Year 1 updates?

[musicmom]

Well, I did it. I've used the print versions and upgraded year 1 to DE. I finally downloaded it today. I know that I read that they were updating the year 1 to make it more user friendly like years 3 and 4 became. Has that been done? Is the version I downloaded today the most up to date version? If not, when will they be done? Will the resources change or can I go ahead and buy the rhetoric resources for next year? Thanks.

Christine

[DanaCinTN]

Hi Christine,
The version you download today is the most current available. However, as you stated, we are working on a Year 1 "Smoothing," which isn't finalized yet; we are working diligently to that end though! The advantage of the Digital Edition (DE) is that you can update it at any time, so feel free to go ahead and purchase it if you'd like so that you can begin your preparations.

Blessings,

[sahm99]

I am in the same situation - wanting to prepare Y1 Rhetoric (& Dialectic & Upper Grammar...) for the upcoming school-year.

When do you expect the update? Will it be significant as far as books used are concerned?
I want to avoid buying books that won't be included in the update...

Also, I plan on printing huge chunks of the DE and want to be sure to then have the most up-to-date version in my hands...

Thank you for sharing some details (even though I am well aware that these can probably only be "best guesses")!

[Pat]

Can I offer some reassurance instead? I don't have DE, but I just went through the Year One materials in the first redesign print edition. They were just fine, nothing to be concerned about using because something better might be coming. We did both R and D which I think are the two levels that will be most impacted by all this.

So let me encourage you to go ahead and begin Tapestry whether or not the smoothing is ready for you.

[Marcia]

YOU DON'T HAVE TO WAIT

For anyone looking at this thread: because the "smoothing" is NOT highly consequential to the use of Year 1, we at Lampstand Press have it on "slow cook" in terms of our priorities for staff time. No one should hesitate to purchase Year 1 as it now is. As many ladies will tell you, moms have been successfully using Y1 for over 5 years as it now is, despite its imperfections. These are mostly noticed by those who have gone the full cycle of year-plans and come back to Year 1 from Year 4 (which is the most "smooth" plan of all, since we learned as we went in the four-year task of writing Redesigned TOG).

We, the authors, are more aware than anyone of TOG's defects, much as YOU might be very aware of your home decor's defects, but a guest in your home would not even notice anything amiss in most cases. We, the authors, want to perfect Year 1 to what we know it can be, but we've chosen the term "smoothing" to express that this is not a major edit.

If you want to start with Year 1, don't hesitate to dive in. If you want to be sure you'll get the updates when they happen, be sure to purchase digital TOG. It's updated at least once a year for free, and we plan to keep it that way.

WHAT WILL CHANGE?

NOT the book list! The book lists (except for OOP books) remain completely unchanged. So buy the books listed in the current Y1 with confidence.

The most significant content changes come in the words we use in discussion questions and teachers' discussion outlines for dialectic and rhetoric students. We're adding more words that help teachers and restructuring many of the questions asked of students to form a tighter connection between the student questions and the discussions, as this was the direction in which the later year-plans we developed morphed.

The focus is not so much to provide answers where there were none included in Year 1 (we do ask moms to look up answers to straight up Bible-based question in the current version, and are smoothing that approach in the updates), but to more closely align the discussion to the questions that we ask, as we ended up doing in later year-plans because it was an easier approach for moms to get their minds around.

WHY WE ANNOUNCED THIS CHANGE LONG AGO

In the past, we have troubled customers by making changes without announcing them far enough in advance that *groups* using TOG together find their versions incompatible. Some moms are then unpleasantly surprised. We wanted that to not happen with Year 1 smoothing. At the same time, because we have a myriad of business and personal priorities that have cropped up ahead of these (less urgent) changes, the smoothing of Y1 has taken longer than we first anticipated. The most that we'll be offering for the upcoming school year is a smoothing of Year 1 Unit 1 DE (as an update/download). We will NOT be offering this in print until the entire year-plan has been edited similarly.

BOTTOM LINE

So, if you're wanting to plan school, go right ahead! All of the books are the same. Units 2-4 will remain unchanged until at least Christmas time. The smoothed update for Year 1 Unit 1 will not be offered until early August, at the earliest, and it may go later. The only caution that I might add in order to save some of you some printing costs is that, especially with co-ops and workbooks, you might want to hold off PRINTING student questions and teacher discussion outlines from DE until the Unit 1 (only) "smoothings" are released or school starts, whichever comes first.

Remember, groups and individuals alike can *very successfully* work from the current Year 1. We authors just want it to become all that it can be!