Customer Reviews

The Complete Writer: Writing with Ease:

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

CAVEAT:
Take this preliminary review with a particular grain of salt, for I am an English teacher who unabashedly embraces "The Well-Trained Mind" philosophy behind the Wise-Bauer/Buffington writing team. While this review is a bit premature, I am hopeful that my children will reap benefits similar to those acquired through their related Peace Hill Press grammar and history series.

THEORY:
SWB explains that her motivation for this book was her experience as a professor of literature and history at the prestigious College of William and Mary. Simply put, her well-educated students could not write well. She argues against the theory that one should "Give the children high-interest assignments and have them write, write, write, and revise, revise, revise." This is not how I was taught to write, but it WAS how I was taught to teach, and I, too, endured the blank and panicked students' stares produced by that philosophy.

SWB compares writing to a foreign language. The conventions must be absorbed before the non-native speaker is fluent. Says Wise-Bauer, "Imagine that you have had a year or so of conversational French...After the first year, your teacher asks you to explain the problem of evil in French...(it would be impossible) to express complicated ideas in a medium that is unfamiliar... The conventions...need to become second nature -- invisible -- so that you can concentrate on the ideas rather than the medium." Speech is natural and necessary. Writing is not. Many can, and do, get by without learning to write well.

PRACTICALS:
In Writing With Ease, the elementary years are less about creative output, and more about intake and foundations. The small book is packed with week-by-week exercises (36 for each year) aimed at building one layer at a time. She covers roughly four years in a succinct 216 pages: Years One and Two: Narration, Copywork and Dictation; Years Three and Four: Putting the Steps Together. The copywork samples come primarily from fables, fairy tales, and childhood classics such as "Little House" and "Charlotte's Web". No dull prose allowed.

SWB then thoroughly describes the writing process taught through the middle and high school years, giving this homeschooling mom courage. Says Bauer, "The goal is to turn the young writer into a thoughtful student who can make use of written language, rather than struggle with it." She adds, "Good writing requires training. It demands one-on-one attention." To that I respond with a heart-felt "Amen, sister!"

I've given it four stars after I've previewed the contents, but I hope to add the fifth after the year is over.

NOTE: Some teacher prepraration is required. SWB models the lessons, and then you will cull material from the student's texts and literature books. It's actually very simple to implement and takes very little time. I like to take passages from literature relating to other subjects they are already studying. My kids, second and fourth grade, respectively, love it because we are done in 5-10 minutes. SWB also gives short grammar cues for you to subtly tie in to the lesson.

MY TWO CENTS:
I am ridiculously grateful to have my hands held when it comes to teaching writing to my own kids! I used to teach grammar and composition on the middle and high school level. I left public school dismayed by the students' response to writing in general (never mind the heinous grammatical butchery -- the slaughter wrought through "texting" still haunts me to this day). They hated and feared writing. I never expected prose worthy of Faulkner, but the ability to write simply, clearly, and meaningfully was beyond most -- even the "honor roll" students were woefully inept and overwhelmed by the simplest assignments. I had 145 students x 100 assignments (there were always many who would never in a years' time complete a single writing assignment) X 36 weeks divided by the few hours I had after the 100 daily "administrative" tasks (I actually had to spend the first precious minutes of each day doing a "clothing check" for violations -- Argh!). There was little time to address the fundamentals so obviously lacking, and even less time for meaningingful (and mostly ignored) editorial, instructive feedback. I'm thankful for the experience, for I might never have known the joys of homeschooling.

my daughter HATES to write. we've been using this program for a week, and already the sentences chosen to copy are so intriguing for her she actually requested we check out the book it's taken from. this is the child that doesn't have patience for chapter books. she's already read through 24 pages of it within the first two days of starting it. but i digress...

this copy work and narrative work is exactly what my daughter needs. mrs. bauer is precisely right when she teaches the parent that writing from thoughts is a two step process and the children need to be taught how to do those steps separately (copy work & narration - parent writes the narration). my child continuously gave me zippy little narratives because she didn't want to copy down big long sentences after she was done thinking it through. with the time to grow her writing ability even five words at a time while simultaneously strengthening her summary and narration skills, she is now on the path for inevitable success.

the best part is these writing exercises take no more than 5-10 minutes per day, four days per week. ahhh, gone are the cries in protest when i announce it's time to do writing! thank you susan bauer yet again!

This book is what i had hoped to find. My son has a vivid imagination and talks incessantly. But, when it came time for him to write he would write the simplist of sentances, ie. "I like blue." I was unsure of where to start. With this book I have four years of direction and an understanding of what he should be accomplishing. I have been using this book for 2 weeks now. I can already see a difference. I would never have thought it would help so quickly. I am glad that this book was released just in time for me. I look forward to years of using this book.

Susan Wise Bauer is dead-on correct with her approach to teaching writing. I've taught persuasive writing to freshmen in universities for 12 years in Utah, Virginia, and South Carolina. What's so disheartening is that these students believe that an essay with very few punctuation errors and some big vocabulary words thrown in for good measure (usually used incorrectly) should deserve an A grade. Completely lacking from their writing is evidence of their ability to THINK and to ORGANIZE. These students (I'd roughly guess about 85% of all I've taught) feel that since they've been cranking out shallow book reports and plagiarized research papers since 1st grade, they know how to write.

I'm also a homeschooling mom of eight children, and have been troubled by every writing curriculum I've encountered--until now. Most skip from one skill to another with little connection, focus on the self, or provide little instruction relevant to the crucial persuasive writing skills children need to develop to succeed in college and the real world.

