Writing Tales 2 or Jump In?

[Michelle T]

I have a 12.5 year old son. He is very creative on his own, but terrible at writing to a prompt or writing on an assigned, non-fiction topic. He does not particularly enjoy writing either. He is very easily bored and frustrated, and does not like anything he considers "dumb", "babyish", or "boring".

 

So, having said all that, I'm considering Writing Tales 2 and Jump In. Those of you who have used either or both of these, which do you think would suit a DS like mine? I'm not crazy about the religious content in Jump In, but figure I could just work around it.

Michelle T

[PeterPan]

Have you already tried IEW before and it didn't work out? I couldn't remember. As much as I like WT2, it's not going to get your ds into writing paragraphs, which would be much more age-appropriate and essential. I'd put him in IEW, and if he doesn't like that, then something similar (Jensen's Format Writing, Wordsmith, anything). He's even of an age to go into CW Diogenes, which works toward paragraph and essay writing, doesn't it?

[cougarmom4]

No advice here, but I would really like to know what people think of Jump In.

[christielee7278]

Also interested in opinions on Jump In.

[cougarmom4]

bump

[Free Indeed]

I was hoping someone who is better at expressing t hings would chime in here about Jump in, but since that has not happened I will give it a shot. I bought Jump in for my 11yo son to use who has very little formal writing practice, only narrations and such. Jump in covers all the types of writing (persuasive, etc) and starts with little steps. It breaks it up into very manageable chunks and really helps them put their ideas together to write 5 paragraphs about a topic. All the writing assignments are 5 paragraph essays. We are using it one section at a time and doing several of the same kinds of papers before we move on to the next type. I do not have the book in front of me but I can get it if you have any specific questions. I did not use the teachers book at all. It has ideas for writing prompts, but we really did not care for most of them. The book is from Apologia so it has a definite Christian slant, even discusses abortion in one of the example paragraphs, but nothing "in your face" - or maybe I don't remember anything like that because I tend to agree with their perspective. :confused: My son has enjoyed using the program and will continue to use it. A child needs to have basic sentence and paragraph writing down. It does help guide them through the paragraph writing- I just do not think it is enough on its own. I also wish they would have put the factual based writing at the front of the book instead of the opinion type writing as that comes much easier for my son, but I am not sure about everyone else. It is late, and my thoughts are jumbled. I hope this makes some sense. All in all it is a great program at a very good price and we will continue to use it over the years.

[mom31257]

My dd just recently started Jump In, and she is loving it. Writing is something that she does fine in, but she really struggled when she had to pick the topic, and I felt that is was never as good as it could be. She did the assignments, but at the bare minimum. We aren't very far in, so we'll see, but so far, so good!

 

I really appreciate the teacher's manual because it is really going to help me with the grading. There is much writing that goes ungraded, which I think takes the pressure off. The writing we were doing in BJU always culminated in a big grade.