I have a writer on my hands...question re: WriteShop

[Mommy7]

My dd is 12. Recently, I became aware that God has gifted her with a wonderful writing ability. I would like to use a program that would be beneficial for her, but not too teacher intensive! There's not enough of me to go around these days! (teaching 5 grades in fall) Whatever I use needs to be open and go. The ideal thing would be if it were written to the student.

 

Writeshop looks wonderful, but how long does it take to teach a lesson? The sample online looks like it is written directly to the student. I haven't ever actually looked at it and couldn't find a sample from the teacher's manual of a lesson.

 

I have also considered The Exciting World of Creative Writing. One other thought is IEW the SWI's...but, I don't think I'll ever watch all those DVD's myself and I know I need a lot of structure or things don't get done, kwim?

 

Any and all thoughts appreciated!

[Amy in TX]

It took three years (dd used it from 6th thru 8th grade). I love it. Her writing has improved dramatically. She can now write descriptive, narrative, and opinion/argument short pieces. Her writing has become clear, logical, and interesting, which I credit to WriteShop.

 

It's pretty student-led. For WriteShop I, we took two years, spending three weeks per lesson. The first day of a lesson, I would have her read over the lesson, then I would discuss it with her briefly . Then there would be a couple of days of brainstorming, planning, and skill-building exercises. Then she would write a first draft. The next day she would edit using a provided checklist, and write a second draft. I would then edit using a provided teacher's checklist, and then she would write the final copy. I would edit and grade that using a teacher's final review form.

 

WriteShop II was the same process, but we finished it in a year by spending two weeks per lesson instead of three.

 

WriteShop gives you so much help that it is surprisingly easy to critique the student's writing. Each lesson has specific instructions for the teacher as to what problems to look for and how to help the student correct them. There are even helpful hints on how to word comments. It sounds perhaps more time-consuming than it is. I didn't have to spend a great deal of time--maybe 10-15 minutes per draft editing/discussing.

 

HTH,

Amy

[Mommy7]

:)

[Sunshine State Sue]

We are using Write Shop for 6th-7th-8th. We have completed the 6th & 7th grade portions. We spend 2 weeks per lesson, but that is working 3 days the first week and 2 days the second week. The first 2 days are the most teacher intensive, covering pre-writing lesson (which might involve looking at travel brochures and discussing how they are worded to entice the customer to visit) and the dreaded (for my son and I) practice paragraph.

 

My ds is a reluctant writer (inherited from me), so I MUST sit with him and read through the lesson and work with him to brainstorm and get his throughts down on paper. If I let him do it independently, he would miss half the instruction.

 

However, Write Shop is wonderfully structured which helps the both of us to complete it. My son's writing has improved tremendously. He not only understands how to put a paragraph together, but how to write it so that it is interesting and descriptive. My review of Write Shop is in this thread.

 

I consider Write Shop to be teacher intensive, but that might be because writing is not my strength. It is not completely written to the student. There is enough in the teacher's manual that is meant to be discussed together. Perhaps if your student was very self-motivated it would work.

 

Before Write Shop, we used Writing Strands, which is meant to be done independently by the student. It didn't work for us, but you might consider it.

[swimnactmom]

IMO, WriteShop requires a moderate amount of teacher interaction on certain days. I find this program student-led only on days the student is writing their paragraph (no different than any other writing program.)

 

I am using a 2-year plan for finishing WriteShop I & II. I've dropped taking one day to do dictation however.

 

Day 1 & 2 of my schedule coincides exactly with WriteShop's published schedule and these days are pretty teacher involved. The first day includes pre-writing activities and a skillbuilder. I spend around 20-25 minutes teaching the lesson on that day. The most demanding day for me is day 2. This day dictates a shared brainstorming session as well as writing a practice paragraph together, and a skillbuilder assignment. This is definitely time invested for the teacher and takes around 35-40 minutes. I don't see how you could do that day in less than 30 minutes. Skillbuilder assignments are child led, and teacher needs to go over these, but they are quick.

 

Later on in the plan, your student will hand in his first revision. It will take around 20 minutes for you to correct this paper, if you are following the guidelines in the program. Soon after, you willl be grading the final draft, although not as time intensive. In both cases the student should be given an explanation of your comment/suggestions.

 

Additionally, getting set up with how to use this program can require a big chunk of your time as many people find the teacher's book to jump around a lot. It is organized in such a way that if you are a sequential/logical thinker, it might drive you a little nuts at first! (I eventually got used to it, but again it took a lot of effort on my part to wrap my head around it.)

 

I'm sure you can stretch out the days differently so you are not doing as much work in one day. I am trying to follow the authors' recommendations on how to teach this program. IMHO, it does require a fair amount of teacher interaction. If you're looking for a student led program, I don't believe this is for you.

[Mommy7]

My dd is extremely self motivated about all this writing business. She even wants to learn more vocabulary so that it will help with her writing!!!

 

Could we do this program in 20 minutes a day? I could do that.

[Mommy7]

:D

[swimnactmom]

If you only have 20 minutes, I would consider Writing Strands.

[swimnactmom]

If you stretched out each lesson to take 10-12 days, I think you might be able to do it. Although, if you wanted to complete levels I & II in 2 years, you would have to do writing every day to fit it into the school years.

[Alphabetika]

Just a thought: I bought a copy of The Exciting World of Creative Writing, thinking I'd use it with my younger dd who is beginning to love writing. Well, it's just not very exciting. Maybe others have had a good experience with it, but after I looked at it, dd looked at, we both decided that it looked fairly dull. Just thought I'd chime in on this one since that was one of your considerations. Now I'll be looking at WriteShop, too!

[KristenS]

If you want other good writing ideas, try Julie Bogart's www.bravewriter.com site for ideas. And check out National Novel Writing Month's Young Writer Program at http://ywp.nanowrimo.org ... they have some simple workbooks that students can do themselves, and teacher guides if you want to 'teach' the material. Anyway, that one is a challenge to write a book in a month, and the student version allows them to set their own goals. Tons of fun. Even my 7yo has a blast doing it, and especially when he reaches his word goal before I reach my goal (the official adult one).

 

ETA: National Novel Writing Month is held in November, but teachers who use it spend October doing prep work with the workbooks. And the group also hosts a Script writing challenge every April, which also has a young writers' version.