WriteShop I and II Set

Building upon skills lesson by lesson, WriteShop offers a comprehensive, yet easy-to-use, teacher-student interactive course.

Lessons build incrementally, covering sentence and paragraph construction skills and style in Volume I before the longer essay assignments in Volume  II. Lessons build on each other and should be done in order without any skipping. The writing process is taught throughout the program with Part I focused on descriptive, informative, and narrative writing. Volume II continues with persuasive writing. Program components include the Teacher Manual (for both Volumes I & II) and a Student Workbook for each Volume.

Flexible schedule options allow you to complete one volume per year, or for an older/more advanced student, you can complete both volumes in one year. The program could also be used with motivated younger students as well. The thing to remember is that the skills covered are what would typically be considered foundational writing skills that prepare a student for the more demanding academic writing of high school. Also, not all types of writing (for instance, poetry) are covered.

The Teacher Manual (used with both Volumes I and II) provides detailed lesson plans and instructions for teachers. These include how to edit, how to  make comments, description of typical student errors along with probable solutions, and student sample writing (with edits). There are also answer keys, reference sheets and forms, and essay topics.

The Student Workbooks (two  volumes) contain instructional content, skill builders, graphic organizers, self-editing checklists, and teacher checklists for each assignment, and 17 word banks. Volume 1 focuses on descriptive, informative, and narrative writing. Volume II focuses on advanced narrative and descriptive writing, plus a heavy emphasis on 5-paragraph essay writing.

Copying and Dictation Exercises are incorporated into each lesson in Volume I. These are strongly encouraged and tend to strengthen both writing and listening skills when done consistently. A book with these exercises is available as a separate purchase. Overall, this is an excellent writing program and a wonderful, comprehensive resource for parents teaching one or more children at home or teachers in a co-op or class setting.