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Post by Kim on Jun 1, 2009 19:20:44 GMT -5
I am trying to decide whether CW is going to work for me. I will be teaching my ds-11 Aesop B and dd-8 Aesop A next fall. Somewhere I read (I think) that the teacher is expected to mark up their own copies to compare with students work. Is this true? I am not a strong writer and will be learning with my children. Even though I earned all A's in highschool/college many moons ago, I don't know how to "teach" writing. Are there examples in the teacher's guide to help me with this? Is CW going to hold my hand enough? I really really really want to make CW work. I'm just not sure if I am capable of teaching it.
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Post by Renee on Jun 1, 2009 20:09:19 GMT -5
Hi Kim, No answers here, sorry. I just wanted to let you know that I am exactly where you are. I really want to make it work too, but not quite sure if I am capable of it. It seems to be for more "educated" people. I've got to make a decision here soon though. Good luck!  |
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Post by greengables on Jun 1, 2009 23:31:57 GMT -5
Kim, I understand exactly how you feel. I've had to learn so many things in teaching my own children, and it can seem overwhelming.
First, though, let me reassure you that the whole reason we include copies for you to mark up is because we realize you are learning along with your student, and not because we expect you to know everything! It is to give you a chance to work through things along with or just before your student does. The materials include editing checklists, answer keys, and other helps wherever we feel you might need it.
I can say from personal experience that my own children have benefited greatly from seeing me strive to learn new things - seeing me engaged in being a lifelong learner. Learning along with your child is a joy!
And yes, you can do this! We offer many helps in our books, we offer assistance here on our message boards, and we are now offering live tutorials for middle school and up.
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Post by Lene Mahler Jaqua on Jun 2, 2009 12:43:48 GMT -5
Kim,
You are looking at Aesop A and B, simple narratives with a bit of grammar added.
Our instructor's guides are for the teacher and the student has a workbook. You sit with a simple fable and circle nouns and verbs and other simple grammatical concepts with your students in a non-threatening setting where you're just quietly reading through the story as a group.
It is not very difficult at this level, I can assure you. We provide guiding questions for figuring out which is a noun and which is a verb, and the answers are given in a list in the instructor's guide.
I have yet to meet a mom that sent CW Aesop back because the grammar was too difficult or because she could not mark up the text with her students. Nor have I met one who sent it back because she could not teach the simple writing concepts in Aesop.
Those who decide not to use our books with the instructor's guides and workbooks generally find the early levels very easy to use, after reading the introductions to those books.
You are worried about buying this and not having it work for you. That is understandable, and not every curriculum is for everyone. This is a concern, but I doubt that marking the model in your own book is going to make it or break it for you.
Some moms do think that CW is the most rigorous curriculum out there for writing but end up not using it because they cannot commit to the time it takes. You would do well to decide how much time you have for language arts and whether this will work for you in terms of time commitment with the ages and students you have. THAT tends to be the bigger issue for moms who want to do CW but who have several kids in several different books, not the actual implementation of the program.
The other issue that some moms struggle with is that this is not a program you just "throw" at the kids. You need to teach this, it is not self-teaching, so be sure you're not expecting your kids to read and understand on their own.
Lene
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