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WriteShop: An Incremental Writing Program and WriteShop Primary

WriteShop: An Incremental Writing Program

See the complete reviews in 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum.

WriteShop is a great resource for homeschoolers because it's written for the teacher who knows nothing about teaching writing. It features detailed, daily lesson plans along with student worksheets that cover not only the lessons, but also evaluation and grading.

There are two student volumes: WriteShop I and WriteShop II. The first is recomemnded for grades 7 through 10 and the second for grades 8 through 12. But you might be able to begin the first volume with fifth or sixth graders since it starts with sentence and paragraph structure before tackling lengthier writing projects. A single teacher's manual covers both student volumes.

The program is designed to build in increments, with lessons dependent upon those that came before. So lessons should be taught in order. WriteShop works especially well for parents working with one or more of their own children, but it also works well for group classes. It DOES need to be taught. While students will do lots of writing on their own, this is not designed for independent learning.

"Skill Builder" exercises, built into the lessons, help students to work on particular skills, usually related to grammar or vocabulary. The Skill Builders feed directly into the broader lesson so that they are applying what they are learning.

The first volume covers description and narration, short reports, brief biographies, and news articles. Students use copying and dictation techniques in some of the lessons.

The second volume adds extensive work on essay writing.

The two volumes might take anywhere from one to three years to complete. Older high school students might be able to complete both in one year, while younger students should move at a much slower pace. The average pace would be to complete one volume per year.

While WriteShop is written from a Christian point of view, it's not evident aside from a few biblical references.

For students in grades K-6 see the review of WriteShop Primary and WriteShop Junior.