EIW vs Lantern English

[ByGrace3]

Any input on these two programs? Looking for an option for my rising 8th and 10th graders. I see that IEW has a grading option, so we would utilize that. Or Lantern English's composition courses. Which  would you choose and why?

My ds doesn't like live classes, but I want a writing heavy year for him to solidify skills before high school, and for dd this will be the last pass through before dual enrollment. 

 

[kristin0713]

I don't have any experience with EIW, but I can share our experience with Lantern English.  My DD is finishing up 8th grade. She did these courses, in this order, one per quarter--Essay Basics, Learning Through Poetry, Intro to Creative Writing, and is now finishing up Learning Through Literature: Fiction.  These classes have been fabulous for her.  She does not like live classes, either, so the format really works well for us.  It is kind of like I am following a written curriculum but then she submits her work and receives feedback and grades.  The reason I say that is because the lessons are emailed to her every week and I usually sit down with her to go over the teaching points and the assignments, then she works independently on them.  She has needed varying levels of help depending on the course.  The Essay Basics course was absolutely perfect in teaching her how to write a standard 5-paragraph essay, but I did have to help her a lot at the beginning.  Towards the end, she was writing essays with ease.  The poetry course was challenging because we had never done formal poetry analysis before, but she did great with my help, and really enjoyed writing poems when that was assigned.  She loved the creative writing course and needed very little help.  The literature course that she is finishing up now has probably been the most challenging.  The instructor did not provide samples of outlines or a structure for the essays that she has had to write, so I made some outline templates and helped her develop her main points before she started writing.  I think that she would have needed less help if she had more essay writing experience prior to this, but it is turning out to be a really great end to her 8th grade year.  I am planning to have her take Growing the Essay 1 and 2 in the fall and I am also going to enroll my upcoming 7th grader in some Lantern classes.  Even though it is not a hands-off class for me, it has been better for our relationship to have someone else giving feedback and grading her work AND to have the deadline for turning in assignments.  Well worth it for us.  I hope that helps 🙂 

Edited April 25, 2020 by kristin0713

[ByGrace3]

20 hours ago, kristin0713 said:

I don't have any experience with EIW, but I can share our experience with Lantern English.  My DD is finishing up 8th grade. She did these courses, in this order, one per quarter--Essay Basics, Learning Through Poetry, Intro to Creative Writing, and is now finishing up Learning Through Literature: Fiction.  These classes have been fabulous for her.  She does not like live classes, either, so the format really works well for us.  It is kind of like I am following a written curriculum but then she submits her work and receives feedback and grades.  The reason I say that is because the lessons are emailed to her every week and I usually sit down with her to go over the teaching points and the assignments, then she works independently on them.  She has needed varying levels of help depending on the course.  The Essay Basics course was absolutely perfect in teaching her how to write a standard 5-paragraph essay, but I did have to help her a lot at the beginning.  Towards the end, she was writing essays with ease.  The poetry course was challenging because we had never done formal poetry analysis before, but she did great with my help, and really enjoyed writing poems when that was assigned.  She loved the creative writing course and needed very little help.  The literature course that she is finishing up now has probably been the most challenging.  The instructor did not provide samples of outlines or a structure for the essays that she has had to write, so I made some outline templates and helped her develop her main points before she started writing.  I think that she would have needed less help if she had more essay writing experience prior to this, but it is turning out to be a really great end to her 8th grade year.  I am planning to have her take Growing the Essay 1 and 2 in the fall and I am also going to enroll my upcoming 7th grader in some Lantern classes.  Even though it is not a hands-off class for me, it has been better for our relationship to have someone else giving feedback and grading her work AND to have the deadline for turning in assignments.  Well worth it for us.  I hope that helps 🙂 

 

The bolded is exactly the reason I am looking for outside help. This particular child takes instruction just fine from me, prefers it even, but when it comes to making suggestions on his writing, his general response is "so it's terrible?" no matter what I say. 🙄 I am hoping that he will be able to receive corrections from someone else with a little more grace. 

Thanks for sharing your experience!