But Writing with Ease lays the foundation for teaching children to THINK about the words, the sentences, the paragraphs, the ideas. Then it teaches them to ORGANIZE those ideas. My two oldest are natural writers, and now as teenagers are succeeding well. But this book has come at the right to help me guide my two boys who struggled with even learning to read by their eighth birthdays. We've always done copy work and written notes with their science and history lessons. Now with Writing with Ease I have the instruction and lessons to move my sons to the next level of competent writing.

No skill is more critical for the success of adults in any job or career than the skill of persuasive, organized writing. Try this book. The lessons take about 10 minutes' of preparation per day (I'm not using the workbooks). Hardly a big investment for such an important skill.

I am returning this Instructor text. We bought and are using the student workbooks levels 1 and 2 for my 1st and 2nd grade girls. I like having everything in one workbook for each child. The lined paper is there and the girls have enjoyed having the nice illustrations on the page as well. You could certainly carry out this program with this teacher text book and lined paper without purchasing the workbooks. You do not need both.

Susan Bauer's opening essay on the writing process and how to teach it is the most cogent, informed explanation I've ever read:

"Writing is a process that involves two distinct mental steps. First, the writer puts an idea into words; then, she puts the words down on paper.

INARTICULATE IDEA ---> IDEA IN WORDS
IDEA IN WORDS ---> WORDS ON PAPER

. . . The pianist practices first the right hand, and then the left hand, before putting the two together; the young writer practices putting ideas into words, and then putting words down on paper, before trying to do both simultaneously. . . What follows will equip you to train the young student in the language of writing."

And Bauer delivers on this promise perfectly; she shows even the most unprepared parent or teacher how to teach good writing in just a few minutes a day. Her program will be a great relief to students who feel overwhelmed by writing assignments. It's all so manageable: she even tells you exactly what to do if you're starting with a "reluctant older student(grade 6-12)."

To make her case, her own writing is so easy and delightful that it's relaxing to read. I'm ordering the workbooks.

Thank you, Ms Bauer.

This book was published at just the correct time for us. We've just completed 3rd Language Lessons by the same author and I felt that my 3rd/4th grade daughter was not where I expected her to be in her actual writing skills. So nice to read this book and have my concerns eliminated - composing a thought in one's head is NOT automatically related to getting that thought down on paper correctly. It takes copywork and dictation and guidance to get it right.
This book helps with all the steps in helping your child get it right; going week by week for 4 years covering what your child should be working on. This is the actual book NOT the student workbook; if you just use this book you will need to find your own sources for the copywork and the dictation work. If you don't want to do that yourself, the workbooks have all of it already done for you; there's a workbook for each of the 4 levels. If your child is at 2nd grade or higher, please read the book first before buying any of the workbooks so that you don't buy one for a level too low.
I'm very pleased with the results already and we've only been using it for a week. I plan to use it from the start next year with my youngest when he begins First Language Lessons. There will be 2 follow-up books in The Complete Writer series. This one, Writing with Ease, is for years 1 to 4, Writing with Skill is for years 5 to 8, and Writing with Style is for years 9 to 12.

I started my homeschooled son on this curriculum, just using the student workbook. Someone suggested we get this Instructor Text, as well. I was really hoping I could get by with just the student workbook, but I decided to go ahead and get this book and I found there is helpful information in here about the principles involved with teaching your child to write, and what to expect at the various ages and stages of learning. Once I got it, I thought I might not need to purchase the other levels of the companion student workbooks. However, if you don't have the student workbook, mom has to come up with a lot of the assignments herself. If you want a good overview and understanding of how to teach your child to write, this is a helpful book. If you feel that you already have a good grasp on this and you simply want your child to do the assignments, you could probably do with just the student workbook. In the Instructor Text, Bauer provides the material for the 1st week, then you need to come up with material to draw from for the next 7 weeks (from other literature, history, science books, etc., that the student is reading.) The pattern continues in this way. After purchasing the Instructor Text, I thought I wouldn't need the other student books (since we'll use levels 1-4), but when I really considered if I wanted to spend the time coming up with their material for 7 weeks at a time, In the student workbook, every assignment is provided for you. I decided to go ahead and purchase the student workbooks to save time for me. Plus, I love the material she draws excepts from and I use her ideas to form our reading lists throughout the year.
I love her approach of small, consistent lessons. The children will get a really solid foundation to writing with excellence through this curriculum, using narrations (summarizing a passage of text that was read to them in 2-3 sentences), copywork and dictation. This is NOT a creative writing curriculum, but it will teach the child the elements of writing with excellence, so when they're ready for creative writing, they have a good foundation to build on.

I have been very happy with all of Susan Wise Bauer's books. I appreciate that they are simple to use, yet thorough. I have all of the curriculum that she has published so far - the reading, language, history and now the writing. This book is excellent for teaching writing, although I wish I had known before I bought it that I did not need to buy both this and the workbook. The workbook alone is sufficient. This book would also be sufficient alone, but I prefer to have the workbook pages (that include copywork and space for writing) to simplify my role as teacher whenever I can. This book contains information at the beginning about teaching writing, and then it includes lessons for grades 1-4. Each workbook is for each grade separately, but it also includes a (sometimes more brief) teacher instruction along with workbook pages to copy (or use right in the book). If I had it to do over again, because I prefer to have as few books as possible and have as little prep-work for myself as I can, I would buy just the workbook for each grade level. To make things even easier I took the workbook to an office supply store and had it made into two spiral-bound books - a teacher's manual and a student workbook. This is working out wonderfully!

I already use first language lessons for the well trained mind and I think this is overkill beside this program.