Question for those w/ lots of IEW experience

[grantmeawish]

My 5th grader is taking a class at a co op using iew, specifically the medieval course. My question is: is iew always so formulaic even as it progresses through grade levels? I really want my son to learn to write well but the classes only teach iew and writing is not my strong suit. The assignments have so many rules and I don't see how that is helping. I find it very stifling almost like its writing in math form. Am I not seeing the big picture?

[mom2att]

Well I don't know about LOTS of IEW experience, but my now 9th grader has done IEW classes at co-op for the past 3 years. He came in with 0 writing skills and, while he had lots of ideas swimming around in his head, he had no idea where to start when it came to putting them down on paper. IEW helped with that.

 

Yes, it is forumulaic. In fact it is overdone in the beginning so that the outlines and decorations and dress-ups become second nature. Kinda like a page of math facts every day until the kid has them DOWN--makes multi-step multiplication and higher maths that much easier because the facts are already there. Does every kid need this hand-holding, this scaffolding approach to writing? Probably not, just like not every kid needs pages and pages of math drill. But for some kids, the formula and the rules and the steps are immensely beneficial.

 

My son still has trouble figuring out what he wants to write sometimes, but he's amazing when it comes to figuring out a way to say it or how to turn a phrase. IEW has given him lots of practice, with its formula to add dress ups and its teaching of varied sentence openers.  He's also learned how to put together a paragraph, an essay, a research report. He's just starting high school, so I expect his writing to improve greatly over the next few years. But I'm pretty happy with where he's come over the past three, and those have been with IEW materials.

 

I will say that a skilled teacher makes a world of difference. I've been very blessed in this area, both with my older son's classes as well as the younger, who is on his second middle school level IEW class with a different teacher.

[Guest]

I blew off IEW because of the formulaic approach I regret blowing it off.

[Hakg]

I totally agree with you, we left IEW for the very reasons you have mentioned.  IEW took the joy out of writing for my DS (who didn't love writing to begin with).  But so many love IEW, which probably means it suits a particular type of learner.  What does your son think of it?

 

edited to add: we didn't have 'lots' of experience with IEW - we used SWI-A and a theme book.

[Insertcreativenamehere]

We are fairly new to IEW, but my 10 yo son has dreaded every other writing program we've tried. We started SWI-A this year and he asks to do it every day! Even my 8 yo son is tolerating it (although I scribe for him) - and he is the most writing-phobic kid I know. 

[grantmeawish]

I guess I'm not understanding how the program will work in the long run because it seems to require no creativity at all. Perhaps once my child is writing papers for other classes, I will see the fruit from IEW. That is my hope

[Slache]

I guess I'm not understanding how the program will work in the long run because it seems to require no creativity at all. Perhaps once my child is writing papers for other classes, I will see the fruit from IEW. That is my hope

I've been watching a lot of IEW videos lately to learn more about it and it seems that the idea is to teach them to write really well so that they can use their creativity, rather than use their creativity without learning the process of writing. Before you learn to draw a landscape you have to learn the nature of lines and color and shading. It seems that IEW covers the lines, color and shading of writing more thoroughly than most programs do before they get to the landscaping.

 

-Someone with absolutely no IEW experience whatsoever ;)

[freesia]

We have used IEW long-term. The early units (and maybe years) are like scales. The later units use more "ideas from your head" as they say. After 2-3 years the advice is to drop the checklists and require no more than 2 of the same openers in a row. I can't say enough how it took my oldest from sobbing over writing to a strong writer. I have had his writing evaluated by a couple of outside sources ( a grading service and, last year, a through a writing class he took) and he has always gotten As or Bs where he lost points for mechanics and lack of proofreading. (ACK! Tell me I'll survive teen-aged boys!)

 

He did IEW grades 5-7, took a couple of years off and is back with SICC-C. This year we (my friend and I are doing together and trading our kids papers to grade) are having the boys do 2 assignments with a full check list and then dropping the checklist except for new dress-ups.

 

My youngest has used IEW for grades 2 until now in 5th.

 

My middle girl is a very strong writer so I never did a full year with her, but have worked on the components requiring some "scale work" and checklists on and off with her.

 

I feel like this post is very jumbled b/c I have 3 people talking to me at once--lol--so let me know if you have questions. IEW was one of the best curriculum decisions that I ever made--particularly with my boys who hated writing. So many people give up in the early units b/c they don't see the whole picture.

[AmyontheFarm]

I think you are right, you are not not seeing the big picture.  You wrote about how you felt about the program.  What does your child think?  Are they enjoying the classes?  Has any stress associated with writing lessened?  Do they understand the assignments?  You said writing wasn't your strong suit perhaps sit along side your child and do the lessons with them.  I think you'll discover over time that you will become more comfortable with writing in the long term yourself.  Just take it one unit at a time.

 

People have said the IEW program does seem sort of cookie cutter approached at first, for some families.  However, for some kids they need to see the basics spelt out for them repeatedly.   Then over time as they develop mastery, the base skills are deeply ingrained into them.  That's when you can start to see how the program really shines.  My son and I loved how the checklists free up both of us.  Writing class is no longer stressful, both my children enjoy it.

[Momofeat]

I've used IEW for many years with students in grades 3-12.

 

Part of the approach is to have students overpractice skills when they are younger so that they will automatically use them (but not as frequently) when they are older. High School level classes like The Elegant Essay and Introduction to Literary Analysis still teach somewhat formulaic structures, but there is much less emphasis on the stylistic elements.

