There was a time when I could not fathom how I would ever teach composition to our boys. The simple act of holding a pencil and moving it across a page seemed to strike within them terror and angst. In the midst of such circumstances, I let go of many of my highfalutin ideals and simply resorted to copywork techniques that involved… writing out the names of favorite monster trucks and Thomas the Tank Engine characters.
As our oldest son entered 4th grade, I knew I needed to extend the skill of writing to include sentences and even paragraphs, but I had no idea where to start. After all, if writing a few words had posed such a threat, how would our children ever be able to handle written narrations or… essays? This thought seemed to strike within me terror and angst. Fortunately around the same time, I was introduced to a video-based seminar that not only equipped me to teach writing, but also helped me to find grace for myself and our boys in the midst of it. That seminar was IEW’s Teaching Writing: Structure and Style (TWSS).
A Parent’s In-Service Training
During my former years as a public school teacher, I was required to spend a certain number of hours annually in teacher training. When we embarked on our homeschooling journey, I wanted to invest at least as much time learning how to teach my own children. Over the years, I’ve read many books, listened to many podcasts, and attended many workshops to further my own education. For teaching literature and composition to students in K-12, there have been two resources that have helped me to prepare as a parent-teacher: Teaching the Classics and IEW’s Teaching Writing: Structure and Style.
Teaching the Classics provides parents & teachers with tools for understanding literature and for introducing Socratic questioning for students of all ages (using even picture books! Use code REF6CA9VNCSMT at Center for Lit to receive 15% off your first order of $100.). Teaching Writing: Structure and Style walks teachers through the process of instructing students in nine different structural models of writing, including paragraphs, essays, stories, and critiques while also introducing stylistic techniques and literary devices for improving the quality of writing. We hope to touch on Teaching the Classics at a later date, but for now, let’s dig into Teaching Writing: Structure and Style (aka, TWSS).
What is TWSS?
Teaching Writing: Structure and Style is a seminar that provides incremental steps for teaching composition skills to students in K-12 and is the basis for IEW’s history-based writing lessons. It begins with the basics of rewriting a paragraph and continues through advanced essays and creative writing, providing instruction and models for teaching students to:
- write outlines and present from those outlines
- organize thoughts and summarize references
- construct cohesive paragraphs
- retell and invent narrative stories
- analyze literature
- write reports and critiques
- develop formal and personal essays
As the program introduces nine structural models for writing, it also instructs students on how to vary sentence structure, use advanced vocabulary, and add literary devices and other stylistic techniques (e.g., strong verbs and quality adjectives) to their writing.
There are two options for the complete program: A seminar workbook with DVD seminar (consisting of 12 DVDs) OR “forever streaming” digital access.
The TWSS Seminar and Practicum Workbook provides the syllabus for the seminar along with sample lesson plans, charts, word lists, student examples, source texts, and more. The Premium Membership and the DVD set offer the same content just in different formats depending on whether you want physical DVDs or streaming videos.
Whether using the DVD seminar or the streaming Premium Membership, the program includes the following:
- The videos of Teaching Writing: Structure and Style teacher training course. The entire fourteen-hour Teaching Writing: Structure and Style teacher training course. <— This is the single resource that helped me to not only know how to teach writing to my children but also taught me how to be gracious in my expectations.
- Five additional hours of student demonstration lessons at four different levels of instruction: Primary (1st-2nd grade), Elementary (3rd-5th grade), Intermediate (middle school), and Advanced (high school). The advanced workshop also shows students how to take notes from a live lecture, which is incredibly helpful for homeschooling families!
- IEW Checklist Generator™ to create customized IEW checklists for individual students or for an entire group.
- Access to Master Classes taught by Andrew Pudewa, including a video recording of the talk However Imperfectly.
- One-Time-Use Free Shipping Coupon.
- Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization – Level One. Many people ask what we do for memory work in our home. While we memorize geography, math facts, Scripture, and hymns, we also use the Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization as a resource for memorizing poems and speeches that enrich our vocabulary and language patterns. The Premium Membership comes with Level 1 of this program, which includes teacher pages, student coloring pages, and mp3 audios of nineteen different poems.
