Sunday, January 17, 2010

My Journey to Write Source

Last week on The Well Trained Mind K-8 Curriculum Board  Painted Lady started a thread Name a curriculum you use & love that you think is underappreciated .   Very interesting thread that you should check out if you homeschool.   I declared for all the world to see that I feel Write Source is an underappreciated curriculum.  In the past, I have refrained from talking about Write Source  because as a program written and marketed to the public school market  many classical homeschoolers seem to skim right over it.   So, I kept my opinion about it to myself.   I've tried a lot of the programs aimed at homeschoolers--IEW, WriteShop, Writing Strands, Sonlight, Winter Promise, Shurley, and Rod and Staff (just to name a few!!)---and while they all had their strengths, I just didn't feel they did the job for me.   The exception in the above list is Rod and Staff.   I have used Rod and Staff's writing portion of their English program for my older kids and I really think it is a great program.   It is an incremental "slow and steady" approach to writing that follows the classic model of teaching writing.   And yet, I am using Write Source with my younger kids because I have decided not to use Rod and Staff English all the way from K--8.   After my guinea pig (aka N), I decided to settle on the progression of First Language Lessons 1 and 2, Shurley English 2, 4,and 6,  Rod and Staff 6,7,and 8.   First Language Lessons include all the writing really needed for that young age.   Then comes Shurley English--great at teaching parts of speech however, horrible with writing instruction!!!  

My oldest son took a correspondance course for his 3rd or 4th grade Language Arts.   An older version of Write Source was one of the books used for the class.   I remembered how he loved his Write Source book (at the time it was called Writer's Express).   Additional, we somehow acquired Writer's Inc.-- the high school version of an older edition of Write Source.   We referred to Writer's Inc  a lot as I struggled to make all those other curriculi work for us.  

 Wanting something to hold my hand as I taught my kids to write, WriteShop fit the bill in that aspect, but I just didn't think it required enough of the student.  At the time, I had one student working on his ninth-grade year and one on her 6/7th- grade year.  I really felt I should be working towards more than developing a paragraph with that age level.   I wanted to work on papers!   I had already taught my students how to fashion a paragraph using Four Square(a story and curriculum for another day).   So, WriteShop as a curriculum really frustrated me.  

Not to long after my dismay with WriteShop began, I was purusing my Rainbow Resource catalog( I think it was the year it got really big--like a phone book---I remember because I couldn't read it in the bathtub anymore!--anyway--back to Write Source) when I happened upon this review .   I think this review in and of itself answers so many questions about thecuriculum and should be required reading for anyone thinking about buying Write Source.  

 In a really big nut shell--my journey to Write Source.

Be sure to look at my complete review of Write Source.

10 comments:

  1. Would you mind sharing the link to the the review you believe should be required reading for anyone considering Write Source. The one in your last full paragraph goes to a product list.

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Grateful for Grace, If you click on the review link, it will take you to the page with the review I'm talking about. You need to click on the show full description button to see the review. Hope this helps.

    ReplyDelete
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