INSTITUTE FOR EXCELLENCE IN WRITING
Since one of the components of a high school writing program entails essay writing, I added Institute for Excellence (IEW) writing methods, which had rave reviews from homeschool friends.
Whereas my daughter, a bright but slow-learner, persistently wrote too many inchoherent details, my son, a quick learner and high achiever) had no idea how to start writing.
Andrew Pudewa of IEW, gently and humorously unlocked the key to writing, with an engagine style that invited my reluctant writers to the authorship table.
TEACHING WRITING WITH STRUCTURE AND STYLE
We started with IEW’s foundational program, Teaching Writing with Structure and Style (TWSS).
Slowly learning the essay writing process through nine units of the TWSS, my kids worked through one unit each month.
They even learned to write a Super Essay, about 10 pages typed double-spaced on their computers, which they incorporated into power point speeches during our Becoming History presentation.
Doing this major writing project once a yea, helped them learn how attainable a major writing project can be.
For the next few years they continued to hone their essay writing skills throughout the school year for various writing assignments.
THE ELEGANT ESSAY: BUILDING BLOCKS FOR ANALYTICAL WRITING
When they were in the 10th and 8th grades, we added one of IEW’s newest products, The Elegant Essay: Building Blocks for Analytical Writing in their spring semester.
Although some of the information in The Elegant Essay was review, my kids honed their skills with more specific vocabulary and analysis.
For example, when we discussed the scary three-pronged thesis statement, I told them they had been pretty much doing that all along with the TWSS techniques…but now we were taking a deeper dive.
With lots of charts to help them categorize what they knew with new information, they learned several ways to powerfully develop their paragraphs according to the specific topic they were addressing.
As they studied about more effective transitions, they also learned seven new ways to develop an introduction paragraph.
After covering an entire chapter devoted to the descriptive essay, we dived deeper with the meatier persuasive essay.
While studying the persuasive essay, my kids worked through several examples of attempts at an argumentative thesis statement.
The analysis of each one was quite helpful in thinking through how to write an effective argumentative thesis.
Finally, there is the section on MLA to cite references.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS PRODUCT
Studying this book over the course of our spring semester added another layer to my kids’ development of essay writing.
EPILOGUE 2012
Since then, they’ve been trying to incorporate the steps learned in The Elegant Essay.
The book makes a terrific reference book during essay writing.
