Write with World

From the publishers of God's World News and WORLD Magazine comes a new writing curriculum for grades 6-9 called "Write With WORLD".  I like it.  I really like it.  It takes a new approach and is quite different than other things I've seen out there. The more I look at the lessons, the more I want to try it out with my two sons, who are not reluctant to write, but have a difficult time organizing their ideas into a coherent piece.  Plus, they often need concrete guidelines as to what to write about and this program does just that.

Write with WORLD uses what reminds me of  a "journalistic" approach to writing.  Writing based on photographs, current articles and interviews.  And the lessons are broken down into what they call "capsules", very short lessons that can be written in a writer's journal.  The lessons also prepare you for supplies you may need, like Post-it notes, index cards, photographs, a thesaurus, etc.  For students who become easily frustrated with writing, these assignments are not exhaustive.

The curriculum is written by writers from God's World News and WORLD magazine and they speak to the student as "fellow writers".  There is a section in each lesson called "The Right Word" where five new vocabulary words are introduced, so you could use this as a vocabulary curriculum as well.  They also tackle the 20 most common grammar mistakes used by U.S. college students.  So, you could say this is a complete writing/grammar/vocabulary program. 

From the Table of Contents, you can see what topics this curriculum covers:

Table of Contents:

YEAR ONE CURRICULUM
INTRODUCTION

UNIT #1: DEVELOPING CRITICAL READERS

Lesson 1: Reading Images and Advertisements
Lesson 2: Comparative Reading: Sentences
Lesson 3: Comparative and Critical Reading: Paragraphs
Lesson 4: Critical Reading: Essays

UNIT#2: DEVELOPING WRITERS: BUILDING BLOCKS AND BIOGRAPHY

Lesson 1: The Paragraph
Lesson 2: Composing and Linking Sentences
Lesson 3: Creating Focus and Arranging Ideas
Lesson 4: Linking Paragraphs: Transitions and Logic

UNIT #3: WRITING AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Lesson 1: Reporting Facts
Lesson 2: Creating Character
Lesson 3: Developing Ideas with Specificity
Lesson 4: Writing Autobiography

UNIT #4: CRAFTING NARRATIVES

Lesson 1: Developing a Point of View
Lesson 2: Showing vs. Telling
Lesson 3: Narrative with a Purpose
Lesson 4: Writing a Fictional Narrative

YEAR TWO CURRICULUM

UNIT #1: REPORTING AND INTERPRETING: MAKING NEWS

Lesson 1: Working with Controversy
Lesson 2: Conducting Interviews
Lesson 3: Reporting a Story
Lesson 4: Developing a Feature

UNIT #2: REVIEWING TEXTS

Lesson 1: Good or Bad, Like or Dislike: Working with Criteria
Lesson 2: Evaluating a Current Event
Lesson 3: Reporting on a Book
Lesson 4: Writing about controversy

UNIT #3: CRAFTING AN OPINION: JOINING A CONVERSATION

Lesson 1: Reading as a Believer and as a Doubter
Lesson 2: Critiquing an Opinion Statement
Lesson 3: Responding to Opinion: Your Voice
Lesson 4: Your Opinion: a Response

UNIT #4: THE ESSAY

Lesson 1: Opportunity, Material, and Reasons
Lesson 2: Writing the Short Essay
Lesson 3: Revealing your thinking and addressing audience concerns
Lesson 4: Writing your Essay

For a sample lesson from Write With WORLD, click here

For $95 per year, you receive a student workbook and a teacher's guide.  For two year's worth of curriculum, you only pay $165.  The teacher's guide is everything the student has in their book, plus marginal notes and lesson plan ideas.  Sometimes the lessons use articles from God's World News or WORLD magazine, but the curriculum could certainly be used independently from these. 

I am currently using a different writing program, but I kind of stopped in my tracks once I took a look at this.  This could really be what we've been searching for!  With full-color, modern and relevant photographs and the "I'm talking directly to you" style from the authors, I think my sons would really respond to this program.  In all, I give it high marks.

See what my Crew-mates thought of this program at this link.

Disclaimer:  I was provided with a review copy of Write With WORLD, Year One.  I have not been required to write a positive review, just an honest one based on our own experience using this product. 

Check out my article in this month's The Old Schoolhouse magazine!

