Write With World - TOS Crew Review

Write With World is a brand new writing curriculum targeting the middle grades, 6-8.  Write With World comes from the Publishers of World Magazine and God's World News.  I have read World Magazine for years, love their journalistic worldview and when I heard they had a writing curriculum I was begging to be chosen to review it! 

Write With World is a 2 year writing program for middle schoolers. The goal of this curriculum is to inspire and train your students to become expert communicators through the written word.  The program is so new that this is the Pilot Program that we have reviewed.  Although, I think it is fabulous already, they will likely make some changes (like adding a Table of Contents) to improve it.

Even though Bear is a high schooler, I wanted to try the program with him for extra writing practice/instruction.  He started at the beginning with Unit 1/Lesson 1 which was about reading images and advertisements.  Each lesson begins with a list of tools your writer will need to complete the lessons.  Unit 1/Lesson 1 required: Writer's Journal (just a spiral notebook for Bear), Dictionary, Thesaurus, a timer, a highlighter and one or more magazines with pictures and advertisements.

Lesson 1 contained five "Capsules."  Capsules are the assignments.  Some days Bear did just one Capsule and other days he did more than one. The student starts by reading the Capsule and within the Capsule, or near the end there are instructions about what to do.  For lesson 1 "The Story Behind the Image" Bear needed to look at a picture of a surfer on a wave, and he needed to come up with questions for the picture and write at least five questions down in his writer's journal.  Capsule 2, "What a Photojournalist Sees" the assignment was was to list likes and dislikes about a photo provided in the Capsule, as well as finding a photograph that had special meaning to the student. Then the student was to describe the picture they chose and explain why it was important to them.  Capsule 3 went back to "The Story Behind the Image" but this time in the writer's journal the student had to do 3 different assignments.  They included things like finding brand names and logos around the house, and being aware of advertisements you encounter throughout the day.  Capsule 4 was "The Message Behind the Advertisement" - students needed to find an advertisement, cut it out and glue it in their journal.  They were to write a two-to-three sentence description of the ad and then needed to answer six questions about the ad.  Capsule 5, the final assignment from Lesson 1 was all about style, diction and revision.

Click to see a SAMPLE LESSON - Lesson 1, which I summarized above.

Bear has no complaints about this curriculum and is thus far enjoying it. I like it because it keeps his interest, and asks many thought provoking questions. The christian worldview is a plus for me.  The price tag is a little high, however, our experience so far is that it is rich, thought provoking and thorough, which makes the price more digestible.

If I have any negatives it is that the Teacher Book is overwhelming at first sight, and that I haven't had to utilize it very much because the student book does a pretty good job of address the student and teaching the concepts.

The full curriculum set for Year One includes: One Teacher Textbook with online access and one student book for $95.  It can be ordered HERE.

To see what other TOS Homeschool Crew members thought of Write With World, you can go HERE.
Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.