Anyone NOT like IEW? Or why do you like it?

[Guest]

Why not? Just curious as so many rave about it.

Edited April 8, 2010 by Guest

[sportymom]

I like IEW for a couple of reasons. First, I am not a writer nor do I remember anything I was taught about writing in school (except for those silly notecards for my high school research paper), and I feel like IEW really helps walk me through--from a beginning level--how to teach my children. I may be in the minority, but I like the dress-ups, I like the checklists. And that is the reason why my oldest is doing well with IEW. He thrives in knowing exactly what is expected of him, and IEW's checklists, etc, do just that.

[angela&4boys]

I have mixed feelings about it. Our 12yo ds used SWI A. While I believe he acquired some good, basic skills with SWI (like "key words" and "strong verbs" etc...), we both found it tedious. He then went on to a theme-based book, but that felt even more tedious to him and he felt a bit stifled.

 

I'm presently in the process of choosing next year's studies. I showed him the options for writing, one of which included a history theme-based book form IEW, without hesitation he opted for the other. My boys are writing phobic as it is, so as long as he's writing. ;)

 

All that being said, I would consider it for his two younger dbs if I thought it suited their learning style.

[MomOfOneFunOne]

We are definately not IEW people, I guess. To me it makes really good sense. When I listen to Pudewa, I just get it and feel as if he's talking specifically about my daughter when he talkes about different writers. Also, I think it's dead on for college writing in terms of collecting information, key words and then writing in one's own words. but . . .

 

We hated it.

 

For myself, I hated most of her paragraphs. They were great paragraphs, please do not doubt. They had cool vocabulary words and fancy dress ups but my daughter hated writing them and not one single paragraph or paper contained the essence, voice of my own quirky kid.

 

Trying to get my daughter to write a paragraph was just agonizing. Almost every paper was sprinkled with tears and the angst . . . ! She hated doing it.

 

I came here looking for different writing curricula and now we use Brave Writer/Writer's Jungle. We love it. While IEW makes sense in many ways, it doesn't in any way reflect the way I write and evidentally, it isn't the way for my daughter either. Writer's Jungle is the way for us.

 

We are now the very happy and proud owners of a book that if we'd had it then, it probably would have delayed our jumping the IEW ship. One of our great frustrations was choosing good vocabulary words: strong verbs and quality adjs. We've purchased thesaurus after thesaurus (including the something thesaurus for the extraordinarily literate) and still agonized over choosing words. In most cases the thesaurus doesn't fully explain the words or even explain them at all. So, often my daughter would just choose a cool word and it wouldn't really fit. It would be close, but just shy of quite right. Now we have a great book that lists words and their synonyms but for each syn, the author gives a brief, really concise but elucidating usage explanations. So, when my daughter goes to find a syn/ant, she can read the little dissertations and choose just the right word. It was published in the 40s, though, so many modern/technological words are not there but all the really good ones are. If we'd had that, it probably would have helped us hang on a while longer b/c at least one frustration would have been alleviated but in the end, we still would have switched programs. I love my daughter's writing now. It's full of her interests and thoughts and I read her voice in her writing and love it, love it, love it.

 

So, you have at least one person who just didn't care for IEW.

[butterfly113]

May I ask what the 'other' option was that you went with for writing???

 

Thanks

[angela&4boys]

May I ask what the 'other' option was that you went with for writing???

 

Thanks

 

Sure. It was Jump In from Apologia. :)

[Momma H]

I am not sure I want to admit this but I think I spent the whole year doing IEW wrong.:001_huh: I have been following the cd's to SWI-B and opening the book and pulling out the assignments as they came up and now at the end of the year there is A LOT in there that we did not do. I think I was supposed to look more closely at the book and not focus on what he does on the cd or something. I feel like such a bonehead! I also feel like I blew writing this year. I can't say it really worked great for us. My kids did not really enjoy writing and I didn't enjoy thier writing either. I do feel like we got some good ideas from it for the future but I need to find a good writing program that is a little....different. Can anyone tell me? Did I do it wrong?

