You may be familiar with WORLD magazine ("Today's News/Christian Views"). If you're not, I encourage you to check them out. It's an excellent news magazine. Today, however, I'd like to share with you a brand new writing curriculum the folks at WORLD have introduced: Write with WORLD.
Write with WORLD is a middle school-age (grades 6-8) writing program that seeks to inspire and train students to become excellent communicators who can meet the needed educational requirements while navigating today's media and conflicting worldviews. While my children are not quite in this grade bracket yet, I was excited to try this with my 3rd grade--almost 4th grade--daughter who loves writing. And even though she has done writing assignments within her language arts program we have not used a formal writing curriculum before.
We received the Parent/Teacher book and the Student book for the first year of this program. This is the pilot program, but when September rolls around students will have full online access to Learn with WORLD. The website will offer a helpful teacher forum, writing prompts and even opportunities to be published.
I love the eight distinctives listed in the front of the Parent/Teacher book:
- Students belong to a community of writers and have an audience
- Students see the curriculum as a living, up-to-date conversation
- Students have access to multiple assignments to choose from in many lessons
- Students who learn to read with critical eyes are more likely to become strong writers
- Students will examine models--both strong and weak--to improve their writing
- Students learn style in the context of their own writing
- Students learn to write with a worldview
- Writing teachers need ideas and support
The books we reviewed are a 1-year program, although they are publishing a 2nd year as well. The table of contents for this program is intriguing and shows you even there that this is not going to be more "canned" writing assignments, but genuinely interesting ones to draw in your student. Grammar lessons are also integrated into the lessons, focusing on the top 20 grammar mistakes that college students make (based on research). Advice and commentary from WORLD magazine and God's World News is also throughout the books.
My Princess has really been enjoying the writing lessons so far. This book as brought a different perspective to writing prompts and assignments for her that she likes. I want to feed that love of writing in her and not squelch it with boring papers to write. We've been very pleased and impressed with this program. I love that it teaches a student to think--and think with a worldview.
This program is available for $95 per year or $165 if you purchase both year one and two at the same time. This includes 2 books for each year (4 total) and also online access to their writing community.
I would encourage you to check out their free sample lesson online and find out for yourself how this writing program could work for your student.
Also, head over here to see what other homeschool parents have to say about this program.
Disclaimer: I received year one of this program through The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew and WORLD in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.
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