Writing in MTMM Story Starters by Karen Andreola

[faith0428]

I was wondering if anyone has used Story Starters by Karen Andreola. I purchased the book a couple of years ago, but we still haven't used it. My daughters are not fans of writing, and I was considering using it next year with MTMM instead of WWTB2. Any thoughts on that? My girls will be 12 and 13 (7th and 8th grade). Thanks!

[amypinva]

I used Story Starters last year with my then-7th grade daughter. I think it's a fantastic way to get them motivated, especially if they are resistant writers. One benefit is the amount of reading they do just to select the story they want to use. Also, I was pleasantly surprised at how long my daughter's "endings" were and the different directions in which her stories wound up going. She never would have written that much -- or with as much detail -- had she not had the Story Starters "nudge" to get her moving. I highly recommend the book -- especially because it appeals to such a broad age range.

[LynnH]

I have not used Story Starters, but it looks like it is creative writing. One thing you might want to consider is that the writing scheduled in MTMM is not creative writing, it is more essay type writing. The writing in Rev to Rev was the creative year. Carrie balances all this out in a thoughtful and purposeful way. If they have already done the writing in Rev to Rev I wouldn't do another year of creative writing. Honestly once they get to high school and up they will do very little creative writing unless they are going to be English majors. In college everything is essays and analytical type papers. If they didn't do the writing in Rev to Rev and haven't done a year of creative writing at all then it might work fine. Also the previous poster commented on the amount of reading they need to do to write the stories. I would be very careful about doing anything that would add additional reading/work load to MTMM. It is a full program and again Carrie has balanced the writing program so that it doesn't take up too much of the day.