For years my children struggled with their writing skills. DD couldn’t write cohesively and ds was overly verbose (think Anne of Green Gables). Their writing did not make sense. Despite my efforts, we seemed to hit a wall. However I picked up writing skills naturally. My teachers had always praised my writing, encouraged me to enter writing contests, and usually gave me A’s.   I took some wonderful intensive writing workshops over the summer when I was a public school teacher. After this workshop, my favorite class to teach was writing. One year, a student teacher came to observe my 5^th grade writing class, at the beginning of the school year, and we had a fire drill. Afterwards she told me she was amazed at how smoothly everything went from the one on one tutoring my students did with me, while a few helped each other, while everyone worked industriously…all the way to calmly lining up single file and proceeding out of the building. Actually, I was amazed too! That was the best 5^th grade class I ever had. All of my students, from strong to weak, except for those with intense special needs, improved their writing skills. All passed the statewide exam, even the terrifying writing portion! Then I started homeschooling my children, but we weren’t getting anywhere! I was obviously having difficulty taking what I knew about writing and translating that into a way that made sense to my dc.

I prayed to God, desperate for guidance. A few years ago when I started learning about classical education and TOG and Apologia and Latin, I also learned about IEW. Wow! This program sounded incredible! And it is!

IEW has been hailed by moms with special needs children who struggle and can’t figure out how to get started. In addition, moms of quick learners have raved about how IEW helps their children to fly with fine tuning their writing skills, knowing exactly how to tackle any assignment with precision and skill. The beauty of the program is that it teaches structure. Elements that have proven successful to writers for years have been encapsulated into structural models. The entire spectrum of variety of every imaginable type of paragraph in the world (essay of argumentation, mystery writing, essay of experience, essay of definition, story based on memory, problem/solution essay, etc) has been streamlined into the basic parts. Also, all the paragraph structures are put in one of two groups: creative or expository. Suddenly, the overwhelming conglomeration of all the possible paragraph structures made sense to me.

While teaching structure, style is added in bits and pieces. Beginning writing styles emerge into life. I have heard many critics say that all IEW student writing sounds the same or that IEW students sound like Andrew Pudewa. I disagree. I have many of Andrew’s papers and not one of my dc’s papers sound like his. Also, I can give each of my dc the same assignment. By the time they are done assimilating the facts they deem most important and add their unique style, I have 2 completely different papers on my desk. If they forgot to put their names on the papers, I would know who wrote which one!  Their individual styles are unique and obvious!  My MIL has raved over their writing, impressed at how much they’ve learned in comparison to most papers she has seen over the years of other students. She has seen quality that counts. Personally, I have seen the writing of many IEW students who have won writing contests. Each of the papers clearly held the unique style of the writer and had worthy honor to be awarded. I hear testimony all the time about students who complete IEW and go on to college and impress their professors with excellent papers. In fact, while reading books (written before IEW was published), I love to find dress ups and structure and share them with my children. I want my dc to be aware of what good writers do.

IEW effectively summarizes the best of what good writers do and organizes it so children know what to do and when to do it. That’s the structure part. Then they add their own personal style, which they can manipulate over the homeschool years, until they find their voice by the time they graduate. This is the Classical Model of Education. This is the process of moving from grammar through dialectic to rhetorical skills needed in our world. This is the means by which powerful speakers like Patrick Henry and influential writers like Thomas Jefferson impacted a nation.

Perhaps beginning papers are extremely similar (as critiques argue), because the students are merely beginning to learn how to use all the tools of style and structure. Isn’t this true of any program? Most first grade papers sound quite similar, no matter whose program is being taught. In fact, I’ve heard moms say that IEW is only for one paragraph papers and it can’t be used for serious high school writing. On the contrary, if a student continues with IEW through high school, while honing the craft, more and more of their unique style will be evident while learning to communicate in effective and powerful language. This is where I plan to take my own dc. They have been using IEW for 2 years now. They no longer bat an eyelash when I assign a term paper. They have already each written a super essay on the formation of the Thirteen Colonies this year, which was basically three 5 paragraph term papers put into one, using a major thread of argument to tie everything together, using transitional sentences. I never learned how to do that until IEW!