Stacey

[Rachel in KY]

We started out with Classical Writing. As we progressed in that program we got more and more bogged down, and writing fell by the wayside. IEW is a lot like CW, but more accessible for us. My ds is a very good writer, and includes "dress-ups" on his own. I've told him I don't expect him to exactly follow the IEW "dress-up" checklist. I don't feel it's necessary to have a "because" phrase in every paragraph, for example.

 

DS and I are a lot happier with writing, but I've wondered if there's something else that would fit him better since he's a natural writer.

[Paula in PA]

We started out with Classical Writing. As we progressed in that program we got more and more bogged down, and writing fell by the wayside. IEW is a lot like CW, but more accessible for us. My ds is a very good writer, and includes "dress-ups" on his own. I've told him I don't expect him to exactly follow the IEW "dress-up" checklist. I don't feel it's necessary to have a "because" phrase in every paragraph, for example.

 

This is us, too. I've never quite understood why it seems to be just accepted that IEW has to be followed exactly as is with no tweaking for all kids. We're using it in a way that makes sense for my dd and getting out of it what she needs, just like we do with many other curriculum. I know some children do need that exact structure, but not all do. Also, I've seen in several places that you are supposed to eventually drop the checklist and let the child use the tools they've learned to develop their own voice.

[Rachel in KY]

Also, I've seen in several places that you are supposed to eventually drop the checklist and let the child use the tools they've learned to develop their own voice.

 

That's good to know! I hadn't seen that, but it makes sense that that would be a natural progression.

[Leanna Tomlinson]

I have mixed reactions.

 

When I listen to Andrew Pudewa, I love everything he says. I agree with his philosophies and enjoy hearing him speak on just about anything. IEW, on the other hand, has not been the success that I had hoped for in my family or in my co-op writing classes. I use several elements, but I'm constantly bringing in other resources to develop maturity my students' writing.

 

I like using IEW with the young writer (3-5th grade) to get them started. This age child needs to learn how to compose more complex sentences. The "dress-ups", clauses, and sentence openers help with this. I like using some of the theme based writing books to help with sentence structures, paragraphs, and story writing. I use some of Pudewa's advanced writing resources as well. His high school writing intensive is an excellent resource for the college bound student. Writing the Elegant Essay which is written by another author, but sold by IEW, is an excellent resource for learning to write essays. I highly recommend it.

 

This year I have used The Lost Tools of Writing, and while I would not call LTOW the perfect program, teaching LTOW has revealed to me what was missing in every writing program I have used. (I have tried at least 14 different writing programs or methods over my 16 years of homeschooling.) LTOW teaches three canons of writing: Invention, Arrangement, and Elocution. Another word for Invention could be thinking. Arrangement can be called structure. Elocution can be called style. I have learned through LTOW how to address each of these areas in a natural way.

 

The title of IEW's main program includes the words "structure" and "style". It was a revelation to me when I saw that my main concern with my students' writing was the actual thoughts that comprised their essays. My students were writing essays with proper structure including introductions, thesis statements, transitions etc. They were working on style by including different sentence openers, dress ups, and clauses. However, the thoughts expressed in the essays were not well developed.

 

IEW's method of teaching elocution using the "dress-ups" and checklists resulted in a somewhat awkward style. These methods were find for my students in elementary school, but I'm frustrated now with the awkwardly placed "ly" words in my 10th graders' writing.....the whole class of them. I prefer the elocution exercises in LTOW over any other program I have used.

 

The strongest point of LTOW is teaching the writer how to think. The Invention canon has helped me to teach my students how to dig deeper and truly analyze their thoughts before they start writing.

 

Honestly, I'm not going to use LTOW exclusively next year. I will always think of teaching writing in terms of Invention, Arrangement, and Elocution. I will continue to use LTOW's methods for Invention. LTOW level 1 mainly addresses the persuasive essay; level 2 has not been published yet, so I will be using various resources to teach different forms of arrangement. I love LTOW's elocution exercises, and will continue to use those.

