WWE and WWS experiences (not looking for recommendations)

[Ting Tang]

I took a second look at Writing With Ease and Writing With Skill today, mostly for my rising 6th grader.  What I like about it is that it is scripted and offers suggestions if a student is struggling.

May I ask what your experiences were with this specific curriculum?  I'm not looking for recommendations of other curriculums.  Thanks!  Just wanted to know if you loved it, hated it, etc.  and why.  

 

[caffeineandbooks]

My last kiddo is in Writing with Ease now, and my 6th grader is currently working on WWS.  I have loved WWE as a way to separately develop skills in summarising/narration and in physically getting words on paper.  The two that have finished book 3 were able to write a solid summary paragraph by the time they finished the book, but were definitely not ready to jump into WWS.  We used Writing and Rhetoric and writing across the curriculum as a bridge and took advice from this board that 6th or even 7th grade was plenty soon enough for WWS.

My current 6th grader is doing very well with WWS.  He does it independently, as laid out, and I just check his work afterward.  It is a little less "open and go" than WWE: the student has to read the whole lesson carefully to find out what they need to do or else they might miss instructions about adding dialogue or similes or something, and there's guidance for the instructor but it too needs a few minutes of getting oriented to what the task was for the day.  On the occasions where he's missed the boat, the "how to help the student" sections have allowed me to successfully help him without having to read and think through the entire lesson from scratch.

It might help to know that the book is generally structured to have one narrative summary, one outline, one "studying the topos" (new way of writing) and one substantial composition each week.  Some of these might only take 10-15 minutes while the composition might take an hour.  I'm trying to encourage my student to do two "easy" days in one and leave two school days for the composition but he seems to prefer the "leave it till the last minute and then panic about being done in time" approach 🙂  

[Ting Tang]

@caffeineandbooks Thank you so much for sharing your experience! I do think we need to spend some time on writing, so it is okay if it is a little more intensive on my end. I just wonder if we should start with WWE or WWS for mine since he really hasn't done a lot of writing, even if it appears to be beneath his abilities.  

[caffeineandbooks]

If you have him read 3-4 pages of text, can he summarise what it's about in a paragraph?

Can he write that paragraph down, even if it's with spelling and punctuation errors?  

If so, he's beyond WWE.  However, IMHO that doesn't necessarily mean he's ready for WWS either, since I feel there's a gap of a couple of years between them.  I wasn't sure how my 6th grader would go either - definitely an engineer rather than a creative writer - but have been pleased to see him pick up the ball and run.  

I see from your other thread that you're looking at Writing Strands.  I haven't looked at that and can't comment, but maybe it would also help to know that WWS aims purely and simply to teach academic writing.  Your student will not imagine he's writing a letter to a historical figure, or create a newspaper article, or change the ending to a story.  He will begin with simple 2-3 paragraph compositions and be taught specific tools for structuring information and making it interesting to the reader.  There's a generous sample available here: https://welltrainedmind.com/p/the-complete-writer-writing-with-skill-level-1-student-workbook/  Why not print out the sample (because physical reading is so different to screen reading) and see what you both think?  The first three weeks check that the student has the foundational skills needed and should give you a good idea of whether the level of difficulty is right for you.

[Ting Tang]

@caffeineandbooks  Oh, I do think he could manage writing a summary.  I'm now a bit hesitant to use any newer versions of Writing Strands from Master Books if there is little guidance.  I think I need a lot of scripting.  The Michael Clay Thompson writing just didn't work for us this year. Some of the assignments required research, and others he'd just get away from following the directions clearly. At least WWE/WWS seems to give pointers for strugglers.  I just wondered if it was one of those curriculums that you cannot jump into---so many classical curriculums don't seem to work that way.  

[Lori D.]

21 hours ago, caffeineandbooks said:

If you have him read 3-4 pages of text, can he summarise what it's about in a paragraph? Can he write that paragraph down, even if it's with spelling and punctuation errors?  

