Write With the Best or Jump In!

I don’t KNOW that it has to be one or the other, but my kids would have protested at TWO writing curricula!  I’ve used both.  Write with the Best didn’t really do much for us.  We liked the selections to read, but at the end no one was really writing any better than they had been.  Jump In is much, much more detailed about breaking down the different steps of writing.  Since my sons really  needed little steps, broken down, it worked much better for us than reading a selection and rather vaguely being told to write like that.  Importantly for us, Jump In even gives steps for figuring out what a student is really interested enough about to write about.  I often had protests with WWTB because they were not interested in writing about what the selection was about, and couldn’t think of something else to write about instead.  Jump In even steps in here and has your child fill out interest surveys that they can draw on to choose writing topics.  Also, we kept the Jump In books, and referred to them in the early stages of essay writing in their English programs–they’d look back and use the same steps.  WWTB wasn’t as useful that way.  The nice thing about WWTB was that it wasn’t consumable and the student Jump In workbook is, but since it has just what we needed, I haven’t minded buying three student books. 

Maybe it’s a gender thing:)  My dd (12) is doing well w/WWTB, also.  We were coming from a cumbersome classical program so this has been a breathe of fresh air! She finally enjoys writing and has had fun w/her writing projects.  I see improvents in the quality of her descriptive writing (we’re still in the beg. phase of Vol. One).  Blessings, Gina