I have homeschooled for 15 yrs believe it or not and used abeka lang all this time...I think my kids have got the grammer by now...but they lack in reading and writing papers like the public school .....they will need to do this ...what is a good writing curriculum that you have tried?
Hi Welcome... This is my 6th year and I have been using a curriculum called Classical Writing. It is written by two homeschooling moms following the example of the progymnasmata. Short for a series of steps to take in classical writing. It is *imitative* in nature. So basically you take a good piece of literature, like Aesop's fables for the younger grades and analyze it. You work on the comprehension to understand the story, the dictionary skills, spelling skills and grammar skills. Then after you have thoroughly *diagnosed* the writing you rewrite it. For the older grades, Homer is who they use as an example. I like it because it is very rigorous and i wanted something comparable to Calvert's writing. Calvert has them writing the standard 5 paragraph essay by the end of 4th grade. Classical writing can or cannot be that, depending on how much you want to move along. The reason i like CW is that its not only important HOW you write, but WHAT you write and fill your minds. CW lets *free style and imagination* take a back seat in the early grades whereas Calvert (modern writing attitudes) let them have free rein in the early grades. I also use Rod and Staff and have used Writing Strands. I did not care for WS because I felt like it was too mechanical and boring...I can share some other writng programs, what grades where you thinking of?
We've tried several different writing programs and we crashed & burned with all of them. My two boys are great with vocabulary, spelling, & grammar. They just simply hate to write anything. Then I discovered Jensen's Format Writing. So far we've used it for writing seven sentence paragraphs and 5 paragraph essays. The essay writing is so important in testing & I was really stressing about it. But finally, finally, finally my 15yo ds was writing very good, solid essays. This year we are progressing to book reports and research papers. The book also covers business writing. I am just starting it this upcoming year with my 12yo ds. I am also adding Jensen's grammar & punctuation courses for his junior year this time to prepare him for college entrance exams. That's how impressed I am with the improvement he's made in writing.
