Demystifying the Institute for Excellence in Writing

Home educating mothers tend to be overwhelmed by two subjects in particular.  Science and writing.  OK.  Upper level math too.  Since I’m not much of a left-brained gal, I won’t be writing any posts about dead animal dissections or the wonders of derivatives, but I do love English…and writing is something I like to read about…and write about.

Ten years ago I started using the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) program, and while I tend to dabble around with various curricula in almost all of the other subjects; for writing, I’ve found a place to permanently hang my proverbial hat.

But for newbies, it can be confusing.  I’ve had countless conversations with moms who are interested in this program, but feel faint when visiting their website.  The website is actually well organized, and, I think, pretty clear on things.  BUT…there is so much information to process, that it feels overwhelming.

It also appears to cost a lot of money…and you sort of feel like, if you have to refinance your home in order to invest in one of their seminars, you want to make sure you get the right one…and that it delivers.  You know…the next C.S. Lewis, straight from your womb to the world.

I can’t promise that your child will be John Piper when he grows up, but I can tell you that he (yes, even “he”) will be able to write better and more interesting papers than most (maybe all) of the college students I tutored many years ago.  When he is in junior high.

So how can you avail yourself of this writing method when, after spending several days studying the website, you still have deep insecurities about where to begin with your particular child?

That’s where this post could come in handy.  I’m going to do my best to make this easy for you, not necessarily by saying anything that their website doesn’t already say…but by laying it out in a more conversational format to make it feel more like “you can do this.”  I’m not an affiliate, nor is anyone giving me a freebie for writing this.  I’m really just trying to help.  So let’s get started.

Where Do I Begin?

Not with IEW.  (GASP!)

For your little ones, you can simply focus on learning how to read and copying simple words and sentences.  I love the McGuffey readers for this purpose.  If you get the Parent-Teacher Guide for the Original McGuffey Readers book along with the Eclectic Pictorial Primer, Eclectic Primer, and first reader, that will give you all the copy work your child will need until they are around 7-9.  No bells and whistles needed.

It will also give your child practice writing good sentences.  That’s a solid foundation on which to build the rest of their writing skills.  Think about it.  Apprentices, whether they are learning how to paint pictures, sculpt statues, shoe horses, or build websites, learn best by copying.  In the “old days” when literacy was at a high in our country, students learned to craft excellent sentences by copying excellent sentences.

This is all you need for reading, writing, spelling, grammar, and penmanship for those first 2-3 years.  Seems too simple (and inexpensive) to work, but it does.  And you don’t need to use the McGuffeys.  That was just one idea.  Craft your home school any way you’d like.

Three Routes to the Same Destination

There are three ways to go about the IEW program.  You can pick one…or be like me and try them all.

Way One

Learn how to teach writing by purchasing and watching the 10 hour seminar for parents and teachers, Teaching Writing: Structure and Style ($169), and then tailoring the program to dovetail with whatever you are doing for history or literature studies.  This is the most cost effective option IF you are confident and determined to learn how to do it yourself.  I learned more about how to teach writing just by watching this seminar than I did in college.  (I have an English Education degree!)

In other words, you could potentially purchase that seminar, learn the ropes, and never have to purchase another product from IEW again.  You’d be set to teach writing to all your children, at any level.  All you’d need is motivation.

This is the option I chose back when I had two school aged children and no money.  It was a huge investment for us at the time, but I’m really glad I had that training as a foundation for what followed.  Because after I started adding more children, I started losing motivation to teach writing on my own.

Way Two

Step aside, and let Mr. Pudewa teach your children via “Student Writing Intensives”.   It’s painless, he’s funny and motivational, and your kids will enjoy it as much as any kid COULD enjoy this subject.

But here’s where the “intensive-confusion” begins.  So let’s break it down.  There are two Student Writing Intensives: {1} the Student Writing Intensive ($109), and {2} the Student Writing Intensive Continuation Course ($199).

The Student Writing Intensive is shorter and can be completed in half a year.  Then you can simply use the remainder of the year to practice the things they learned in the class.  The Student Writing Intensive Continuation Course takes a year to complete (which is why it costs more).

You will want to start with the Student Writing Intensive if you’ve never used this program before.  There are three levels to choose from here: A, B and C.   All three of these levels basically teach THE SAME THING, but at an appropriate level for that age group.  In other words, there is not a progression of material in these levels, but rather, an age-appropriate presentation of the same material.