Yay!  I've been published!  I feel like that scene in Little Women where Jo bursts in the door, waving her $5 after publishing her first story in a second-rate magazine shouting "I'm an author!".  (Although The Old Schoolhouse Magazine is completely first-rate, of course) 

Awhile back, there was a contest for current product reviewers at the Old Schoolhouse Magazine called "Show & Tell".  It was basically a tour of your classroom, explaining how your kids "do school" in a homeschool setting and also showcasing some of the items you use in your curriculum.  Well, I was honored back in the fall to be one of the 12 moms selected to be featured in the magazine with a corresponding article talking about my homeschool journey. 

I have to laugh because at the time I submitted photos and interest in participating, we were involved in EVERYTHING and going along at a pace that would make a prep school exhausted.  Since then, I started watching a 9 month old baby five days a week.  Can you imagine how that changes the dynamics of your homeschool?  LOL.  Needless to say, filming the tour during the day was futile---she is very clingy and would not allow me to put her down to film the video.  I didn't think listening to screaming would be very encouraging to viewers. Having her situated on my hip the whole time wouldn't work either--I would have to submit a seperate photo release for her and she isn't my child, etc., etc.  SO, as soon as her mom picked her up one day, even though it was almost dark out, we rushed around, putting away board books and rattles, I changed my shirt which had drool on it from a teething baby and filmed this video--barefoot.  Yep, this Southern girl forgot to throw on some shoes.  And all of this craziness happened after a shipping problem with the camera, and then finding out the camera I was suppose to use didn't work properly.  So this was all filmed on my Droid and submitted to the editors after a whirlwind of circumstances.  It isn't the greatest video ever.  It won't win an Emmy.  But it gives you the basic idea of what we do and how we do it.  I am very proud of the article.  It just came pouring out and wrote itself, because there was so much passion in it.  Have you ever felt that fired up about something?  When it comes to my boys, I go off the deep end.  Often.

So, I hope you enjoy.  Maybe some of you can relate to our public school fiascoes that I pray we will never have to revisit.

Please don't notice my bare feet....
Kimberly

The link is......The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, March 2012

Excellence in Literature: A Review

For the past several weeks, I've had a chance to review a wonderful product,  Excellence in Literature:  Introduction to Literature.  It comes to us from Janice Campbell at Everyday Education, the parent company that has brought the world such treasures as the Institute of Excellence in Writing, Phonetic Zoo and much more.  EIL:  Intro to Literature is the first stepping stone along a path of literature courses designed for the upper middle school/high school set.  The courses are designed for the college prep student.

Introduction to Literature is a 9-week course.  The first unit eases into literature with a collection of short stories written by various authors (deMaupassant, O. Henry, Poe, Welty and J. Thurber).  Units 2-9 focus on classic novels. The novels that are used in this course are:

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

Each Unit is meant to be self-paced.  Most "traditional" school years (ours included) have roughly 36 weeks.  That means, we could spend about one month on each selection.  But it is certainly flexible enough to fit your homeschool schedule's unique needs.  For each unit, there is a "focus text" (the books listed above).  For honors students, and to receive honors grades (.5 weighed grade points), the student will need to do read the additional text and produce the assignments listed.  For instance, in Unit 7, the honors student will need to read 1984 in addition to Animal Farm by the same author.

Excellence in Literature has been written TO the student.  Right off the bat, it prepares the student for college-level workloads and college-level responsibility by making them own their work.  Oh how I wish I would have had this kind of instruction in school (or maybe I did, but I was too concerned with boys--LOL).  I actually went on to major in Literature in college and love it wholeheartedly to this day.  But in hindsight, I now realize it is not merely enough to be assigned a novel by a teacher, procrastinate, read the Cliff Notes and watch the movie the night before an assignment and slide by with a "C".  Mrs. Campbell explains to the student that reading a book isn't just about deciphering the words, but to completely understand the context, the author's purpose and its place in the world of art, music and history surrounding the circumstances of the work as well as how it fits in with the other literary movements that have gone before it.  Why was Renaissance literature different than the Medieval works such as The Canterbury Tales?  What effect did the Industrial Revolution have on literature?  You'll find out!  That is why she faithfully provides resource links to learn more about these things for each unit.

For Jane Eyre, we learn how "gothic" literature blended with a novel of society and manners to produce a new kind of heroine, one whose qualities were not wrapped up in her "beauty or charm, but intelligence and integrity".  The guide gives the student things to look for in the book, things to think about and biographical information.  When available, there are links to download the book for free (thank you!), sources to order various film versions of the novel, painted depictions of the novel, music of the Victorian period, etc.  It really creates a rich learning experience for the reader.  The use of Cliffs Notes and Sparknotes are even encouraged (to supplement, not substitute).  I know I often like to read literary commentary on a book I've read.  If it helps me, an adult, have deeper understanding of a novel, why wouldn't I want my child, the student to have this same advantage?

