for those that have decided to go the CW route for writing.....

[Johanna]

what do you use for creative writing or letter writing, essays, outlining, basically all the other types of writing besides literature analysis. Is it all included?? Would one need to supplement or is it comprehensive enough to use soley???
thanks

[Wendy in ME]

CW will eventually get to essays formally. For now we practice answering everything in complete sentences and restating part of the question in the answer. We did letter writing and other practical writing as part of our R&S grammar before we started LCC style homeschooling. For outlining ds 11 is using Remedia Outlining and it is part of CW as well. I am definitely not a writing expert but this is what we are doing for 4th and 5th.

[Beth in Central TX]

I do think that CW is enough writing on its own, and like Wendy said, CW will get to essay writing in Diogenes. However, I use R&S grammar along with CW and have my boys do the writing exercises (sometimes as an oral report though) to give them exposure to outlining, book reports, friendly letters, and stories.

[Kathie in VA]

I'm actually seeing lots of creative writing from the CW projects. Sometimes my kids just re-write the model but often times they write their own version by changing the characters. For example the Gingerbread Boy model became the Gingerbread Jedi for my 11yr old ds.

My dd has done some letter writing with R&S Eng 3 and my son has done some with FLL. I also try to get them to do this to keep in touch with friends and family. My dd also emails her friends... but that's a whole 'nother language, itn't it?

Essays will be taught later in CW. However my dd has written some for my dh to explain why she did the bad thing that she did, why it was bad, etc.

Outlining, ug. I've tried to do this via WTM suggestions but it hasn't worked too well here. CW also encourages it but it's hard to get my dd to write an outline for a model that really does have in her head... she just doesn't need it to write her papers so far. My ds does write some outlines for the oral presentations he does in our Co-op. I'm hoping to focus on notetaking skills soon. Perhaps once they see it this direction then maybe it will help. Perhaps I should consider something like Remedia Outlining, I've heard it suggested here before.