April 19, 2006 - IEW or Writing Strands

Writing Strands covers a variety of writing skills.  I have never used it, but most moms say they give it to their children to work independently and turn in their assignment.  For myself, I choose to be more involved in my kids’ writing.  There are some subjects that I can just give to my kids and let them work independently (spelling, grammar, math), but writing is not one of these.  I think kids need regular feedback to improve their writing so I choose a curriculum that involves me in the writing process.  After my kids learned the writing process, I was less involved on a daily basis.  Now, I usually work with my kids once a week to edit their paper.

Institute for Excellence in Writing encourages more involvement of the parent with the student.  You can allow your kids to watch Andrew teaching the different units, but you should be aware that they will get more information than they need.  He is teaching parents and teachers so he gives tips to be better teachers.  IEW approaches writing from a different standpoint.  It uses a source text from which the student will write her assignment.  The student does not need to come up with an idea of what to write about.  The biggest complaint I had as a schoolteacher was my students did not know what to write about.  IEW removes this problem.

Next, IEW teaches writing skills to practice over a time period.  The time period varies according to the age & maturity of the students.  These writing skills are expected to be used in every assignment until mastery is accomplished.  The skills include stylistic techniques such as dress-ups, sentence openers and decorations (advanced dress ups).  Checklists are used to be sure these techniques are included in each paragraph.  When a checklist is complete, the assignment is finished.  This helps the students know when they are finished with an assignment.  After a period of time (years for younger kids, months for older teens), mastery should be accomplished and the student should be allowed to decide which techniques are most appropriate for specific assignments. 

Many moms think this destroys creativity, but I disagree.  My kids have liked having a source text from which to work and then use their creativity to make the assignment “their own”.  Others say the checklist is too rigid and their students’ paragraphs don’t flow.  When first using this curriculum, students’ paragraphs will be awkward.  This is quite normal when learning stylistic techniques.  I like to compare it to learning to play the piano.  Most kids don’t sit down and play Mozart the first time they play the piano.  They learn simple pieces and practice scales (skills) over and over and over.  Practicing stylistic techniques in each paragraph is similar to playing scales.  Just like you wouldn’t play scales for a recital, you won’t turn in an articles to a magazine with every technique in each paragraph.  Students need lots of practice with their skills (scales) and the flow will come as they practice. 

If flow becomes a problem, I suggest mom take up her editing pen and make 1-2 flow changes for your child.  All authors have editors who make changes and there is nothing wrong with a child having his own personal editor, Mom.  Just be careful that you don’t edit the entire assignment.  It is quite depressing for a student to receive an edited assignment with read all over the paper.  Make a couple of changes and allow the student to learn how to develop flow after she has mastered the stylistic techniques.

Another reason I prefer IEW is it gives different structures, or outlines, for different types of writing.  When my kids need to write a story, they follow the narrative outline, but when they need to write an  essay, they follow the research outline.  Andrew has included several different outlines for different types of writing.  It does take awhile to master these outlines so they are natural to use.  It is not something that happens overnight or even within a one year.  But, if you use IEW over a period of years, your child will have several outlines that she can use for writing different types of assignments.

As far as the different tools provided, I always recommend starting with the DVD series, Teaching Writing:  Structure & Style.  This covers the 9 basic units and all the stylistic techniques.  You can use these ideas until your child is in tenth or eleventh grade.  If you want more guidance in planning writing assignments, I recommend Student Writing Intensive, Bible-Based Writing or History-Based Writing Lessons.  All of these products have specific assignments for students to complete.  The SWI is a 4 day student workshop on DVD and includes a writing notebook for the student to use.  The Writing Lessons are books of assignments, based on the Bible or American History.  Both include source texts, checklists and stylistic technique instructions.  The history book has other items, such as vocabulary and student examples.

Feel free to leave a comment about your own experiences with Excellence in Writing.

Kerry

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