 

I've been interrupted several time while writing this post. I hope some of this makes sense.

 

Leanna

[A.J. at J.A.]

We are now the very happy and proud owners of a book that if we'd had it then, it probably would have delayed our jumping the IEW ship. One of our great frustrations was choosing good vocabulary words: strong verbs and quality adjs. We've purchased thesaurus after thesaurus (including the something thesaurus for the extraordinarily literate) and still agonized over choosing words. In most cases the thesaurus doesn't fully explain the words or even explain them at all. So, often my daughter would just choose a cool word and it wouldn't really fit. It would be close, but just shy of quite right. Now we have a great book that lists words and their synonyms but for each syn, the author gives a brief, really concise but elucidating usage explanations. So, when my daughter goes to find a syn/ant, she can read the little dissertations and choose just the right word. It was published in the 40s, though, so many modern/technological words are not there but all the really good ones are. If we'd had that, it probably would have helped us hang on a while longer b/c at least one frustration would have been alleviated but in the end, we still would have switched programs. I love my daughter's writing now. It's full of her interests and thoughts and I read her voice in her writing and love it, love it, love it.

 

 

Can you please tell me the name of this book?

 

Thanks,

Angela

[skissugar]

We have enjoyed doing the SWI-A from IEW this year. I have to say though.. doing it on our own with just me and my son did not work (we tried this and ended up stopping the program and putting it away)! But doing it in a group setting this year worked fabulous! Having the other students to talk with and bounce ideas off of.. and hearing other kids papers made it so much more enjoyable. :) We plan on doing SWICC-A this next year in a group setting (Same kids).

[Rachel in KY]

...teaching LTOW has revealed to me what was missing in every writing program I have used. (I have tried at least 14 different writing programs or methods over my 16 years of homeschooling.)

 

LTOW teaches three canons of writing: Invention, Arrangement, and Elocution.

 

I prefer the elocution exercises in LTOW over any other program I have used.

 

The strongest point of LTOW is teaching the writer how to think.

 

Leanna

 

Thank you so much for this insight! I am certainly going to look into LTOW.

[Heather in VA]

My oldest used SWI B and some of SICC -B (or maybe C I'm trying to remember) a couple of years ago (7th grade). I really don't like it. At the time I was happy because writing was getting done but now that I'm farther along and understand what I really want in a writing program, IEW isn't it. There are some decent basic skills SWI teaches. She didn't leave with nothing. But the reality is that you can focus all you want on structure and style, but unless you teach a child what to write, what information makes good support, how to structure an argument, etc., you really aren't going to get good writing. It might sound good - well constructed sentences with quality adjectives etc. but learning to write needs to focus on content. So we have move on to focusing on the content of writing.

 

Heather

[mama25angels]

We like IEW because writing gets done!! Two of my DS's is the kid that "has" to have the structure of being told to add dress ups, to spruce up their writing so to speak and that's where IEW comes in handy. My dd is a very natural writer, but no structure, her paragraphs were all over the place, IEW is helping to reign that in.

[8filltheheart]

I don't like it.

 

I owned levels A and C. I think the philosophy is a great one for younger kids and sound skills for teaching the kids the fundamentals of writing. (I also think it is an extremely simple concept and can be taught to a parent in very simple terms.) However, I do not think it is an appropriate way to teach older kids to write. Older kids should be beyond this type of writing instruction and should be focusing on the rhetoric/argument not structure and style.

 

FWIW.....this approach flows easily from copywork to basic writing skills in 3rd grade. By 5th grade, I would not recommend this approach for the average child. (For late readers, I just shift skill levels up to balance out whenever they became strong readers.)

[LizzyBee]

I don't like it because I find it too formulaic with too much emphasis on the dress-ups. I prefer Classical Writing and LTOW for their emphasis on analysis and thinking deeply about the topic.

