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Let me tell you about my daughter. She is a good girl, but has always struggled with school. She gets easily frustrated but this too has improved with age. She is my 2nd daughter. She didn't really learn to read till she was 9/10. She is 12 now. She has really come a long way, but she really has had no writing instruction to date. I am hoping this year will be a pivitol year for her and she will really excell.

This year she is doing CTC with her older sister (who is an excellent writer by the way and will be using The One Year Adventure Novel writing curriculum). I was planning on just using the recommended writing curriculum, but now I am wondering if this will be too difficult for her. Should I look into Ignite Your Writing? Carrie and others, Please advise me!

Michelle

I am in this same boat with my 10 year old. He doesn't struggle with school in general...just English and everything having to do with English (which kills me since my degree is in English! LOL). I found a copy of Ignite Your Writing I (and II) at a used bookstore over the summer and picked them up. Looking through the book, the different levels are going to be exactly what my son needs. I think I am going to schedule it with him doing the startup activity one week and then the intermediate of the same lesson the following week. We are going to drag it out and take it slow and see what happens.

Just a plug for Writing with the Best, which is what is recommended with CTC. The lessons are broken up into very manageable bits- a little each day- and concepts are gradually built on one another. On the Writing with the Best website, the author says she has used it with all kinds of students, including those with learning disabilities. (not that your dd has a ld, but similar strategies would probably very helpful with a student who struggles with writing.) We have not started it yet, but I have it now and am very impressed with it.

Thanks for your help ladies. I would love to hear from Carrie as well.

Michelle

You could do either - they are both excellent. Igniting Your Writing has 3 levels to choose from, which can help with varying writing abilities. It is not writing from a model that is "classic" though (as Write with the Best is). Here's a link about Igniting Your Writing that Carrie wrote:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3813

Here's a description of Igniting Your Writing:
We also recommend Igniting Your Writing for descriptive writing instruction for levels 4-5 and up. It is written directly to the student and includes 3 levels for each of the 24 lessons. Lessons are skill-based to help students improve as writers. Levels include Start-up, Intermediate, and Advanced. This curriculum helps insecure writers, natural writers, and unwilling writers gain confidence and competence in writing.
Here's a link to more information about Igniting Your Writing:
http://www.homeschoolwriting.com/

Here's a description of Write with the Best:
In Write with the Best, literary passages from respected and well-loved authors are used to teach students how to write. Creative activities break the writing into manageable chunks and help students identify what makes a literary work "great". Students are encouraged to make writing more vivid, and the student ultimately produces writing that models the genre of the literary passage. Guidelines for evaluating and grading writing, suggestions for adapting the curriculum for different learning styles, and student proofreading and writing guides are also valuable parts of the program. Each daily lesson takes only 15-45 minutes, is addressed to the student and can be used with all children in a family at the same time. The program includes all needed excerpts from all of the literature that it models so that teachers are not required to purchase additional material. This curriculum is a genuine, incremental (step-by-step) program which requires minimal teacher involvement towards the goal of mastery of creative writing. Hearts for Him Through Time: Creation to Christ will schedule lessons from this guide twice weekly. For grades 3 -12, but best suited for grades 4-8.

Nine different genres are covered:
* Describing an Object from Jules Verne - a Place from Charles Dickens - a Character from Daniel Defoe
* Dialogue from Kenneth Grahame
* The Short Story from O. Henry
* Fables from Aesop
* Friendly Letters from Robert Louis Stevenson
* Poetry - Rhyming Verse from William Wordsworth
* The Ballad or Narrative Poem from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

You can click here to view a PDF of part of Write with the Best:
http://www.edudps.com/WRITE-WITH-THE-BEST-Vol-1.pdf

I hope some of this helps you in your decision!
In Christ,
Julie

Michelle,

Sorry it's taken me a bit to get back to you. We've been battling with our connection to the internet and have had tech. guys out here working on it for the last couple of days. Today, we have a new modem, so hopefully our connection will be up and running more smoothly now!

As far as writing goes, if you have the Preparing Hearts manual for the gentle lessons for creative writing that are wound in with the poetry of Robert Frost that would be our first recommendation for an introduction to writing (coupled with the lessons found within Rod and Staff grammar).

If you do not have the Preparing Hearts guide, then the next thing to weigh is how comfortable with grammar and identifying nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adjectives your child might be. This is because Write with the Best does require familiarity with those parts of speech and asks kiddos to identify them within passages of classic literature (as a part of identifying what makes writing "the best". If your child has not had a fairly strong grammar background, you may wish to begin with Igniting Your Writing I instead, as it does not have any grammar wound within its lessons.

Hope that helps!

Blessings,
Carrie