Captain Science just started a new writing program and I feel so relieved. We’ve both been struggling with his previous writing curriculum from the Institute for Excellence in Writing (which I think could be called The Institute for Tedium in Writing, personally). The Captain has struggled with the size of the assignments, which aren’t broken down into manageable chunks, and the content of the assignments. Reading a one-paragraph essay, taking notes, and then writing a one-paragraph essay isn’t exactly a wellspring for creativity. I’ve struggled with the insidious Bible literalism I’ve found in the example writing and vocabulary. When the example sentence for “validate” was “Science and archaeology validate the Bible,” I knew we couldn’t continue with this curriculum.
We got a copy of Writing Strands 3. It’s simple and to the point. It’s secular. It doesn’t have a “banned words” list. It’s not going to turn Captain Science into Shakespeare, but frankly, nothing can do that. We’re going to work through it at a slightly faster pace than recommended, doubling up lessons some days, because I don’t think we need to take it quite so easy with writing.
I don’t want the Captain to hate writing. I don’t want to feel like each day of writing requires me to swallow my concerns about the curriculum. I hope this new one is going to be a better fit for us.
