IEW's High School Essay Intensive

[titianmom]

Hi all,

 

I have a gal heading into HS who can write (when she wants to...), but is slow as can be. I want to give her more practice in speeding up and writing great essays.

 

What do you recommend? I'm looking at HS Essay Intensive.

 

1. Have you used it and what do you think of it? Worth the money?

 

2. Does it give some prompts for the student to try?

 

3. Can she do it over the summer before HS? IS it useful to keep and reuse thru-out HS?

 

THe above is what I'm looking for in Essay writing (quick, concise, to-the-audience good essay responses...)

 

THanks,

Kim

[titianmom]

I thought it was a great program....

 

Kim

[titianmom]

bump

[Musicmom]

Hi all,

 

I have a gal heading into HS who can write (when she wants to...), but is slow as can be. I want to give her more practice in speeding up and writing great essays.

 

What do you recommend? I'm looking at HS Essay Intensive.

 

1. Have you used it and what do you think of it? Worth the money?

 

2. Does it give some prompts for the student to try?

 

3. Can she do it over the summer before HS? IS it useful to keep and reuse thru-out HS?

 

THe above is what I'm looking for in Essay writing (quick, concise, to-the-audience good essay responses...)

 

THanks,

Kim

 

Hi Kim,

 

I used IEW's HS Essay Intensive for ds at the beginning of his junior year. That was a year and half ago, so I don't remember everything exactly, but I really liked it and thought it was worthwhile--I do think it helped ds with his SAT essay writing and learning to get something down on paper quickly (he's also a slooooowww one :D)

 

Basically it is a seminar that Andrew Pudewa gave to a large group of high school students (regular students who had not gone through the IEW program) on writing the SAT essay and on college application essays--that is the focus of the program. If my memory is right, all along the way he had the students do various practicums on the concepts he had just taught (such as how to outline quickly etc) and ended up with having them do an entire SAT-like essay, time limit and all. As I remember, there was also a list of more prompts for the student to try. You could certainly do it in the summer before HS. I think it only took ds a month or so to go through. The only thing is, for your dd, the summer before HS may be a bit early unless she's going to start taking the SAT in 9th grade (it will be way early for the college application essay portion of the program). Still, it could help with the speed problem, and set the stage for the SAT. You probably would want to go back through it again sometime later in HS too--shortly before she does the SAT for real. After doing this program, my ds then went on with the SAT prep books, rolling in their tips and using those prompts for practice.

 

Given that the focus of the program is SAT and college apps, you may want something else that will deal more with other kinds of writing as well.

 

HTH!

[choirfarm]

I liked it, but I'm not sure it is what you are looking for. We have only done the first half which was all about SAT writing prompt. It was VERY VERY VERY useful for that. He talkes about what they looks for and common mistakes and such. I learned a bunch. It is NOT a writing program for various types of essays to use in your academic classes. It is just about getting the best score on the writing section of the SAT. We did it in two afternoons. Then you would spend several weeks (or months) writing practice essays. We haven't watched the personal essay section for college applications yet because mine are too young.

 

Christine

[mom31257]

:lurk5:

[titianmom]

It sounds like what I'm looking for. She has writing incorporated into CLE's LA that goes step-by-step into the writing process for several types of papers. What I wanted is something that will show her how to get started and get moving.

 

It sounds like you can apply what you learn in Intensive to any type of paper. I esp want her to take prompts from her History lessons and be able to sit down and write a decent essay. For ex, critical thinking questions where they ask a question based on information learned. She runs into many of them during the year.

 

As far as style, we have several writing manuals for her to use in addition to the lessons in her LA.

 

Again, just trying to help her with actually starting a paper after organizing her thoughts quickly. She knows about the diff types of essays, and I've tried to pound into her head how to introduce her paper to catch the intended audience's attention, etc.

 

Does the Intensive go through good intro paragraphs at all? Maybe if she hears it from someone else she'll actually try some ideas. She does every now and then but I'm finding that she just wants to get through the paper and doesn't really care if the intro is interesting or not and I keep handing it back to her to beef up.

 

Kim

[titianmom]

If it's a good tool I plan for her to go thru it again as HS progresses.

 

Kim

[titianmom]

I guess what I'm looking for is what is missing in Homeschooling often. The environment is pretty relaxed and kids have a tendency to take their sweet time to do anything. I have a weekly sched that I enforce, but it's the papers that always end up taking longer than they should because writing isn't her favorite thing unless it's a topic of interest. She'll write her own things in her journals and spend oodles of time on them, but a history paper on a topic she isn't crazy about, forget it. Drag-a-mundo.

 

I've preached to her several times that in a classroom environ, the kids have no choice--get 'er done and on time, or else. I told her about a college essay exam I had at the 100 level, believe it or not. The guy gave us 2 hours and we had to write 7 essays. I thought I was gonna die my hand hurt so much, but it was a good experience and I made it. He was taking the papers from me as I finished my last sentence. Man!

 

She'd never survive something like that and she needs to get the message that she can't take all year to do a paper. So I'm hoping that this Intensive course will help motivate and assist her to get her act together on her assignments and also help her to see that SAT exams and college papers are a reality.

 

Kim

[Jenn in CA]

I guess what I'm looking for is what is missing in Homeschooling often. The environment is pretty relaxed and kids have a tendency to take their sweet time to do anything.

 

All I need to do is say, "You can't play video games until all your assignments are turned in." Presto! Works every time for us.

 

Just last week, ds stared at the computer, whined, tried to get out of his paper for about 4 hours. Wrote one line. Then I said, "Oh, by the way, you can't watch LOST until your paper's done." It was done in about 45 minutes.

 

:-)

[titianmom]

Done that....

 

Our prob is there isn't many threats that she cares about. I totally believe in consequences and practice it. IT's finding consequences that matter to her that's the hard part.

 

:)

 

Kim

 

Usually counseling seasons help, also. :) "Come, let us reason together...." I give her her chance to express, then I tell her about real life, and she decides she has no choice, and it gets done in a timely manner, at least for a few days to a week. Old habits are hard to break, no?

[Cedarmom]

Yes, it helped with the speed part. We practiced it after we were done too. You have ten minutes to write the essay..go! I also just gave him more essays to do and less time to do them in. We had worked hard on editing papers, but like your daughter he needed the balance of just putting it on paper in a set amount of time.

[lovemykids]

This sounds good! :)