Writing With Skill, Level 2: Student Workbook (The Complete Writer)

This is great book. It came on time. Was brand new and less expensive than other sellers online.

good

Pros: - Methodical approach to working with other people's writing before tackling original writing - Lovely variety of interesting topics/samples to work with - well done! We're learning about lots more than writing. :-) - Emphasis on recognizing key points and messages. You can write beautifully all day long, but if you don't have something to say (or if what you have to say is muddled), you've wasted your and your reader's time. This program respects and addresses that concept in a big way. - Independent student work encouraged, with clarity about when to talk with "your instructor" Potential cons (workarounds noted in parentheses): - Instructions buried in the text, in both the Student Workbook and Instructor Text (use highlighter to help instructions "pop") - Correlation between Student Text and Instructor's Guide not the easiest to follow (write corresponding Student Workbook page numbers in margins of Instructor's Guide) Other: These are big honker books, folks. We had ours spiral bound for ease of use, and both kids and mom found them immediately easier to use. In summary: My only real beef with this solid program is its physical organization/presentation. There are sooooo many words that we get lost without the highlighting noted above. Bullet points and more obvious instructions would help incredibly. Also, I realize the program is laid out for 4-day/week users, but the "week 2, day 3, step 1" organization is hard to follow for those of us using it at a faster or slower speed. In the table of contents, the organization is crystal clear and lovely, thanks to indentations and fewer words. In the actual text, we spend too much time finding where we are, finding instructions in the text, and then identifying/titling the written work (Outline: WWS2 week2, day3, step1). This is a terrific program that would benefit greatly from a cleaner layout/design. Just plan to spend a little time with a pencil and highlighter up front (gotta stay ahead of the kids!) to save time and sanity during day-to-day school time.

My oldest just started this series. It has helped him. I like it so much, that I'm going to start this series with my other son in the eighth grade with Level 1. My oldest son is using Level 2 in the 9th grade. I think that it's actually on the college level. It's easy to understand. It really makes him think. It takes us about an hour to get through each lesson. It is set up to keep a student busy four days a week. My son takes more time and he's spending five days a week. You should start this book at the beginning of the school year because it lasts for months.

We are using this with our 8th grade daughter this year. She is very self-motivated, and the format suits her nicely. For a student that is not as self-disciplined, this would require more parental involvement. It is still a great learning tool.

My daughter has a love hate relationship with this program. She dreads the thought of doing her assignments but always enjoys them when she gets started. It has certainly helped her with her writing confidence!

I have used Writing With Skill, Level 1 and Level 2 for two of my children. I use Level 1 for 7th grade and Level 2 for 8th grade. They seem very age appropriate while stretching my kids. I really like these books and wish I had had this instruction when I was in junior high. Sometimes it's hard to figure out how long each week's assignments will take. Some weeks are definitely easier than others. However, if I spend some time looking at them ahead of time, I can usually figure out what will work with our schedule. My children are also pretty happy with the curriculum and don't complain too much about it. It is the best writing curriculum I have found so far and I highly recommend it. Update: I am now using this curriculum for a third child. She struggles more with writing than my older two children. Note taking is a huge challenge for her and takes a really long time. She needs a lot more help from me. I realize now that my older children are at a much higher level than this child is. They are now taking AP classes in high school and doing fine. This child is more of an "average" student and I don't think we are going to be able to cover the whole book in the school year. Otherwise, we'll both go crazy. So I'm adjusting my rating to 4 stars since it doesn't work as well for her.

I really like that this program is well organized and builds on prior lessons. I think this is for most 6th to 7th grade students.