Click here for a printable 5-year reading list that will take you through all 5 courses!  Get a feel for what reading adventures are in store for your child!

Each unit has four weeks' worth of assignments, with the fourth week culminating into a well-written, well-edited original essay.  Sources are provided to help the student gain a solid background in writing essays (Adam Andrew's excellent Teaching the Classics DVD course).  The assignments are paced in such a way that time-management skills are learned. The reading and pre-writing are accomplished in manageable chunks of work, the student feels successful and therefore feels motivated to go on to read the next story.

The Writing Mentor (the parent or tutor) has a role as well.  And that is to provide the necessary tools to help the student be successful.  Among them are:  a chair, a reading light, reference materials including an OED dictionary and thesaurus, a writer's handbook, Post-Its, a computer and a notebook.  Give your student these things, along with Excellence in Literature and you've got yourself a recipe for a successful year in literature and writing.

If you decide to go on, the subsequent courses are Literature and Composition (English II), American Literature (English III), British Literature (English IV), and World Literature (English V).  By the way, the American and British Literature courses are co-written by the incomparable Andrew Pudewa.  That fact alone should attests to the quality of these courses.  Everything Andrew is a part of, I love.

Highly, highly recommended by this Mom, Excellence In Literature:  Introduction to Literature sells here at Everyday Education for $29 as a printed book and $27 as an e-book. 

See what my friends at The Old Schoolhouse Magazine had to say about this product here.

Disclaimer:  I was provided the e-book version to review in exchange for my honest opinion, which I've provided here.

The Power of The Pudewa

I'm still scratching my head.  I have one child that is sort of the model student.  Likes to please, picks up concepts pretty easily and so forth.  But the other child who has horrendous handwriting, who doesn't like writing, whose spelling is atrocious, looks like this after a writing workshop with Andrew Pudewa:

We had a rare opportunity to attend an Advanced Student Writing Intensive seminar.  The theme was "Writing Stories".  For two and a half hours (that flew by), approximately 40 kids sat mesmerized by jokes, antectdotes and amazing instruction by Mr. Pudewa.  And for the last 24 hours, they have been producing interesting stories on their own, double-spaced, just like Andrew likes it.  Every room in the house is riddled with short stories like "The Girl and the Monster", "The Banana People", and "The Almost-True Tale of Robert the Bruce". 

I call it the Power of The Pudewa.  Sure, IEW (The Institute for Excellence in Writing) has a pretty amazing product.  The techniques they employ for teaching sound technical writing skills are phenomenal.  But Andrew Pudewa is The Face of IEW and it is greatly due to him that my son Denver has embraced writing. 

Mr. Pudewa understands boys and how boys learn.  In fact, he has a lecture called "Teaching Boys and Other Children Who Would Rather Make Forts All Day", which you can download here.  He understands what my husband and I have known from the get-go.  Boys are not wired to sit still all day.  Boys are not wired to work in workbooks, color quietly or write long stories about unicorns and sandcastles.  Boys are wild creatures.  They crave action, adventure and yes, a little violence.  Okay a lot of violence.  If the story has flesh scattering and blood flowing, the book will be consumed with happiness by a boy. 

So, the first thing that Mr. Pudewa and IEW tell students that puts reluctant writers at ease is this:  "Don't worry that you don't know what to write about.  I'm going to tell you exactly what to write about.  And then I'm going to give you a checklist that will tell you exactly when you're done."  Because that's what alot of kids want to know.  "When am I "done"?"

Using a variety of source texts, such as paragraphs about jellyfish, inventions, and other high-interest non-fiction subjects, as well as fables and fairy tales, children learn how to outline the paragraph using keywords (no more than 3 per sentence).  Then they are able to re-tell the information in speech format, then write about it, dressing it up with colorful adjectives, strong verbs, -ly words and clauses.  The result is an original piece of work and a grammar lesson all in one!

I don't claim to be an expert on IEW yet.  I've watched the teacher DVDs for Teaching Structure and Style.  I am learning this with my kids.  I own, but haven't used, several of the products available for the middle/high school students.  I'm looking forward to employing this method for the duration of their homeschooling years.  I am confident this will give them an edge in college when it comes to annotating, employing the Socratic method, and communicating affectively with any audience.  Hand-written essays are still required for many scholarships.  A cover letter is still important in the marketplace.  The written word is here to stay!  And I don't think there is a better program out there for teaching students how to do it well. 

