Wordsmith Apprentice
$17.50
Wordsmith Apprentice
Wordsmith Apprentice is an easy-to-use writing course that helps students develop skills as they practice being a newspaper editor, reporter, and more.
$17.50
Product Code: 045-114
Consumable
In a Curriculum Kit
Multiple Grades
Nonreligious
Awards & Endorsements
Cathy Duffy's 101 Top Picks
Wordsmith Apprentice
This book features all the practicality, humor, and fun of Wordsmith but is written for the younger student, ages 9-12. It's an easy-to-use writing course encouraging students to develop their writing skills as they participate in every role on a newspaper staff: editor, reporter, writer, etc. Children develop a love for writing as they express themselves through sentence and paragraph writing, persuasive writing, and much more.
About the Wordsmith Series
Have you ever felt overwhelmed with the slew of creative writing programs available for homeschoolers? As a curriculum provider, we have seen more writing programs than any sensible parent would ever want to see, and candidly, after a while, they all look pretty much the same. So what stood out about the Wordsmith line?
No Slick Promises
To start with, the engaging exercises and doable assignments are pertinent for reinforcing the systematic process of thinking, organizing, writing, evaluating, and re-writing that is critical to any creative writing program. But ultimately, at the very core of the Wordsmith program is the honest reality presented by the author, Janie B. Cheaney, a regular columnist for World Magazine, that while her books will not always produce an enthusiastic and prolific writer, the Wordsmith series, the actual skills of creative writing can be acquired by anyone. So if you need a language arts program that addresses creative writing in more depth, the Wordsmith series is the most effective, painless approach we have seen.
Wordsmith Apprentice is designed to be self-teaching. However, the lesson plans are worded as though the teacher and student are going over the material together. Use your judgment about how much direct involvement is needed from you. To complete Wordsmith Apprentice in an academic year, complete three to four pages per week, knowing that some pages have multiple writing assignments while others have none. Or use the Timberdoodle Handbook for 6th Grade for suggestions on ways to help your student with lesson plans, feedback, and follow-through.
Writing is a tough subject to teach and, for many students, an even tougher subject to learn. Not every 9-year-old is ready to tackle 3-point essays or 2-page short stories. Pushing students to do so may well be counterproductive. The purpose of Wordsmith Apprentice is to expose youngsters to many kinds of writing in short bites, through the medium of a local newspaper.
True, the newspaper business is changing rapidly and the morning edition or Sunday comics may not be a part of your family routine. But in the little world of Wordsmith Apprentice, our faithful editor is keeping his staff in line and is eager to take on a new cub reporter. The student gets into the spirit by filling out an application (using lots of nouns, both proper and common) then moves on to writing help-wanted ads (action verbs, anyone?), captions using declarative, interrogative and exclamatory sentences, ads with lots of descriptive adjectives, household hints, and much more. Cub reporters even get to contribute to the games and features page! Along the way they’ll learn how to apply the basic parts of speech and sentence structure. They’ll also enjoy the frequent comic-page tutorials from the editor.
View a sample lesson of Wordsmith Apprentice
Download Lesson Plan for Wordsmith Apprentice
Author: Janie B. Cheaney
Publisher: Common Sense Press, 2016
ISBN: 978-1929683543
Faith-Based: No
Awards and Endorsements:
2012 Cathy Duffy's 101 Top Picks
Wordsmith Apprentice was created with two basic purposes in mind:
1) To supplement and apply grammatical principles. Many students learn punctuation, parts of speech, and basic sentence structure as workbook "exercises" but don't necessarily see the relevance to actual writing. Every grammatical principle taught in Wordsmith Apprentice will be applied to several unusual exercises and at least one writing project, reinforcing the idea that there's a reason we learn this stuff!
2) To introduce the student to several types and purposes of writing, in an imaginative way that will create enthusiasm for the subject. The newspaper theme provides a practical, relevant format for exploring the many ways we use the written word.
