Are you looking for a middle school writing curriculum? Do you need something flexible, and gentle, yet thorough? Perhaps you have a reluctant writer or a young writer that has trouble putting their thoughts on paper. WriteShop takes the overwhelm out of the writing process. It’s a comprehensive writing curriculum that walks the homeschool parent and their student through the skills needed to find their kiddos writing voice.
*Disclosure: I was compensated for my time in exchange for an honest review of WriteShop I and II Bundle plus the Online Video Course. I was not required to write a positive review. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own. I only choose to share resources that I would use with my own family and those that I believe other families will enjoy and benefit from.
Exceptional Middle School Writing Curriculum
We’ve used other writing curriculums in the past. And while I love their philosophy and lifestyle, my son was needing something more. He needed a writing curriculum with more structure that would help him with the building blocks of writing while developing his writer’s voice.
I, the parent, needed more direction on HOW to TEACH my son to write papers and essays. He needed more than copy work and dictation.
My son is a multi-sensory learner. But most middle school writing curriculum are boring and only focus on pencil and paper. I spent all spring searching for a better alternative. I kept coming back to WriteShop I for its ability to help students to build strong writing foundations while also allowing the student to go at their own pace. Then there are the videos that WriteShop offers. Not the boring and dry videos I’d seen across the internet, but visually stimulating and creative videos that would hold my son’s attention.
I was so happy to get my hands on WriteShop I and II Bundle plus the Online Video Course!
Middle School Writing Curriculum
What is WriteShop? WriteShop I is a writing curriculum that offers detailed step-by-step lessons to help introduce descriptive, expository, narrative, and persuasive compositions and essays. It provides pre-teens and teens with a solid foundation in brainstorming all the way through the final draft stages and builds self-editing skills. It’s also perfect for your older reluctant writers because of its gentle writing approach.
WriteShop was created by a couple of moms whose sons struggled with writing! So, they understand what it’s like to be in the trenches of homeschooling reluctant writers.
These moms found that most writing programs were great about encouraging kids to “get their ideas onto paper,” but they often failed to help parents teach, guide, and evaluate in a simple way.
With WriteShop, you’ll discover lessons that provide:
- Prewriting games to stimulate creativity.
- A way to introduce and help students develop new skills.
- Creative, varied writing exercises with clearly defined expectations.
- Incremental lessons that built upon previously learned material.
- Writing checklists to help students edit their own work.
- A simple evaluation tool to help us grade final drafts objectively
Why I Love WriteShop I Homeschool Writing Curriculum
WriteShop I is perfect for most children ages 12-16 in middle and early high school. The student workbook contains the meat of each lesson written directly to the student.
WriteShop I focuses on stylistic techniques, vocabulary development, active voice, and sentence variation in a fully faith neutral way. Writing skills are taught in shorter writing assignments. I love that students are working on the building blocks of more mature sentences and middle school paragraph writing while teaching me how to be my child’s writing coach. WriteShop literally teaches students how to describe an object, write a sentence, a paragraph, and connect it all together! This lays the foundation for all future compositions, essays, and reports.
Benefits of Using WriteShop I for Middle School Writing Curriculum
The beauty of the program is its adaptability! Whether your child is advanced, reluctant, or struggling with learning difficulties WriteShop can meet your kiddo’s needs. Lessons are parsed out in bite-size chunks. My son loves that each day’s assignments aren’t overwhelming. In addition, most compositions are rarely longer than one paragraph. My son also does well with the multisensory aspects of the lessons, whether it’s a game or a fun prewriting activity. This means that WriteShop is especially good for reluctant writers, special needs writers, and parents who need extra support with teaching writing.
Adapting Writing Lessons to Fit Your Middle Schooler’s Needs
With WriteShop I you can use a 1-week schedule, 2-week schedule, or break it up even further for teens with learning disabilities and create a schedule that fits their needs. That means you can plan for it to take 1 semester to 2 years depending on the way you do it. It’s all about doing what works best for your individual kid.
You can go as slowly as you need to, and the assignments are not long, lengthy papers, but focused on building strong paragraphs. New skills are introduced slowly, so I don’t have to worry about my son having to master everything at once.
WriteShop Online Video Course
WriteShop also offers an online video course for their WriteShop I & II curriculum.
Play With Education provides this additional support for writers and their parents with the platform for these videos.
WriteShop Online Videos Take One Thing Off Moms Plate
Each 10- to 15-minute video introduces students to the key points of WriteShop’s lesson in a clear and easy-to-understand way.
The WriteShop online video segments cover all the teaching points of each lesson. The videos cover it so fully that I was able to hand the bulk of the teaching over to the videos. I didn’t have to add anything. Though I still watched the videos with my son initially. I also helped my son with his paper, but the beauty of the videos was that I didn’t have to teach the lesson. The videos do this for me!
The video course works beautifully alongside the Teachers Manual. I highly recommend adding the video course as part of your WriteShop I writing curriculum.
WriteShop Middle School Writing Curriculum Resources
WriteShop I does have some grammar mingled into it but it is not enough to be considered a full credit. Because my son does so well with a multi-sensory approach, we paired Winston Grammar program with WriteShop 1.
WriteShop offers homeschool writing curriculum for all grades from K to 12. The Placement Quiz will help you find the best fit.
You can learn more about WriteShop’s Scope and Sequence as well as see Sample Lessons here. Subscribe to WriteShop and get instant access to your FREE gift! WriteShop offers so many wonderful resources to help you help your child succeed in writing.
WriteShop Homeschool Writing Curriculum
If you’re looking for a most cost-effective alternative to the hard copy curriculum, don’t want to deal with hefty postage costs, or long shipping delays then be sure to check out the E-book Digital version to all of WriteShop’s curriculum.
You can browse the Digital Bundles here.
WriteShop includes everything you need for a successful year of writing for your homeschool. We’ve been using it for several months and I already see a HUGE difference in my son’s approach to writing. He’s becoming more independent and self-motivated while getting his brilliant words and phrases out onto paper! I’m so pleased with the growth we’ve both experienced on this writing journey.
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