If so, he's beyond WWE.  However, IMHO that doesn't necessarily mean he's ready for WWS either, since I feel there's a gap of a couple of years between them... 

There's a generous sample available here: https://welltrainedmind.com/p/the-complete-writer-writing-with-skill-level-1-student-workbook/  Why not print out the sample (because physical reading is so different to screen reading) and see what you both think?  The first three weeks check that the student has the foundational skills needed and should give you a good idea of whether the level of difficulty is right for you...

Excellent suggestion by @caffeineandbooks. And excellent review of WWS in her first post!. Thanks for sharing that, c&b! 😄 

No personal experience with WWS, but I frequently see people on these boards say that their student really was not ready for WWS until 7th/8th grade.

I had purchased WWS levels 2 and 3, thinking to use parts of them in teaching writing at my homeschool co-op, but it was totally not a fit for my teaching style, nor would it have fit for many of the students. It is very formal, structured, and parts-to-whole style of teaching/learning -- which is a great fit for some students, but I get a lot of struggling writers who don't fit well with any of that.

 

21 hours ago, Ting Tang said:

...I think I need a lot of scripting.  The Michael Clay Thompson writing just didn't work for us this year...

I agree with @caffeineandbooks suggestion to try and sample and see if it's a fit or not a fit for your student, or if it would fit but maybe in a year or so.

Also, I KNOW you specifically requested no alternate suggestions for writing, BUT... 😉 if you find that you need to wait a year for WWS to give your rising 6th grader more time to practice writing stamina and practice solid paragraph writing and moving into multi-paragraph writing, you might look at Jump In, which might be a helpful bridge in those ways to then go to WWS the following year.

ETA
Moved my digression of suggesting an alternative writing program to your other thread 😉 ("Writing Strands & other WRITING only curriculums").

And here's the link to the pdf chart that shows various paths of how/when to do WWS, and ideas of other programs to intersperse. (which is what the posts below are all about)
😉

Edited May 1, 2023 by Lori D.

[Helpdesk]

At the top of this forum, there's a locked thread that has updated information about using WWS.  At the end of the linked article, there's a grid that shows different scenarios for using WWS, depending on when you start with the curriculum.  That article might be helpful for you.

[Lori D.]

54 minutes ago, Helpdesk said:

At the top of this forum, there's a locked thread that has updated information about using WWS.  At the end of the linked article, there's a grid that shows different scenarios for using WWS, depending on when you start with the curriculum.  That article might be helpful for you.

Yes, I was looking all over for that chart to help the OP, and that was the first place I looked -- but sadly, none of the links (there are several in that thread) to that chart appear to no longer be working. Is there a way to re-link to a page that would load?

Thank you so much!

Edited May 1, 2023 by Lori D.

[Helpdesk]

Well, I will FIX that!!  Thank you for letting me know.  

[Lori D.]

47 minutes ago, Helpdesk said:

Well, I will FIX that!!  Thank you for letting me know.  

Thank you! That was fast! 😄 

The link in SWB's original post of that pinned thread is GOOD now! 😄 

[SilverMoon]

The sweet spot for WWS level 1 in my house has been 7th, but surely some of them could have started in 6th. There was always some wailing and gnashing of teeth at the beginning, but once they found the rhythm and expectations of the curriculum we fell into a happy rut. 🙂 WWS is really good at what it does. I've used it with four kids now. 

I don't see it being a good fit for my dysgraphic kid at this point. He'll be 7th grade this fall and there's just no way. It would need modified so much it wouldn't be worth it. 

[Green Bean]

My DD did WWE 1-3 and part of 4. She can take dictation like a BOSS and summarize anything in 3-4 sentences. It was well worth the time to do. I did it at double time so we took 2 years to go through it.

I tried several times to get WWS to fly, but due to life circumstances/time, I could not get it off the ground.

I wholeheartedly believe in the WWE/WWS method even if I can't pull off the second half of that. DS-6 is starting the path in the fall with the goal to finish it this time around.