Sentence Composing vs. Magic Lens

[Kimberleigh]

Has anyone seen/used Sentence Composing for High School (or any of the others in this series) and Royal Fireworks Press' Magic Lens? I'd been planning to use Magic Lens and Word within the Word this year, but now I've been looking at Sentence Composing, and I'm torn.

If not a comparison, what do those of you who use Sentence Composing like best about it? Have the lessons carried over into your child's writing?

Thanks!

[MaryM]

We worked through Sentence Composing for High School but I never saw any true improvement as a result. It was entertaining to read the various authors' work samples, yes, and there were a couple of "pointers" but overall, I just didn't see the educational value of this product. Just my opinion, however, and ds was already a strong writer when we tried this. The best source I used in high school for writing was Write@Home, frankly. THe opportunity to have individual coaching helped build a good writer into an even stronger one with confidence. That confidence factor was huge!

I am not familiar with the other series you mentioned.

In hindsight, I would say that I seldom found a single book or series that was the "key" to growing a good writer. I think it ultimately depends on doing lots of writing across various disciplines with focused and consistent feedback for improvement. Trail and error lesson learned for me!

Mary

[teacalm]

RFW Magic Lens is not in itself a writing program but more of the grammar component of MCT Lang Arts Program for the middle grades. It does have several writing prompts to practice the lessons covered especially starting the clause lessons. The new edition of Magic Lens corresponds with Word Within A Word by having exercises covered in WWAW I appears in the Magic Lens book to further and constantly reinforce what is covered in both books. The idea is the more you see the same words and used as an example in the Magic Lens, the more the student will remember.

RFP is coming with the Advanced Academic Writing this Sept 2008 (projected date).

I started Magic Lens 1 and Word Within A Word 1 with slowly during the summer with ds. The poetic portion is a bit intense both for me and ds but this also dovetail with the series.

I have Sentence Composing for the Middle Grades and it is more like practice on sentence combining with emphasis on clauses.