I am further encouraged that one of the IEW yahoo moderators has a masters degree in English and taught at Vanderbilt University. She has also taught high school and used to be a professional editor. She is now a homeschool mom, using IEW and teaches IEW at a co-op. Our yahoo group has been immensely blessed by her sharing her wealth of knowledge in everything from tricky grammar questions to structuring deep literary analysis and super essays for high school and college. In addition she helps streamline the concepts for young beginning writers. All of the IEW moderators have been extremely helpful in these ways. All are homeschoolers. Many of them teach IEW to all age ranges in co-ops. They are always willing to share their expertise for those of us who need some help.

The core of the program, which I purchased, is the TWSS: Teaching Writing Structure and Style. This is a notebook that comes with DVDs of Andrew Pudewa taking a group of teachers step by step through the writing program. Wow! Everything fell into place. Instead of dumping an entire writing program on a child, IEW builds skills and confidence step by step through a highly logical and successful process. Children who used to protest over writing assignments have been known to proceed without a quiver with IEW. Many even come to love it!

There are 9 units. In our first year using IEW, I taught one unit for each month of the school year. In the first month, my dc learned how to start! Then over the next few units they learned to write a good solid paragraph. By the end of the year, they were able to write a 5 paragraph essay, research report and literary analysis. They had also learned to write story summaries using plot structure and how to fearlessly create their own. They learned to write creatively from pictures and from the brain. We wanted to write a play for our Y1U3 celebration on Ancient Greece, using Aesop’s fable the Tortoise and the Hare. Where to start? I asked my IEW yahoo group and the moderator directed me to story structure in Unit 3. Well of course. That made perfect sense! My dc were ages 13 and 11 when we finished our first year of IEW. This gain is appropriate for their age level. Younger students might not get to the 5 paragraph essay until upper grammar or middle school years. The TWSS notebook gives guidelines on how to use each unit with each grade level. It is a wonderful investment for all ages for the entire family!

Another thing I like about IEW is that we can use it to write about the things we are already learning. Time is precious. Why write about yet another subject when we are already spending time in history, literature and science? My dc use IEW to write their science labs, to write about something they are currently learning in TOG, to do an Awana writing assignment or enter a writing contest. Before IEW, we labored over simple Awana assignments just to get them to make sense. Now that my dc have IEW basics under their belts, they sneak in Awana writing projects behind my back! I don’t even find out about it until the night they come home from Awanas and tell me what they got passed on! Then they show me their papers that make sense. DD is starting the high school level of the Awanas program next year. She’ll have 4 years to work on her Citation Award. She’ll need to read the entire Bible and write a summary of each book. Before IEW, this would have sounded like a daunting task. Now that she has IEW skills, she’s prepared to conquer!

After our first year of IEW, my dc had learned all the units and all the styles of writing for creative and expository writing. However, they were not yet strong in knowing which model to apply to each writing assignment they received. Therefore, we built our own writing notebooks.

The IEW yahoo support group has wonderful files. I have downloaded many of them, making 3 of each. Then I laid the copies out in categories that made sense to me. Basically, there is one for each IEW unit, one for each dress up, checklists and rubrics and extra categories that were helpful to me. Then I got enough dividers for each category and labeled them. I had my children make the same dividers. Now when they get a writing assignment, we talk about which IEW writing model best fits the assignment. Then we turn to that model to remind them of how to structure the paper. Then they outline (KWO) their research or thoughts. Then they write their rough draft. After that they type their paper into the computer. (Using the computer has revolutionized our writing time!) At any time they need to be reminded of how to do a dress up or style requirement, they can reference their notebook. They e-mail their papers to me, I print them out, and go over it with them. We edit together and they make changes towards a nice final copy. We usually do a paper a week. Major projects like term papers or super essays I allow extra weeks.

IEW continues to supply my students with wonderful resources beyond the basics of the TWSS. I have numerous other wonderful resources I will share later. As far as building the writing notebook, anytime I get more in depth ideas from my yahoo group, I print it out and use it to teach additional skills to my dc. This is a section on literary analysis, which expands unit 9 on critiques to a deeper level.

My dc continually build their notebook with applicable resources, producing a wonderful resource for a lifetime of successful writing.