Crew Review: Write with the Best v.1

Write with the Best, vol.1 by Jill Dixon, claims to“effectively teaches descriptive writing through modeling techniques of great works of world literature” and does so without any extra fluff. The curriculum is not illustrated and is type-set very simply.

Write with the Best, vol. 1 contains 9 units. Each unit is designed to be completed over 10 days or two weeks, with 1-3 objectives for each day. This breaks down the writing task into small, manageable bites. The lesson topics are:

1. Writing a descriptive paragraph (object)
   • Model: passage from Jules Verne
2. Writing a descriptive paragraph (place)
   • Model: passage from Charles Dickens
3. Writing a descriptive paragraph (person)
   • Model: Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe)
4. Writing a dialogue
   • Model: Kenneth Grahame,The Wind in the Willows
5. Writing a short story
   • Model: O. Henry
6. Writing a fable
   • Model: Aesop
7. Writing a friendly letter
   • Model: Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island
8. Writing poetry, rhyming verse
   • Model: William Wordsworth
9. Writing poetry, a ballad
   • Model: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I attempted to work through some of lesson one with our ten year old. However, I’m afraid we’ve spoiled him! Most, if not all, of our writing is done in the context of our other subjects. He’s learned to write by writing sentences, paragraphs, reports, and essays about our history, science, literature, and Bible topics. Sitting down and writing a descriptive paragraph just because was not a fun exercise for either of us. I will be keeping this on the shelf for now though, because we both could use some practice in writing descriptively.

Because I use fables in my own classes to teach creative story writing, I reviewed lesson 6 on my own. The first 3 days cover reading several fables, underlining in various colors the parts of speech in the included fables, and comparing the various fables read and their characteristics. By days 4-5, the student begins to craft his own fable, working on the characters, setting, and moral lesson. On days 6-7, the student works on the plot line of the fable and any dialogue to include. Finally on day 8, the student is told to write the fable, comparing it to an Aesop’s fable to see how it is similar. Days 9-10 cover proofreading and rewriting. Unfortunately, this process doesn’t address the hardest part of creative writing for the student—coming up with the plot. The author spends the least amount of time discussing this. In my classes, I allow the students to borrow the plot from the fable we just read, changing the characters and setting and adding more description and vivid words.

Pros:

• Focus on use of specific words to convey an image or meaning
• Use of checklists to ensure assignment is understood and expectations are met
• Imitation of classic authors
• Breaks down the tasks of writing into small steps—most of the lessons could be accomplished in less than a 1/2 hour a day.

Cons

• The materials are labeled Grades 3-12. From my experience, I would target grades 5-8 with these materials. When I am teaching beginning writers, I try to use source texts and models that are at or below their reading and knowledge levels, so they aren’t struggling with understanding the text as well as working on the writing skill. These texts would be above the 3rd –5th grade students I am teaching this year.
• Students and teacher materials are mixed, and with only two printings allowed, I have to take the paper copies to be printed, rather than just printing off what I need each week. If one of the benefits of an e-book is its convenience, this one isn’t very convenient.
• They are working to correct this, but much of my printed copy had formatting problems, specifically in missing punctuation and extra spacing. These issues do not show up while viewing it on my laptop. hile I understand these issues, with a writing curriculum this should have been checked. It is akin to leaving out parts of a formula in math.
• Several of the rules or guidelines on the proofreading checklist are imprecise, for example: “All important words (proper nouns) have capital letters.” What happens when student thinks a word is important, but it is not necessarily a proper noun? Also, “The same verb tense is used throughout the paper.” This is another of those grammar rules that is misunderstood. With some papers, you will be mixing verb tense, such as “Historians agree (present) that George Washington preferred (past) farming to leading the county.”
• Parents without a background in English or literature may find themselves struggling with how to explain this to their students if the included instructions aren’t enough.

Will I use this again? Perhaps. The cons, while many, are less significant than the few pros. She has done an excellent job breaking down the steps of writing into manageable steps.

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