Res to ref writing

[PoppyD]

Hi ladies
Can you tell me a little about the writing in Resurrection to Reformation? I know it's medieval writing using IEW. Any other things you can tell me? We are using HOD (CTC) now but doing an online class. Just thinking ahead for next.
Thanks
Poppy

[PoppyD]

Anyone?

[mrsrandolph]

My daughter in Res to Ref is a VERY advanced writer and she is flourishing with the medieval writing lessons. I have a son coming up to Res to Ref in 10 weeks who will NOT be able to handle it. (Part of post removed by board moderator per board rules.)

[Nealewill]

I absolutely love it! I personally have found it very easy to complete. My dd isn't necessarily advanced either. She just completed her first paper where she had to use dress-ups and such. To be quite honest, her rough draft on this paper lacked strong verbs, diversity of terms and minimal adjectives and adverbs. However, with EIW, you do a page where you list strong verbs and you list adjectives and adverbs. The kids are also learning several vocabulary words. So, we took her ring of vocab words and I had her insert at least two of them into the paper. We looked at her verbs and changed a couple of them to make the paper more interesting. We looked at the list of adverbs and added as many as we could and did the same with adjectives. Once we were finished, paper was then great! She was even beaming with pride with her changes.

I do feel like WWTB did a great job of preparing my daughter to be ready for this type of writing. She was already used to seeing strong verbs and she was used to using adjectives and adverbs. I know her first paper this year was severely lacking but my guess is that she just needed more direction. I anticipate that as the year goes on, once she becomes more skilled in this process that it will be smoother. I know that with WWTB there was a slight learning curve as well but by the 3rd or 4th paper, she was coming up with some great stuff.

[rumkimom]

My daughter is not a strong writer....we did not do CTC last year so I choose to use Write With The Best with her this year instead of the one listed in RtR.

[LynnH]

My son was not a strong writer when we did RTR and he did very well with IEW. It gives so much hand holding and is very structured which actually works very well for all types of writers. It really helped him to learn how to add more descriptive words to his writing, how to use transition sentences and helped him to figure out how to organize his thoughts.

[countrymom]

We are not too far in, but I love IEW. My son struggled last year with Write With the Best, but the structure of the IEW lessons are just what he needs. The checklists to help him remember to use strong verbs/ adjectives, etc. are great for him. With IEW, there is a topic to work from and the students learn to form a topic and summary sentence when writing a paragraph. They extract info (in the form of key points - great skill!) from a given text and produce their own paragraph. We have just finished the longer "essay" with two paragraphs and that is as far in as we are so far. My son enjoys the content matching the history and I enjoy the fact that it seems we are progressing with skills this year

[Carrie]

Poppy,

One thing to keep in mind about writing is that it is a skill progressive subject. While it is true that some kiddos are more natural writers than others, all kiddos can learn to be writers if they are regularly exposed to great writing (through the literature that they read), receive practice in modeling great writing (through oral and written narration), are taught strong grammar and sentence-building skills (through an excellent English program like Rod and Staff), and then are taught the skills of writing (through various writing programs).

So, you can see that the skills needed to progress as a writer come from many different areas (all of which we strive to address within HOD). This means that as the student progresses down the HOD path, he/she will gain the skills needed to become a better writer (incrementally a little at a time).

This is also means that depending on how much experience the child is gaining in each of these areas, he/she may have a differing level of success with the various writing programs within HOD from other students. So, while it may seem like certain writing programs work better for certain kiddos, it truly is the sum total of the child's literature/narration/grammar/dictation/writing experiences that add up to success. This is why when looking at writing, we typically ask questions about the other language arts areas as well. All of these areas work together to eventually produce a writer!

For those who are new to HOD, we typically suggest beginning with the writing program that is within whatever HOD guide the student ends up using for the rest of his/her day. This is because the student will make gains as we begin addressing all areas needed to improve as a writer throughout the daily plans. The writing program is just one component of that progress.

Yet, each writing program within HOD is selected to emphasize a different facet of writing, and it is scheduled to give balance to a child's school day (keeping in mind all other subjects and the volume of writing within those). So, your child will also feel better balanced skill-wise and time-wise if he/she does the writing program scheduled within the guide. The writing programs are also scheduled with the parent's teaching time in mind, providing an ebb and flow from guide to guide that is welcome. So, there are many benefits to doing the writing programs scheduled within your guide. Of course, it is fine to borrow a program from a previous guide, if you feel your child will be overly challenged with the program scheduled in your current guide. As always, you will know your child best!

Blessings,
Carrie