WriteShop is a great writing/composition program for elementary ages. We had the opportunity to review WriteShop Junior: Book E Set, which is recommended for grades 3-6. Most of the products in each of the sets are available in either physical print version or a downloadable e-book version. In our set to review we received the physical Teacher’s Guide, e-book version of the Activity Packet, e-book version of the Junior Writer's Notebook 1: Fun with Story Planning and the physical Time-Saver Pack. Julia (5th grade) and I worked through the different components together, several days a week.
Pricing for the different components of WriteShop Book E
Optional Junior Writer’s Notebook 1: Available only in PDF$3.50
The Teacher’s Guide is a wonderful tool that walks you step by step through the many processes of each lesson. It gives helps for teaching multiple students in different levels, a complete material list for activities and book list for reading, creative storage solutions for a writing center and much more!
The program is made up of 10 lessons:
1. Writing a Fable (Unique Characters and Unique Voice)
2. Writing with Humor (Humor and Dialog)
3. Writing an Adventure (Scene and Setting)
4. Writing Science Fiction (Blending Fiction with Scientific Fact)
5. Writing a Mystery (Using Elements of a Mystery to Write a Story)
6. Concrete Poetry (Creating a Shape Poem)
7. Writing a Personal Narrative (Story about a Personal Experience)
8. Descriptive Narrative (Personal Story Describing Three Items or Events)
9. Writing a Book Report (Responding to Literature)
10. Writing a Nonfiction Report (Collecting Facts)
Each of the 10 lessons is comprised of 8 Activity Sets:
Activity Set 1: Fold-N-Go Grammar and Reading Log
Activity Set 2: Pre-writing and Model & Teach
Activity Set 3: Skill Builder and Journal Writing Practice
Activity Set 4: Brainstorming
Activity Set 5: The Writing Project (first draft), Smaller Steps (suggestions for younger or weaker writers) and Flying Higher (suggestions for more fluent or advanced writers)
Activity Set 6: Editing and Revising the first draft (includes self-editing and parent editing)
Activity Set 7: Publishing the Product (final draft)
Activity Set 8: Evaluating the student's work and optional additional activities
The teacher guide gives a great break down of each of the activity sets and how each of the parts fit together to create a complete, cohesive lesson. I would have to say the Fold-N-Go Grammar was my favorite of the activities. We were able to create something highly functional and applicable to what she both is and will be doing with her English studies. We were able to make 4 of the 10 (one for each lesson) Fold-N-Gos and look forward to completing the entire thing. The 10 Fold-N-Gos cover sentences, parts of speech, paragraphs, compound words, dialog and much more. These are great for younger kids to streamline the learning process and older kids can use them for review.
The student activity pages are exactly that... all the different consumable pages each student will need when completing the program. Since we received the e-book version of the activity pages, I just printed all the pages, hole punched them and put them in a 3-ring binder. Having the material all in one place and ready to go made it easy to move through the program without having to keep coming back to the computer and printing again.
The Time-Saver Pack was definitely an important part in this curriculum for me. It literally saves time, effort and frustration when it comes to prepping for the lessons. It has 20 pages of game pieces, cards and other activities pre-printed on colorful, sturdy cardstock.
The Writer's Notebook is a 23 page PDF download that is chuck full of writing prompts, word banks and lots of other creative stimuli. In general, a writer's notebook is a place to jot down lists and ideas to be used either now or later. Jotting down memories, keeping a log of books read and reviews of those books as well as daily journaling are all ways to use the Writer's Notebook and improve writing skills. It's essentially a vial for all the creative juices as they flow from the student's mind.
My bottom line
This is an amazing and affordable program. Julia and I had so much fun creating a fable and writing an adventure story. She loved the step by step process that happens with each lesson. Being a creature of habit, this set outline is great for her. Walking through the processes from brainstorming to finishing her final product not only gave her confidence that she can create something of her own from beginning to end but also reinforced my rule of "finish what you begin".
I will say that this is a very parent involved program. Even for the independent student, the curriculum is written with the parent being close by in mind. The student often relies on the teacher for the next part of the lesson/activity. The student activity pages do have instructions but they are minimal and almost always require explaining by the parent from the teacher guide. Aside from being teacher-intensive, I really like the program. WriteShop is wonderful at building creativity, confidence and even bonding between the student and teacher and therefore I would highly recommend it.
Thank you WriteShop for this opportunity!
If you are wanting to purchase the entire program together, you can get all four product at a reduced price of $106.95 for the Complete Print Version or $78.50 for the Complete Digital Version.
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