This is approximate, but choose level A for students ages 9-11, level B for students ages 12-14, and level C for students ages 15-18.  Easy enough.  BUT…what if you have, say, a 10 and 12 year old.  Do you have to buy both level A and level B?

Maybe not.  With this program, you can fudge things a bit.  If your 10 year old is quite bright, you could get away with starting them both in level B.  Likewise, if  your 12 year old struggles, you may want to start them both in level A.

I’ve stretched the rules quite a bit over the years and found that the program is fairly elastic.  Generally speaking, you’re pretty safe with level B for ages 11-15, and then if you want to move on to the Continuation Course, you can branch out to level C for the oldest students and get the level B again for the younger ones.

Speaking of the Continuation Course, that’s the next step after your child has completed the Student Writing Intensive.  It CONTINUES, or picks up, where the first one left off, and again, you get to select the appropriate level: A, B, or C.

Since you will probably be doing the Continuation Course the following year, your student will be a year older, and depending on their age, you may want to move them to a different level as well.

For example, let’s say you have an and 11 and 14 year old who completed the Student Writing Intensive in the Level B together, and now the 11 year old is 12 and the 14 year old is 15.   You may want to get the Continuation Course in Level B for the now 12 year old, and in Level C for the now 15 year old.

If you’ve got a dozen children, you’ll likely end up collecting the entire, well, collection over the years.  The nice thing is, you can recycle the classes over and over again as many times as your family size dictates.

Here’s another idea: you can save some money by going through the classes with another family and sharing in the cost.

Way Three

Go through the Teaching Writing, Structure and Style seminar for parents/teachers, and then use their theme based writing lesson books.  You do need to understand the methodology behind this program in order to teach the theme based writing books.  Because they are written with the assumption that the parent knows the program, they can’t be used as “stand-alone” curriculum.

Last year I took my 10 and 12 year old through the Ancient History based writing lessons (great for students in levels A and B) because we were studying ancient history at the time.  I loved how it laid everything out for me painlessly…and added to what we were already learning in history.  This next year we are going to do the Medieval History based writing lessons.  As I’ve looked over these new lesson books, I’ve noticed that they built in more grammar practice than they did with the Ancient History lessons.  This is a nice bonus, I think.

Other Excellent Resources

I’ve used some of their other writing resources over the years as well.  The Elegant Essay will teach you and your older student (13-18) the steps to writing…elegant essays.  I went through this with both of my older boys one year, and I still refer to it when I’m having them write an essay for any given subject.

For example, my 16 year old has a reading list each month for the upcoming school year, and he will be required to write one essay per month based on something he is studying either for literature or for history.  Since he has already been through The Elegant Essay, he knows the steps and is able to execute this assignment on his own with very little help from me.

Another resource we have LOVED is Windows to the World: An Introduction to Literary Analysis.  Again, we took a year to work through this resource, and it enabled our sons to be able to read a piece of literature and know how to analyze it on many different levels.  Some of the papers Phillip will be required to write this next year will involve literary analysis.  He can do that because of this training.

Our boys have also worked through the High School Essay Intensive, How to Write a Story,  and their Speech Boot Camp.  (We did this with 9 other home schooled students and had a blast!)  I’ve never been even slightly disappointed with any of their resources, and I’ve learned so much right alongside of the kids.  It has really provided a far better foundation for teaching writing and literature than anything I experienced in college.

This upcoming year we are trying their Fix It grammar books for the first time, and after looking them over in preparation for the year, I’m very excited about teaching grammar this way.  I’ll have to let you know how it goes when the year is over!

If you use the Institute for Excellence in Writing, feel free to help other moms by leaving your own tips and advice in the comment section.  Let us know what you’ve used and how it has worked for your students!

Happy Writing!

Related posts:

Are State Schools Neutral?
Why We Homeschool... Part 1
Baby Missionaries
About Wemmick Girl Saved by Grace

Natalie Klejwa is a child of the King, wife of 20 years to Joe, and mother to 9 miracles ages 0-18.

Natalie is the creator of Apple Valley Natural Soap, which gives her children an opportunity to earn money at home and expand their own entrepreneurial endeavors.

