look like, and it gives tips.