Lightening Literature *plus* a writing curriculum???

[Janice Lyn]

Hello Ladies,

I have reviewed Lightening Literature for grade 7 a bit. It looks very good to me, but I see there are writing assignments as well. Is it overkill to also be planning IEW-B or Jump In for grade 7 along with LL?

I'd love any opinions.........

Much appreciated!
Janice

[BritAnnia]

LL7 has writing exercises that reinforce the literary concept of the chapter but it doesn't really offer writing instruction.
My ds is using LL7 along with Jump In. I think any writing program you're comfortable with would work well. The way LL7 is set out there are many weeks with little to no writing at all, perfect for scheduling a chapter or two of Jump In :)

HTH

[Laura Corin]

It depends what you need. If you are comfortable with teaching writing incrementally yourself, then LL7 is fine. If you need more detailed instruction, then you'll need a separate programme.

FWIW I'm using LL7 with English Prep 2 (general English programme, no writing instruction). I think that doing the two together will take about 1 1/2 years, then we'll do English Prep 3 and LL8 over 1 1/2 years.

Best wishes

Laura

[WagsWife]

We are just about ready to finish up IEW SWI-B. DD has only done a couple of the writing assignments for LL, but so far (and from what I can tell looking forward through the year) the lessons are very easy to adapt to the IEW style. LL does not assign writing assignments every week. In fact, the student may go weeks without one, while they are reading the book selection. This gives plenty of time to work on whatever writing curriculum you choose. I plan on assigning her lessons of my own, to keep her IEW skills up, the weeks LL does not schedule them.

[Lori D.]

We did LL7 last year AND a separate writing program AND separate grammar AND additional solo reading, and it all worked together well time-wise.

There are only 8 lengthy writing assignments in LL7 (one at the end of each of the 8 units). When we reached the end of a unit, I would either set aside the other writing program for the week and focus on the LL7 writing -- or, we skipped 2 of the end-of-the-unit writing assignments from LL7.

We were able to do the worksheet pages without any problem. Most take 10-20 minutes. A few that were longer, we spread out over several days. We also scheduled the worksheets a little differently than the Teacher Guide -- we did 1 a day, 3x a week *while* we were reading the literary work (after we had read through the teaching text for that unit). Worked well here!

Enjoy! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[Sixmeadows]

He works on Wordsmith when LL does not have a writing assignment scheduled, and it is working out fine.

Cheri

[HollyDay]

I am *planning* on LL 7 next year along with CW HomerB. We will finish Homer A this year. I have LL already and it looks wonderful, but I still want more writing.

[Janice Lyn]

Thank you all so much, ladies. I knew I came to the right place for this question. I'm really excited about LL. Now, I am off to see what else I can sell to help fund all these new ideas for next year!:o

Janice