EIW reviews at the high school level?

[Sue G in PA]

Essentials in Writing. I feel like writing is falling by the wayside in our homeschool. For my natural writers, this isn't such a problem. They just write…and write well. But I have some who really need the hand-holding and though I, myself, am a decent writer I do not feel competent to walk them through the process. It is a combination of that and their willingness to be taught by Mom, kwim?  So anyway, I am looking at a few options and trying to work with our dwindling budget (funny how the homeschool budget shrinks every year…). In a perfect world, I wanted all my kids to to the Bravewriter classes. Hah. But I do not have $2000 laying around ($200 x 5 for each class, lol). Then I looked at Time4Writing b/c a friend's son uses it and she RAVES about it. $99. Better.  But then there is EIW. $50. Also DVD. Also not taught by Mom. So, if anyone has used this at the high school level, could you give me some feedback please? Is it thorough? Is it relatively on "grade level"? HOD has chosen it for the writing portion in the World Geography Guide and Carrie said that the grade levels don't matter very much. She chose Level 10 and said it was appropriate for 9th, 10th. She chose it for the topics covered. I will have an 11th grader, a 9th grader, a very challenged 8th grader, 6th grader and 4th grader. I want writing for all except the 4th grader who doesn't seem challenged in that area. She loves to write. The 6th and 8th graders need help with the very basics of writing starting with strong sentences and paragraph structure. The 8th grader has had very little practice writing a basic essay on his own. The 11th grader has written several essays and is familiar with the process but could use extra help. Thanks.

[Woodhaven]

Bump.   :lurk5:   Anyone?

[claluck]

I can't answer your question totally. I recently just needed something to get it done. I had 3 levels of kids to work with.  An 8/9th grader a 6/7th grader and twins at the 2/3 grade level (since I just started this late in the year).  My oldest is who was really driving me.   I feel like I have offered an excellent education to my boys, but their writing was atrocious.  I consider myself a decent writer.  I always did well in college paper and was also responsible to editing my husbands thesis in grad school.  Apparently teaching writing was not panning out for me.  At any rate we tried IEW and while it offered some very good skills and tools to work with I still couldn't get a decent composition out of my boys.  I just needed something that was clear, no fluff and broke the work into little itty bitty bite size chunks.

 

 After looking through EIW's syllabus for the year I decided this was right.  I bought just the 9th grade level to try it out and tried it out for a couple weeks.   After about 3 weeks I went ahead and ordered the other two levels.  I am happy with it. I don't think it is terribly exciting or thrilling but it gets the job done and done well.  The 9th grade starts with sentences and strengthening them.  Then it works to paragraphs before moving into essays.

 

My biggest reasons for choosing this curriculum.

 

Small chunks of assignments breaking things into manageable lessons.

Essay Lessons don't just cover persuasive essays (like many of the others I looked at), but cover personal, expository, persuasive, compare/contrast essays and an expository research project.  I wanted him to learn how to write more than one type of essay.

 

So far I have been happy with it and feel it is helping.  

 

Edited for clarification

[journey00]

I can't answer your question totally. I recently just needed something to get it done. I had 3 levels of kids to work with.  An 8/9th grader a 6/7th grader and twins at the 2/3 grade level (since I just started this late in the year).  My oldest is who was really driving me.   I feel like I have offered an excellent education to my boys, but their writing was atrocious.  I consider myself a decent writer.  I always did well in college paper and was also responsible to editing my husbands thesis in grad school.  Apparently teaching writing was not panning out for me.  At any rate we tried IEW and while it offered some very good skills and tools to work with I still couldn't get a decent composition out of my boys.  I just needed something that was clear, no fluff and broke the work into little itty bitty bite size chunks.  After looking through their syllabus for the year I decided this was right.  I bought just the 9th grade level to try it out and tried it out for a couple weeks.   After about 3 weeks I went ahead and ordered the other two levels.  I am happy with it. I don't think it is terribly exciting or thrilling but it gets the job done and done well.  The 9th grade starts with sentences and strengthening them.  Then it works to paragraphs before moving into essays.

 

My biggest reasons for choosing this curriculum.

 

Small chunks of assignments breaking things into manageable lessons.

Essay Lessons don't just cover persuasive essays (like many of the others I looked at), but cover personal, expository, persuasive, compare/contrast essays and an expository research project.  I wanted him to learn how to write more than one type of essay.

 

So far I have been happy with it and feel it is helping.

 

So, you continued with IEW for 9th or you bought a different curriculum? I re-read a few times and I'm sorry if I missed it.  Thanks.

[claluck]

Sorry it gets confusing.  I did IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing) with my kiddos for 2 years and got some good skills out of it but wasn't getting the result I really wanted.  They learned some tools of the trade were it, but it never transferred over to being able to just write a stinking paper especially one that took them expressing their own opinions.  So I switched to Essentials in Writing (EIW) and so far am happy with it.

[journey00]

Thanks for clearing that up for me Claluck. I will check out EIW. :)