Classical Writing Questions?

[Classicalmomto4]

I am attempting to figure out what I need for my daughter(12) who will be in seventh grade next year.

I am planning on starting her in the Classical Writing for Older Beginners. Do I need the student workbooks?

I want to also use the Poetry for Beginners. Will Book A be the best place to begin, or is it too simple for a seventh grader? How many poems do they memorize?

Did you buy the whole curriculum ready to pick and go--as they list it in the planning section on the classical writing website,with the prepared models and everything?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Beth in Central TX]

I am attempting to figure out what I need for my daughter(12) who will be in seventh grade next year.

I am planning on starting her in the Classical Writing for Older Beginners. Do I need the student workbooks?

I want to also use the Poetry for Beginners. Will Book A be the best place to begin, or is it too simple for a seventh grader? How many poems do they memorize?

Did you buy the whole curriculum ready to pick and go--as they list it in the planning section on the classical writing website,with the prepared models and everything?

Thanks in advance for your help!

If you are comfortable with the program, then you really only need the core book. However, I prefer the workbooks and IGs as I progress through the CW program. These items make the program more accessible in my opinion; if I just had the core book, I would be lost, especially just starting out in the program.

For each level I purchase the core book, the workbooks, and the IGs. The workbooks include the prepared models and map out the work for each week. The IG helps you plan and gives you the answers, which I need.

I think you would need to start in Wkbk A for Poetry for Beginners because each level builds upon the last one. I thought this course was excellent. My 5th & 6th worked through this earlier this year. It was a little more difficult for my 5th grader even though that's level suggested on the website. I think my 6th grader got more out of the program because he's had a little more grammar and a little more literature/poetry experience to help with the rhyming words and imitation. I definitely don't think it would be too simple for a 7th grader. The poems are well selected for the work that is required.

Poetry memorization is not part of the weekly workbook assignments, but the authors do stress poetry memorization in the core book. The 5 canons of classical rhetoric include invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. The CW program focuses on the first three canons. However, the Poetry for Beg Core book has a whole chapter on poetry memorization and recitation that you can do as part of your homeschool.

HTH!

[Suzanne in ABQ]

I just started this program with my 6th grade dd. She finished her R&S6 early, so I'm getting a head start on CW for Older Beginners. We're in the middle of the first lesson. I bought the Student Workbook, the Instructor Guide (for older Beginners), the Aesop Core, and the Homer Core. Actually, I already had the Aesop Core, but hadn't ever implemented it because I couldn't wrap my brain around how "I" was supposed to put this together. Actually, I hadn't been motivated to sit down and do the amount of studying necessary for someone like me to understand the material. :o It took me about 6 hours of hard studying to get a grasp of what to do with the first two lessons. :o It is the first thing I've taught (in seven years) that I couldn't just open the book to the first page and "Go". Anyway, I hope this doesn't scare you off, because after all that studying, I'm more excited than ever to "Go!". :)

The Student Workbook is extremely helpful. Everything is laid out for me, so I don't have to worry about how much (or how little) to expect from my dd each day (that's always my problem teaching a new subject). It helps dd, also, to see what is expected. In addition to the Workbook, she will have three notebooks. Her Copywork and Vocabulary will go in bound Composition notebooks, and her Grammar exercises and Writing Projects will go in a three ring binder. All of this is carefully laid out in the Intro section of the Student Workbook. There are models selected, and printed in a double-space format (for easy marking) for each lesson. Then, there are four days of analysis lessons, and a Writing Project worksheet for each model. The SW also has little gray boxes on each page that tell you (the teacher) where to turn in the Core books for lesson instructions. There are also several appendices and charts in the back of the book that can be copied for ready reference.

The Instructor Guide has helpful introductory information at the beginning, guiding you in what to read in the Core books (you don't read everything in the Cores because you don't DO everything), and how to set everything up. The early lessons only give a copy of the model and a copy of the checklist from the Student Workbook. Further on, though, it shows the diagrams for the much more complicated sentences in the later models. It also contains several appendices (notes about authors of the models, how to use acquired CW skills in other subjects, useful references). It's already been extremely valuable to me, and I can see that it will remain so.

Only the first two lessons in Older Beginner come from Aesop. The rest come from Homer. According to the authors of CW, it is necessary to master the material in the two Aesop lessons before moving on to the Homer exercises. I've spent the last two weeks pouring over the Aesop Core, and I've found it is essential (even though it's only used for two lessons). If you know someone who could lend you their copy of Aesop for a month, you could save some money. But, I see no way to implement the program with out both Core books.

So, long story short: You need both the Aesop and Homer Core books. If you have enough time, and enough experience, you can do without the Student Workbook, but I know I wouldn't be able to do without it. The Instructor Guide has been extremely helpful in the beginning, and it will be very helpful to me toward the end, when models/sentences/assignments get more complicated.

I acquired the Poetry Core book also, but I haven't even opened it yet, so I can't comment on it. Hope the rest of my limited experience helps, though.

Here's to our soon-to-be seventh grade daughters! :cheers2:
Hope you like root beer! ;)
Blessings,
Suzanne

[Jackie in AR]

I am attempting to figure out what I need for my daughter(12) who will be in seventh grade next year.

I am planning on starting her in the Classical Writing for Older Beginners. Do I need the student workbooks?

I want to also use the Poetry for Beginners. Will Book A be the best place to begin, or is it too simple for a seventh grader? How many poems do they memorize?

Did you buy the whole curriculum ready to pick and go--as they list it in the planning section on the classical writing website,with the prepared models and everything?

Thanks in advance for your help!

So far, I've purchased the workbooks for everything we've done in CW. (My oldest dc have worked in Aesop, Homer, some Poetry, and now they've begun Diogenes: Maxim.) I currently have 3 dc working in CW, and it is very convenient to have all the models, etc., already laid out.

For Poetry, you are correct in thinking you should start with Poetry for Beginners. There is a Student Workbook for Older Beginners (recommended for 7th grade and above) which covers the material in 12 weeks. If you choose the workbook route, I would use that workbook instead of going through the separate A and B ones.

You definitely need the Homer Core for CW for Older Beginners. Has you dd had writing instruction in the past? Depending on your comfort level with retelling a short narrative, synonym substitution, and adding dialogue, you might be able to get by without purchasing the Aesop Core.