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

We are definately not IEW people, I guess. To me it makes really good sense. When I listen to Pudewa, I just get it and feel as if he's talking specifically about my daughter when he talkes about different writers. Also, I think it's dead on for college writing in terms of collecting information, key words and then writing in one's own words. but . . .

 

We hated it.

 

For myself, I hated most of her paragraphs. They were great paragraphs, please do not doubt. They had cool vocabulary words and fancy dress ups but my daughter hated writing them and not one single paragraph or paper contained the essence, voice of my own quirky kid.

 

Trying to get my daughter to write a paragraph was just agonizing. Almost every paper was sprinkled with tears and the angst . . . ! She hated doing it.

 

I came here looking for different writing curricula and now we use Brave Writer/Writer's Jungle. We love it. While IEW makes sense in many ways, it doesn't in any way reflect the way I write and evidentally, it isn't the way for my daughter either. Writer's Jungle is the way for us.

 

We are now the very happy and proud owners of a book that if we'd had it then, it probably would have delayed our jumping the IEW ship. One of our great frustrations was choosing good vocabulary words: strong verbs and quality adjs. We've purchased thesaurus after thesaurus (including the something thesaurus for the extraordinarily literate) and still agonized over choosing words. In most cases the thesaurus doesn't fully explain the words or even explain them at all. So, often my daughter would just choose a cool word and it wouldn't really fit. It would be close, but just shy of quite right. Now we have a great book that lists words and their synonyms but for each syn, the author gives a brief, really concise but elucidating usage explanations. So, when my daughter goes to find a syn/ant, she can read the little dissertations and choose just the right word. It was published in the 40s, though, so many modern/technological words are not there but all the really good ones are. If we'd had that, it probably would have helped us hang on a while longer b/c at least one frustration would have been alleviated but in the end, we still would have switched programs. I love my daughter's writing now. It's full of her interests and thoughts and I read her voice in her writing and love it, love it, love it.

 

So, you have at least one person who just didn't care for IEW.

 

May I ask what book from the 40's you are referring to? It sounds interesting:) Do you have any links?

 

I appreciate your help.

[SonshineLearner]

We are now the very happy and proud owners of a book that if we'd had it then, it probably would have delayed our jumping the IEW ship. One of our great frustrations was choosing good vocabulary words: strong verbs and quality adjs.

 

 

So... pray tell.... what book did you purchase?

[Orthodox6]

Here's the oddball answer for disliking IEW. I have looked at the program several times over the years, when attending homeschool conferences. I cannot attempt IEW at all because of the requirement that the parent be trained in the program by watching videos. I have ADHD of the type which has me so "print-bound" that I cannot learn aurally or visually (videos or pictures).

 

As I learned in the first year of homeschooling (fifteen very long years ago !), the teacher's learning style counts just as much as does the student's learning style.

 

Nonetheless, I have heard only positive thoughts about IEW from other people.

[Sunshine State Sue]

Here's the oddball answer for disliking IEW. I have looked at the program several times over the years, when attending homeschool conferences. I cannot attempt IEW at all because of the requirement that the parent be trained in the program by watching videos.

:iagree: and I don't have ADHD. I'm glad I'm not the only one feels this way.

[buttercup]

I'm finding reading this thread very informative. I have a child in 6th grade who struggles so much with writing. I've been so desperate and even considered IEW when I know we hardly can afford it. Reading your responses has helped me in seeing that maybe this is not the perfect program for her and not to rush out and jump on the band wagon without more research.

 

Cadam, you talked about the WTM way of writing. Can you explain that to me? Also, there were some that mentioned LTOW. Please excuse my ignorance, but what does that stand for? Thanks!

[EppieJ]

I'm finding this an interesting conversation. I just started using IEW Phonetic Zoo (love it so far!) and have in my possession US History themed writing V1. I'm really looking forward to using it. I think it'll be a good foundation for ds' growing writing skills. Like a pp said, it's a good move from copy work into writing things in your own words.

