Writing ideas for Omnibus?

[MommyThrice]

Just got my Omnibus I & II in the mail and started planning for next year. I realize that this is supposedly 7th-8th grade material and I'm planning to use it with my 9th grader. I love it except for the writing. Where is the writing? There seems to be barely one writing assignment per week in OI, and most of those are very short - a paragraph or two.

Am I missing something?
Any suggestions on how to supplement?

I HATE planning writing assignments! Every week I have lessons plans all organized for all children except for writing... I always wait until the last minute!

[Karenciavo]

Do you see that there are writing assignments and summas which are essays? Are you judging length of essay by the answer key? I used the key as a guide to the type of answer required, but my son wrote longer essays.

[MommyThrice]

Well, I didn't recognize the summa section as essay questions, but it does say they could be oral or written. I could use them, but there are zero instructions to go with them.

The actual writing assignments - about one per week - say to write a short one to two paragraph response. I'm positive my dc will not write any more than what the books asks for. :glare:

He writes decent essays now, but I have to make up assignments every week.

[Kimm in WA]

I think the summas are redundant, as they often just have to restate (in an essay) what was just discussed. Last year we did Omnibus II, except the writing assignments, and used IEW history-based writing lessons for the same time period. I liked it a lot better than Omnibus III w/ Omnibus writing assignments this year.
HTH,
Kimm

[Michelle in MO]

We used Omnibus I and II, and yes, there is plenty of writing. Honestly, though, we discussed most of the Summa questions and avoided the progymnasmata assignments. I really liked Omnibus as a resource, but didn't agree with the way they presented the progymnasmata. The progymnasmata are supposed to be presented methodically and sequentially. I didn't find that Omnibus did; now, perhaps the publishers at VP presumed prior knowledge of how to write the progymnasmata. Whatever the presumption, though, the progymnasmata are not done in any sequential order in the book, and I felt like the explanations were too short.

We used most of the Summa questions for discussion, but for each book we covered with Omnibus, I chose (or sometimes allowed my girls to choose) just one Summa question and write an essay covering that one topic. One writing assignment per book is plenty, in my opinion. I had them develop the question into a full, 5-point essay, and I usually specified the number of words required and the number of pages (usually about 2 pages). Then I either graded their assignments myself or had them submit the assignments to Cindy Marsch of Writing Assessment Services (http://www.writingassessment.com/) for an evaluation. That method worked well for us. :)

[Chris in VA]

Michelle in Mo, thanks so much for that Cindy Marsch recommendation! It was so hard for me to do writing with my high school son--I did him a disservice by not requiring more out of him.

OP, you could look at some of the SparkNotes or CliffsNotes for the books you are reading in Omni and go with a few of those essay questions. The hard part is that you will have to know the answers, as they don't have them like Omnibus does.

I also had my son do a one-two page context page ala WTM for (almost all) the books he read.

[MommyThrice]

I'm going to look at the IEW history writing. I wasn't crazy about the basic IEW. The dress-ups got rather rediculous, but we did use most of the book anyway. It does a good job of explaining organization.

I requested a writing tutor from Patrick Henry College, but haven't heard back from them. I'll email them again. I feel like I really need someone else to be the bad guy when it comes to my sons writing!

I had really planned on using Omibus more for a reference, anyway. I plan to skip several of the books and cover creation through the middle ages this next year, so we can spend more time on modern history when we get there.

Thanks for the suggestions.
Tracie

[Julie in PA]

Omnibus is not meant to be a writing curriculum. I know a lot of homeschoolers use it for that, but I am assuming they have already covered a lot of the writing basics or are taking/teaching composition along with Omni.

[debbiec]

In our 4th year of Omnibus ~ not a writing curriculum...if you need writing (instruction), you need to add it!