Write Source Skills Book: Editing and Proofreading Practice

My eighth grade son is enrolled in The Potter's School this year for several homeschool classes (online rigorous middle and high school level correspondance/conferencing courses) and his English I class uses The Write Source 2000 as a grammar text and writing reference. As a former eighth grade English teacher, I used an earlier edition of this book 13 years ago in public schools. It is a FABULOUS resource for grammar review and any adventures in expository writing. The instructions are clear and the examples are excellent. It is an engaging text with lots of colorful and amusing illustrations. In my opinion, it is a must have composition and grammar handbook for any student. It covers the writing process, gives specific guidelines and models for the following forms of the standard five paragraph essay: descriptive, narrative, expository, and persuasive. It also covers response to literature, creative writing and does a thorough job of tackling research writing. Other topics include speaking to learn, writing to learn (eg. note taking, journal writing...)and other basic elements of writing: basic grammar, sentence and paragraph structure. Finally, a section called "A Writer's Resource" covers concepts like word choice, "voice" and presentation and a section called "Proofreader's Guide" references punctuation, mechanics, spelling and so on. This text can serve as a grammar and composition course and will also provide an excellent reference for years.

I bought this book to prepare for a writing workshop that I was giving for a group of homeschooled third to fifth graders. I had seen the third grade version and was very impressed with it. It was also interesting to see that my fourth grade student who does not enjoy writing could be seen peeking at pages in the book and then actually picked it up and started to read it!

I find Write Source to be an excellent resource for teaching the fundamentals of writing. It goes through the writing process - Prewriting (Outlining), Writing, Revising, Editing (Proofreading) and Publishing and also shows the student how to properly organize their writing and how to make his/her writing interesting for the reader. It goes through the traits - ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency and conventions. The book also has rubrics to help the student (and teacher) judge the writing.

The only complaint I have has nothing to do with the book, but with Great Source, the company. They have a software program that looks like it would be great for having an independent eye to look at your student's writing; the software is not licensed for homeschoolers and the lady I spoke with seemed to have an axe to grind with the fact that I am a homeschooling mom. If I hadn't already seen the quality of the book from another homeschooling mom, I would not have bought it. I was happy I was able to buy it from Amazon and not have to have any more dealing with the company.

If you're looking for a writing resource that you and your student(s) will enjoy using, try this - I'm sure you won't be disappointed.