Overview: The WriteShop
Does the idea of high school writing scare you? Are you afraid you won't know how to help your teen learn to write well?
It's not like there is any pressure, or anything. I mean, who cares about the writing portion of the ACT or SAT, which the college(s) your kid is applying to might require? Not to mention the fact that college profs do kind of expect a kid to know how to create a paragraph that expresses coherent thought and can be understood by the reader. Plus actually be able to string those paragraphs together into something that makes sense and might even be somewhat artistic. No worries!! Piece of cake, right?? (*sarcasm alert*)
I've already shared my own struggles with dealing with writing in our own homeschool in this post: Homeschool High School Writing: Tips and Curriculum Reviews. As the title suggests, I eventually found some
But just a few months ago I got to open and really examine a
WriteShop curriculum for high school writing
It's called WriteShop. WriteShop has writing
I'm usually one to say that if it was good enough for the older kids it's good enough for the youngers (mostly a money-saving tactic, lol) — but this is one case where I might change my mind. The youngest (the only one left in my homeschool at this point) will be using Write Shop for her English credit next year.
I love lotsa things about it, not the least of which is how step-by-step it is. It teaches the nuts and bolts of writing in an interesting way, each lesson building upon the last. There are lotsa resources for the student AND the teacher.
In fact, the most special-est thing from my perspective — which I think many of you will agree with — is that everything is spelled out very clearly for the homeschool mom to administer. The teacher's guide is one of the best I've seen, with everything you need to assign the work and keep up with the grading — including guidance on how to grade your kid's work. THAT is amazing and worth the price of admission right there, imho!
Show-and-tell with the WriteShop curriculum
I actually did two Facebook videos about WriteShop I & II in my homeschool high school FB group. I uploaded them to YouTube so everyone can see them, and I've embedded both of them below. This way you can see for yourself exactly what comes with the
The first video is me showing you what comes with it and giving an overview.
But I also wax eloquent about my favorite thing in the Teacher's Manual. :-)
Main points from Part 1:
- WriteShop I & II are recommended for grades 7-10. It is also recommend that you spend one year on each one, although it is possible to go through them both in one year.
- It is designed for parents who need lots of help to teach writing. Raise your hands!
- It comes with a loose-leaf student workbook (you provide 3-ring binder) and spiral-bound teacher's manual.
- There are lotsa resources in the student manual to help the student, such as a glossary of writing terms, glossary of sentence variations, a list of common problems with mechanics, etc.
- Every lesson follows this sequence: 1) brainstorm, 2) rough draft (what they call a “sloppy copy”), 3) revised copy, 4) feedback from parent, 5) final copy.
- It takes two weeks to do each lesson.
- Each lesson focuses on one aspect of writing. As the student progresses through the
curriculum , they learn the nuts and bolts of writing. - The Teacher's Manual is the bomb — and you need to watch the video to see what I love about it! LOL
The second is where I show in greater detail some of the features that make the WriteShop curriculum unique and very doable.
It is worth watching this second video, too, because the extras are another thing that make WriteShop so worth choosing for your high school writing
Main points from Part 2:
- The
curriculum includes a booklet with selections from literature to use for dictation and copy work, and the time to do this is built into the lesson plans. - WriteShop teaches the art of essay writing in WriteShop II, including timed essays to prepare for the SAT and ACT.
- The appendixes in the Teacher's Manual are full of LOTSA resources for helping the homeschool mom — I list them all in the video. I focus on Appendix B, which gives supplemental activities that you can build into the
curriculum to help firm up the concepts for your teen. How to expand each lesson, how to use thecurriculum with unit studies, etc. Watch the video for specific examples!
After watching the videos, you will be very aware of how enthused I am about this
UPDATE: I did some podcast episodes with Misti Lacy, the
Episode 51: How to Make Writing More Fun for Your Homeschooled Teen
Episode 52: How to Prepare for College Writing
Episode 53: High School Writing: Mom's Involvement
You can visit the WriteShop website here: WRITESHOP WEBSITE.
I encourage you to consider the WriteShop
Ann has written Cure the Fear of Homeschooling High School: A Step-by-Step Manual for Research and Planning, Save Your Sanity While Homeschooling High School: Practical Principles for a Firm Foundation, and recently Taming the Transcript: The Essential Guide to Creating Your Teen's Homeschool Transcript from Scratch (without overwhelm). She also founded the popular Facebook groups It's Not that Hard to Homeschool High School and It's Not Hard to Homeschool K-8, and in addition she voices the It's Not That Hard to Homeschool High School Podcast.
- The Secret to Finding God's Will for Today - March 25, 2024
- Our Main Reason for Homeschooling: Character Development - January 18, 2024
- Homeschool Transcript Essentials: what you need and DON'T need! - January 13, 2024
I note in other posts by you that you used Brave Writer Help for High School particularly because you wanted to prepare your kids for the Five Paragraph Essay used in the college entrance exams. Here you note that your youngest will be using the Write Shop (instead?). Do you feel the Write Shop curriculum will provide that same preparation?
I am curious about this as well. My child has used Sonlight’s language arts through middle school, and while that program gives lots of written guidance to both parent and child (including a grading rubric), it is more difficult to grade things like the level of vocabulary suitable for her grade level, sentence complexity and variety, and others.
We began using Power Homeschool as a supplement to LA this year. It has a built-in writing editor with computer “grading” of her writing. It tells her at what grade level she is writing, points out misspellings and grammar errors, assigns a percentage grade after she turns in her edited rough draft, lets her know if she needs more complex sentences or is being redundant, etc. It has taken some of the subjective grading out of the equation.
That said, I wonder if it will help her learn how to write what she needs for the SAT, and am specifically interested in how to help her prepare for that. Any suggestions would be helpful! Thank you!
Yikes, I didn’t realize I never answered you, Trudie! My youngest had already gotten instruction in the five-paragraph essay in middle school when we participated in a co-op, so I didn’t feel she needed further instruction on that. WriteShop does, however, include the five-paragraph essay in their new edition, in WriteShop II. Here’s more about what my youngest used to learn: The Five Paragraph Essay: What, Why, and How for Homeschoolers.