Solomon, IEW's Andrew Pudewa, and Denver

Warning:  The fun level of these workshops is intense.  It will take alot out of you and leave you looking like this:

Postcards, Elvis and the Banana...

Okay, who loves getting postcards?  Everyone, right?  Who doesn't love going to the mailbox and seeing something colorful and exotic and (drumroll, please....) Hand-Written!  It's the next best thing to a love-letter in my opinion.  Postcards say, "I'm thinking of you, even though we aren't together."  Sometimes they say "I got to go to Hawaii and you didn't, so nah nah nah nah nah nah nah."  But mostly they say, "Wish You Were Here".

That's why I was excited to learn about Postcrossing!

Have you heard about Postcrossing?  Well, it's been around for awhile, but I just heard of it about a year ago from another Homeschooling Mama.  It's a completely free postcard program that allows you to send postcards all over the world to randomly selected members.  Once they receive your card and register it on the site (with a unique code that you write on the top of the card), you will be next in line to receive a card from a completely different randomly selected member. 



That's my son, Denver showing his Aunt Heather where our latest card has come from!

 We keep a giant world map and a giant US map on our classroom wall and stick a map pin on the city/country each time we send or receive a new card.  So far, we have received cards from 5 different continents, mainly because we have denoted that we speak only English--that has ruled out communication with alot of the African countries (or maybe they just don't have a high participation rate, or maybe access to post offices and postcards is difficult--who knows?).  Here is a picture of our first few months of participation:

Today, I counted the postcards in our Postcrossing box--136 for the school year!  Not bad.  Once you get going, you will be allowed to have 3 cards in rotation at a time, then 5 then 7 and so on.  They just don't want you signing up in the beginning and leaving dozens of people hanging on the other end.  So three is a good number.  I'll never forget, our first friends that we were assigned to were from Spain, Portugal and Belarus.  And judging by the fact that I didn't know how to locate Belarus on the map, I needed this project just as much as my kids did!

Our favorite cards are from the Asian countries.  They always have the most beautiful stamps, usually with some sort of glittery ink, and so many of them add little Anime drawings in the margins.  They really take the time to make the cards special.  As opposed to many American ones I've gotten that just say "Hi."  Lazy, geographically-illiterate Americans.  That's us.  LOL.



Our town is famous for swans.  What's your town known for?

  

He likes to use his spell check to make sure every word is "just so".



So, if you'd like to add a geography project in your classroom that generates a little writing, a little know-how in the "how to address a letter" department and also provides TONS of EXCITEMENT several times a week at the mailbox (I think we squealed with the first one--literally squealed), then give Postcrossing a try! 

Just think about it.....Where do you think you could go to pick up some inexpensive postcards in your area?  I found that they were everywhere--Hallmark stores, hospital gift shops, any kind of historical or tourist place, even our local hardware store had some.  We have some neat ones in our local art museum gift shop but they are pricey!  You may want to get just a few of these for your stash for a special, deserving person.  Get some with maps of your state, local recipes, local animals, area attractions, an artist, inventor or statesperson that is from your area, etc.  People really appreciate something different than their norm. 

I was surprised to find how many requests I got for Disney cards.  I take it for granted that the mouse is just a half-hour from me.  So, I went to the most God-awful tourist trap in the world on International Drive in Orlando.  The place where they sell shot glasses and cheap t-shirts.  They had THE ULTIMATE POSTCARD STATION.  Hundreds to pick from!  You might have a touristy place near you where you can score big in the postcard department.

How will you store your cards when they arrive?  We just use an old cigar box, but I know some homeschool teachers who post them on a bulletin board on the classroom wall.  Others punch a hole in the corner and put them on a giant key ring.  I like being able to see the front and read the back whenever I want, so I'll just stick with the box until I can spring for this baby.....The Postcard Carousel!

I know some people who keep their postcard stash organized by category, because when you are assigned that special person, they often will have specific requests as to cards they like to get.  Some people collect the "Did You Know?" cards that have lots of local facts.  Some people collect lighthouse cards.  I just had someone request an Elvis Presley card because I was from the US.  I had to break it to her that Memphis is pretty far from me!

By the way, did you know that you can mail anything as long as you can write on it and place proper postage on it?  Or at least I got lucky one year when I was in college.  I mailed my best friend a banana, placed the stamps on, wrote the address in black Sharpie---and she received it!  Why, you ask?  Why do we do anything that we do in college?  Because we're young and ridiculous...

Happy Postcrossing, Everyone!