Elegant Essay (IEW) vs. Essay Voyage (MCT)

[kailuamom]

I am looking for a program to help my dd (8th grade) learn to write essay papers. She is a strong writer but she needs to refine her technique. Both the Elegant Essay and Essay Voyage have caught my eye. We have never used IEW -- and we just learned about Michael Clay Thompsons' books. I am wondering whether it is possible to jump into either program without doing any of IEW's/MCT's previous programs. Also, any opinions on either program would be appreciated!

[StephanieZ]

I am using BOTH this next year with my 8th grader, lol.

 

However, we have both IEW & MCT experience.

 

I think EE would be fairly doable w/o previous IEW experience, but not really sure as we haven't done it yet. You could ask over on the IEW yahoo group and an expert will answer you.

 

So far as MCT voyage, I don't think I'd want to do it w/o doing at least the grammar portion of MCT voyage as well, as the writing books reinforce and expand upon the grammar taught in the grammar book, so I wouldn't want to mess around with it. . .

 

Another thing to consider is the Lively Art of Writing. It's all about essays, very thorough, inexpensive, and all around looks excellent. If your dd can already comfortably whip out a decent 5 pp essay, then you might want to go with that. It's like $5 and would provide several months of quality lessons.

 

FWIW, I plan to do EE over the late summer/ early fall (it seems most basic to me). Then MCT Voyage writing over the rest of the school year. We'll do LAW in 9th grade. I expect her to be an essay expert by then, lol.

 

HTH

[kailuamom]

 

FWIW, I plan to do EE over the late summer/ early fall (it seems most basic to me). Then MCT Voyage writing over the rest of the school year. We'll do LAW in 9th grade. I expect her to be an essay expert by then, lol.

 

HTH

 

Yes, she will be amazing! :) Thanks for your input and the info on LAW!