[grantmeawish]

My son doesn't complain and doesn't seem to have a problem with tedious checklists. I see it as tedious but after reading your responses, I understand it's purpose. I am still not sold on the whole thing but time will tell. Now, when my dd reaches the age for the co op writing class, iew may be a different story for her. She is a natural writer so she may hate it.

[matrips]

This is our third year of IEW, and the first time in a co-op setting. For younger students, I can hear the forced, awkward dress ups as they read their papers. I used to hear it with my own kids as well. but what a difference with a few years under their belt. When doing the dress ups becomes more natural, so will the choice of words and the way they vary them. Cohesive and interesting papers have been the result with mine. I have three children at the same level and three very different papers result each time anymore. They may follow the same formula but the results reflect their personality.

 

For some children, varying sentence openers, length of sentences, and interesting word choices just doesn't happen on its own. They have to be taught how to write and Pudewa does that very well. And my kids love it. It takes a lot of pressure off them to come up with stuff all by themselves.

[shinyhappypeople]

My son doesn't complain and doesn't seem to have a problem with tedious checklists. I see it as tedious but after reading your responses, I understand it's purpose. I am still not sold on the whole thing but time will tell. Now, when my dd reaches the age for the co op writing class, iew may be a different story for her. She is a natural writer so she may hate it.

 

Yup.  My natural writer (younger DD) hates IEW with a passion.

 

For older DD with learning struggles Student Writing Intensive A is a gift from Heaven.  It is HARD for her, and after a few months we're still only on lesson 2, however slowly but surely she is making progress.

 

I think why IEW works so well for struggling writers is that it explicitly teaches things that we natural writers take for granted.  All that stuff that is intuitive and obvious to me is not at all obvious to my older DD.  In Student Writing Intensive these things are highlighted, broken down into manageable chunks and practiced until they become second nature (intuitive, obvious) to the student.

[freesia]

Yes, this exactly! You said this very well.

[mom31257]

You've already been given a lot of good advice. There will be room for creativity in several of the units. I wouldn't have chosen the Medieval theme book for a class that has students at the 5th grade level just being introduced to the program, but if that's what they are doing you have to go along with the co-op. The most creative units are Units 3, 5, and 7, and unfortunately those aren't even covered until much later in the medieval book.

 

Which level is your child doing, A or B, in terms of the assignments or checklists?

[G5052]

Yes, over a decade of experience here, both as a parent and teacher.

 

It is formulaic at the beginning, but the idea is to teach them both structure and style. When my own children became teens, I dropped the strictness, and they took off and never looked back. My college kid did beautifully on his AP essays and has his professors raving about his writing skills even though it's not something that he finds easy or enjoys. He was a very reluctant writer when he was younger. My other one had trouble containing all of her words, and it helped her get more concise and develop a more varied, complex style. She's a superb, natural writer and is talking about some sort of college major involving writing.

 

One of the best homeschool purchases I ever made.

[Seasider]

We used IEW but when my oldest went into community college at 11th grade, we dropped composition as a subject with curriculum and spent some time studying and revising past essay work with the goal of eliminating that formulaic feel.

[Hen]

we use IEW in a sort-of-co-op situation.  I say sort-of, because we pay quite a lot and have one teacher for the whole class, the parents just "help".  The way our program has used it, we are on the 4th kid going through- we start in the middle school years and the first class or two is very formula-driven (it drove me nuts the very first year) but now in 8th grade, for instance, they are still using the formula, but are required to use less.  This last essay she just turned in only required her to use 2 openers per paragraph and 5 dress-ups per paragraph, and she could choose which ones.  This is more free-ing then before.  My experience, I've watched my kids trained to "stay in the lines" so-to-speak, and then given less and less rules, but they do many of the dress ups automatically, and naturally use clincher statements, vary the sentence length, etc.  My first to go through the program went on to college and found college writing easy, getting top scores.  My 3rd child to go through it is now at a performing arts high school in the creative writing program- funny, we were talking about IEW last night as he watched his younger sister going through her essay with the rubric and having to add openers and he complained about it and said he was glad to not have to do that anymore.  I reminded him that it was a good tool, and that to be great at many things, like art, writing, or music, many people believe you need to learn the rules (grammar/structure) first thoroughly, before you can break them in a creative and effective way.  He agreed, commenting he hadn't thought of it that way, but he could see the logic in it, now that he can run totally free with his writing.

 

so, all that to say, I am a big fan of the formula - even if it does drive me batty, and is not the way I would intuitively write or teach.  It does seem to work.  I would expect the program to require less of all the dress ups and openers as they progress through the grades, if not, maybe keep that in mind and tweak it a bit.

[wintermom]

If you really want to understand the philosophy behind the IEW program, its ultimate goal for students and the progressional steps it leads students through to reach these goals, you need to watch the DVD aimed at teachers/parents "Teaching Writing; Structure and Style."  In fact, this could be the only tool needed to implement this approach to teaching writing. Just looking at the writing assignments for the students doesn't give you the background for why these "dress-ups" are required for the students.  The dress-ups, sentence starters and other items on the writing assignment check-lists are only parts of the whole picture in teaching writing.  The dress-ups and sentence starters, used in conjuction with the other strategies for summarizing reading material, organizing information, and editing writing are all very helpful in developing writing skill.