PART ONE: NOUNS, VERBS AND SENTENCES
Nouns
Principles taught: how to recognize nouns by "noun markers" (articles); the difference between proper and common nouns; the importance of specific nouns over general ones.
Projects: "For sale" ads, cinquain and other types of "form" poetry
Verbs
Principles taught: the difference between action, helping and linking verbs; preferring vivid actions verbs
Projects: "Help wanted" ads, action poetry, writing definitions
Sentence structure
Principles taught: the two basic sentence forms; subject and predicate; compounding; the four sentence types
Projects: picture captions; invitations; letters; newspaper headlines
PART TWO: MODIFIERS
Adjectives and adverbs
Principles taught: how to recognize adjectives and adverbs and how they are used
Projects: games and word puzzles; diamante poems
Prepositions
Principles taught: what prepositions are and how they are used
Projects: expanded picture captions, display ads, real-estate ads, travel writing, book reviews
PART THREE: ORGANIZING AND REPORTING
Paragraphs
Principles taught: recognizing topic sentences and sentences that don't belong; good organization
Projects: recipe writing, household hints, writing synopses for movies and TV shows, organizing a contest
Reporting
Principles taught: the five "W's" (who, what, when, where, why), plus "how"
Projects: fictional and actual news stories
Dialogue
Principles taught: what dialogue is and how it is represented on paper
Projects: comic strips
Introductory sentences and paragraphs
Principles taught: what makes an interesting "hook"
Projects: writing original articles from pictures; interviews
Fact and Opinion
Principles taught: the difference between reporting and opining; steps to writing an opinion piece
Project: editorials
review by My Life on a Taffy Pull
"I’ve reviewed writing material before but I have to whole-heartedly agree with this description, it truly is self-directed. I have reviewed other writing curriculum and hand’s down this is my favorite because of the ease of teaching. It lines up well with my goals to nurture independent learners and I love the enthusiasm that Blue-Raspberry has about the program!"
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review by Pebblekeeper blog
"Jon was able to read through the 'To the Student' portions independently. He was able to complete the assignments without help or clarification questions. One of our goals for writing has been to develop a stronger larger written vocabulary bank for both boys. I am very glad that this is also the focus for the Wordsmith products as well. This is a thumbs up for Petra School!!"
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review by Our Homeschool Reviews
"I knew right away after receiving this book that Funny Bunny would LOVE it...and she does!! She is enjoying this writing curriculum so much that we plan to continue it throughout the year."
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review by Home with Purpose
"The simplicity of design is nice. A variety of fonts and black and white illustrations make it pleasant to look at, and the conversational writing style is clear and direct. It's practical, self-directed, and creative. Wordsmith Apprentice is simple, practical, effective, and affordable...a great combination!"
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review by Weiser Academy
"What Genius! My boys were hooked right from the start. Somehow, Wordsmith Apprentice has enticed them with comics, humor, role play, and suspense, and they look forward to the next assignment. I think this is a great product and I recommend it for homeschool, afterschool, tutoring, and coop writing and acting classes."
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review by Our Village Is a Little Different
"This is mainly a student directed program. Since my boys enjoy it, they are moving through it fairly quickly, but a younger student or a truly reluctant child may require a bit of gentle direction. It is NOT a teacher intensive program at all. There are some notes to the parent in the first pages, but there is no teacher text at all. All of the information the boys need is right in the workbook."
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review by Ben and Me
"Each lesson is presented by a cartoon (and what boy doesn't love that?), with lots of tips and suggestions peppered throughout. Wordsmith Apprentice has inspired Ben to write by making it fun and interesting. He highly recommends it. And so does his mom!"
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review by Home Grown Hearts Academy
"When she started into the book, she would hardly put it down. That was encouraging, especially from the daughter, who does not, and I mean does NOT, like writing. Well I should say, who didn't like writing, because now she has a new found confidence in her writing."
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