Passionately believing in the sovereignty of God and the sufficiency of Scripture for all of life, she has rejected the Wemmick culture box and prefers the ancient paths found in the Word of God. Natalie taught high school English when she was single and has been discipling women for 25 years through full time campus ministry, personal mentoring, writing, and Bible studies.

More recently, she is the founder of Visionary Womanhood Gatherings in the Twin Cities area, which began almost five years ago, and she is also the administrator of the Visionary Womanhood blog and author of Visionary Womanhood Gatherings, A Family Strengthening Mentorship Tool for Women and Maidens.

You can hear her being interviewed on Kevin Swanson's Generations with Vision radio program.

View all posts by Natalie →

Comments

  1. hsmominmo says:

    Thank you for this. You have answered the questions that have been rolling around in my head for months! I am very impressed with IEW, but until have not been able to wrap my brain around the ‘how-to’s’ when figuring in to our schooling schedule. I get it now!

  2. Terry Covey says:

    Nataly,
    Thanks for this overview of IEW. Even though my son works for Andrew, I still haven’t ‘demystified’ it’s use in our home. Or better yet, I haven’t developed the self-discipline to build the routine in our home.

    But we have used it off and on for years, and we have been to several of Mr. P’s live seminars. We thoroughly enjoy his teaching style and I tell my son that I wish they would put out a daily seminar. I’d pay just to have Andrew teach my kids every day. He’s a master!

    Thanks so much for taking the time to write this.
    Terry

  3. Marianne says:

    This was great timing for me. I own a few of the IEW curriculums and have never used them. I think I am ready to start though and was happy to read that my plan to use SWI followed by the Continuation Course is a good path. My kids were late readers and writers and we just never got around to IEW. Really appreciate the info here!

  4. IEW Customer Service says:

    Thanks for a great post! Feel free to give our customer service a call for advice and recommendations!
    We are here to serve you: 800-856-5815
    or email us:

  5. Ann Dunagan says:

    Natalie,

    Our family is looking for a new change for writing. Specifically, I’m needing to find a complete curriculum that will take 3 of our middle-ages kids step-by-step through the basics of writing, along with daily lesson plans. I think the Student Writing Intensive ($109 version, level B) would be a good for starters. Are these daily class instructions (on DVD?) and would we also need to purchase workbook curriculum to go with these? Could 3 kids go through the course together? Is there a book or workbook that we would need to purchase for each of the kids? How much daily/weekly teacher-intensive-time is required to make this program work? (I’m considering several different options right now. I really need to find something all organized in daily lesson plans that the kids can progress through, mostly independently.) I’m not sure if this would be the right curriculum for us, but it sounds good.

    • They can absolutely go through it all together. It comes with the student workbook…(I think it may be a download now?) and you can make as many copies of that as you need for your family. It is laid out for you in nice bite sizes for each day. All you, as the teacher, need to do is let them know what they need to watch that day…and what their assignment is. For example, they might watch the video clip on Monday, write up a key word outline on Tuesday, write a paragraph on Wednesday with the dress ups, go over it with you on Thursday (you will have an objective check list, making it very easy to correct their writing), and rewrite it on Friday. As they grow more advanced, the assignments may be longer, but this gives you a basic idea of how it practically plays out. Writing is always going to be one of the more “teacher-intensive” subjects…but this program makes it less so than most I’ve seen. And having Mr. Pudewa do the actual teaching is a sheer delight. You are, more or less, simply monitoring their work.

    • Ann Dunagan says:

      Thanks Natalie, for taking the time to explain the details of this writing program! These specifics really answered my questions.

      Blessings to you!
      Ann

  6. Laurel says:

    Thank you so much for this review of the IEW program. Just this week I was trying to decide which items to purchase. This helps so much in understanding the program better.

  7. Bambi @ In the Nursery of the Nation says:

    Wow! Thanks for this, Natalie! I was given the IEW Student Writing Intensive, level C but have been so intimidated by the website. This helps a ton. You’ve inspired me!

  8. Jess says:

    Oh my goodness! God’s timing is amazing! We are bringing in two IEW instructors to our co-op this year to teach writing to our 5th-12th graders. They are using theme based lessons, your option 3. I have been getting questions about the program I can’t answer. I’m sending out your post to our whole co-op. Thanks friend! :)

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