 

I think I might use it differently than most, maybe, because I'm using it as a supplement to our history studies, not our LA studies. Although, maybe the only difference there is attitude because we will be doing the writing exercises, etc. It's late. I don't know what I'm talking about! :001_unsure:

 

Anyway, if I "read" the program right, it'll be a good start to learning correct writing skills and putting things in your own words, making a great jumping off point into other types of writing. Dunno. We'll see how it goes.

 

And speaking of going...I'm off to bed while I'm still somewhat coherent. These forums are addicting! :blink:

[Mom0012]

I love this program! I watched the teacher training dvds and wished someone had taught me the simple idea of a key word outline when I was in school. Honestly, I don't think I was ever taught any technique for writing in school. Papers were just assigned.

 

My son really has trouble expressing himself. The step-by-stype method of IEW is wonderful for him. I like the dress-ups. They get him to use words and clauses that he would never use otherwise. He can write a decent paper using IEW's methods and I really wondered if that would ever be possible.

 

Lisa

[meet me in paris]

I have mixed feelings about IEW, too (and I'm a registered instructor!). However, I tend to lean toward liking it for certain things. First of all, if you have a child that enjoys writing and has a clear voice and some style, this is probably not the program for you. Creative students will find it a bit stifling.

 

My daughter is *not* a creative writer. A blank page completely sends her over the edge because she panics and does not know what to write. IEW has helped with that, because it makes it all very methodical. Plug this in here and that in there, and you've got yourself a good paragraph. That it a relief to her (and to me). I've seen her take these skills and use them in other assignments without realizing it, and I couldn't be happier about it!

 

Also, I teach Research Skills at a university... I would LOVE to see some IEW-like paragraphs from some of my students!! IEW does the best job of teaching how to write reports or research papers that I've seen. Summarizing information and putting it together in a cohesive way is an important skill that cannot be overlooked in favor of creativity and/or voice. The essay and the research paper are two different animals, and IEW wins the research portion hands-down in my opinion.

[Lizzie in Ma]

My daughter is *not* a creative writer. A blank page completely sends her over the edge because she panics and does not know what to write. IEW has helped with that, because it makes it all very methodical. Plug this in here and that in there, and you've got yourself a good paragraph. That it a relief to her (and to me). I've seen her take these skills and use them in other assignments without realizing it, and I couldn't be happier about it!

 

This was my dd when we began with IEW. I had avoided the program for years because I didn't want to "learn it" but nothing was working. I was really blessed that a friend asked if our dd would come and be taught with her two kids. She did straight up IEW for three years. She still didn't always like writing but she was beginning to write. Then they came out with some of the theme based lessons and we lined them up with history studies. As the writing became more relevant, her writing got even better. At that point my friend and I decided to stop with the checklists as they were burdensome by then and just keep doing assignments.

I now have a dd that writes well and also writes for fun. I am grateful for the structure and discipline of IEW and for a time it was exactly what we needed.

 

Now that I am familiar enough with the program, I am teaching our youngest with the theme based Fables, Myths and Fairytales and she is doing really well. It excites her to come up with "strong verbs" and really descriptive adjectives, she loves to find just the perfect one and she uses her student resource handbook to do just that. This is my child who has been writing since she could speak, "Mommy, write down this story for me". But now she will learn to be a good writer as well as a creative one.

 

For the most part, it has been a really good thing for us.

[Katiebug_1976]

I like IEW for a couple of reasons. First, I am not a writer nor do I remember anything I was taught about writing in school (except for those silly notecards for my high school research paper), and I feel like IEW really helps walk me through--from a beginning level--how to teach my children. I may be in the minority, but I like the dress-ups, I like the checklists. And that is the reason why my oldest is doing well with IEW. He thrives in knowing exactly what is expected of him, and IEW's checklists, etc, do just that.

 

 

:iagree:I think you read my mind. This is exactly my reason for liking IEW! I love that my kids know exactly what is expected of them when writing a paper and they can check it off as they go along!