Lucy Calkins Writing Curriculum

[Anonymous]

With attentive parents and money for tutors as needed, my guess is most kids muddle through. However, if a child doesn't have those things, or they have any type of learning difference, writing can be really hard.

The Writing Revolution is a great book, but can be overwhelming to implement if you are not homeschooling. There are also just tons of writing workbooks. Evan-Moor has one of Sentences and Paragraphs and also just Paragraphs. If you also need grammar instruction, Essentials in Writing is an easy to use homeschool curriculum. The lessons are short so if you dedicated yourself in the summer and doubled up you could probably get through much of it. https://essentialsinwriting.com/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hochman method is better.

+1 OP for more info, read The Writing Revolution by Hochman and Wexler, The Writing Rope by Joan Sedita, and anything from William van Cleave. These authors take an explicit and systematic approach to writing. Lucy's writer's workshop, like her reading program, is based on the adult writer's workshop model rather than on sound pedagogy from good evidence and research.

[Anonymous]

I have heard that while her reading theories are wrong, the writing curriculum has been found to be helpful.

I wonder if unlike reading, different students do better with different writing curricula. It seems like there are a lot of different writing curricula that would work well.

But the main problem with writing instruction IMO is that students don’t get enough practice and feedback. I became a good writer because I had a great high school teacher who assigned some sort of writing assignment each week and ripped each assignment to shreds. I think that steady writing with in-depth feedback is more important than anything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We asked our DC’s teacher why his mistakes were not being corrected (on DC’s writing samples that came home). We were told she is not ALLOWED o correct mistakes because Writers Workshop method is about thinking great thoughts. We then were encouraged, in a much softer voice so others would not hear, o correct them at home so our DC could learn the proper spelling and grammar.

Sigh. And this Writers Workshop is in lower elementary for probably 8 of the top 10 privtes in Metro DC, as well as in many public schools.

That’s so depressing to read. And explains why my employer has a hard time finding writers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have heard that while her reading theories are wrong, the writing curriculum has been found to be helpful.

I wonder if unlike reading, different students do better with different writing curricula. It seems like there are a lot of different writing curricula that would work well.

But the main problem with writing instruction IMO is that students don’t get enough practice and feedback. I became a good writer because I had a great high school teacher who assigned some sort of writing assignment each week and ripped each assignment to shreds. I think that steady writing with in-depth feedback is more important than anything else.

If teachers aren’t allowed to correct spelling or grammar, there’s not enough feedback being given to improve their skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hochman method is better.

+1 OP for more info, read The Writing Revolution by Hochman and Wexler, The Writing Rope by Joan Sedita, and anything from William van Cleave. These authors take an explicit and systematic approach to writing. Lucy's writer's workshop, like her reading program, is based on the adult writer's workshop model rather than on sound pedagogy from good evidence and research.

The methodology of the writing revolution really appealed to me, but for my son it didn’t seem to work that well when I did it in homeschool. My SIL who also homeschooled found a different curriculum much better (I forget the name of it).

It seems to me like with reading, there is a consensus among neuroscientists that there really is a best way to teach it: decoding with specific instruction and comprehension with scaffolded background knowledge. I am not sure learning writing composition is the same. It’s possible that different things will work for different students, and that different teachers will do a better job with different methods, which in turn will lead to better student outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard that while her reading theories are wrong, the writing curriculum has been found to be helpful.

I wonder if unlike reading, different students do better with different writing curricula. It seems like there are a lot of different writing curricula that would work well.

But the main problem with writing instruction IMO is that students don’t get enough practice and feedback. I became a good writer because I had a great high school teacher who assigned some sort of writing assignment each week and ripped each assignment to shreds. I think that steady writing with in-depth feedback is more important than anything else.

If teachers aren’t allowed to correct spelling or grammar, there’s not enough feedback being given to improve their skills.

Does Lucy Calkins not allow for correcting spelling or grammar? I’m sorry I guess I missed that. The teacher I’m talking about did correct spelling and grammar.

[Anonymous]

Honestly a lot of teachers don't have good enough grammar to really teach writing. Even if they write well enough, they don't know the terminology and the rules--they just were lucky enough to absorb stuff from what they read.

[Anonymous]

I don't mind her writing curriculum as much for the lower ES levels if paired with a proper reading curriculum. I will say that my kids' teachers did correct grammar and punctuation and even spelling... just not spelling that was phonetically correct/correct-ish. I didn't mind that as my oldest was a perfectionist who really did get bogged down in tiny errors if she concentrated on those too much.

[Anonymous]

Sorry to pile on, but our elementary school used this system and now middle school is trying to reteach writing to most of the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She should be banned from the field of education and forced to pay back every school district she fleeced (and the families of all the kids who needed private reading tutoring). She is a fraud and has damaged a generation (or two) of kids.

+1

[Anonymous]

Our neighbor says that at their top private, Lower School used Calkins’ Writers Workshop in Lower School. LS teachers were told not to correct grammar or spelling, per the Writers Workshop teacher’s guides, so little kids could be creative and love to write.

Now that their kids are in Middle School (at the same private), the teachers are scrambling to undo all the bad habits in grammar & spelling taught by using Calkins WW in the previous grades.

It seems silly to teach bad habits in LS and make the MS faculty repair avoidable damage. Checking websites, it seems many “top” privates are doing this sequence, not just our neighbor’s school.

It would sure be nice if people with connections to private school board members would inform those boards about all the Calkins-created issues - with reading, writing, spelling, and grammar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our neighbor says that at their top private, Lower School used Calkins’ Writers Workshop in Lower School. LS teachers were told not to correct grammar or spelling, per the Writers Workshop teacher’s guides, so little kids could be creative and love to write.

Now that their kids are in Middle School (at the same private), the teachers are scrambling to undo all the bad habits in grammar & spelling taught by using Calkins WW in the previous grades.

It seems silly to teach bad habits in LS and make the MS faculty repair avoidable damage. Checking websites, it seems many “top” privates are doing this sequence, not just our neighbor’s school.

It would sure be nice if people with connections to private school board members would inform those boards about all the Calkins-created issues - with reading, writing, spelling, and grammar.

Yeah, a lot of people don’t understand that really understanding grammar unlocks a lot of creative options in writing. It’s not just “rote” busy work we were made to do for good reason. I found it really helpful to learn basic things like antecedent, appositive, subordinating clause, etc. Understanding those gives you more options for writing strong sentences, which are the building blocks of writing composition.