- Webinars, documents, and MP3 Audio Talks. As a Premium Member, you receive the following webinars and mp3s.
- Webinar: Introduction: IEW’s Premium Membership and You!
- Over 30 Audio MP3 downloads of Andrew Pudewa’s most popular conference talks. Some of our favorites have been:
- But, but, but … What about Grammar?
- Classical Approach in a Modern World
- Fairy Tales and the Moral Imagination
- Four Deadly Errors
- Nature Deficit Disorder
- Nurturing Competent Communicators
- Poetry as an Integrator (with lesson plans)
- Reaching the Reluctant Writer
- Spelling and the Brain
- Teaching Boys
- Digital PDF Downloads including 39 Articles for Parents, Mini posters, Student Resource Packet, Writing Source Packets, Reading Lists, and more
That’s enough stuff to provide some solid Parent/Teacher In-Service Training for years! Not only that, but my husband and I have listened to many of the audio talks, and they’re practical, engaging, and encouraging!
Why TWSS?
Teaching Writing: Structure and Style aligns with the classical method of modeling to build a foundation in writing skills for students in grades K-12. The structures and techniques are easy to customize and integrate with other content areas such as history, science, and literature. In fact, IEW offers several workbooks based upon the Structure and Style Method, including World History-Based Writing Lessons; U.S. History-Based Writing Lessons; Fables, Myths, and Fairy Tales; Bible Heroes Writing Lessons; Following Narnia; Wonders of Science; and Adventures in Writing. Lessons focus on mastery, as students are encouraged to practice a skill until it becomes easy, at which point a new skill is introduced (i.e., the EZ+1 method). Through the use of checklists, expectations are provided up front, making it clear to students and parents how to assess their work. And… Andrew Pudewa makes composition both approachable and humorous as he shares his own anecdotes and wisdom. In short, TWSS equipped me as a parent to teach my boys composition when I felt completely lost and overwhelmed with how to pursue such educational endeavors.
But what about that 4th grader? Where does he stand now? Oh, he stands at about 6’2.” Time has raced by, and he’s now entering his junior year of high school. And he can indeed write formal essays, persuasive arguments, short stories, and research papers. In fact, he still uses many of the techniques that he learned from Teaching Writing: Structure and Style . This program provided us with such a simple, straightforward, and solid foundation that IEW continues to be our top pick for learning composition in grades K-12.
Try out Writing, Spelling, Poetry, and Grammar Programs for Free!
We highly recommend checking out the first three weeks of Structure & Style for Students program from IEW. (You can access the first three weeks free.)
Other IEW programs you can try out for free include…
- Structure and Style for Students. If you’d prefer Andrew Pudewa to teach writing structure and style to your student(s), this program is for you! Download the first lessons from each level for teaching composition to children in grades 3-12.
- Fix It! Grammar. Download the first lessons of all four levels of this gentle introduction to grammar and mechanics with thorough yet simple instructions for the teacher.
- Introduction to Public Speaking. Download the first two lessons of this engaging program for learning to conquer the #1 fear of most people: public speaking.
- University-Ready Writing is a 12-week video-based course which teaches high school students advanced note-taking skills and writing techniques in preparation for college-level writing. Try it free here!
- Theme-Based Writing Lessons. Theme-Based Writing Lessons are for students and/or teachers familiar with IEW’s Structure and Style Program. Topics include science, history, literature, and Bible, covering a variety of grade levels.
- Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization. Download the first five poems from this mastery approach to learning poetry.
- The Phonetic Zoo. Try a sample of a program that teaches spelling with an auditory approach towards mastery. (Requires free registration.)
- Free audio talks, booklists, and more! (Our favorite audio is Nurturing Competent Communicators.)
Visit IEW to find out more about other programs to transform your students into proficient writers – from early elementary all the way through college! You may also be interested in our favorite resources for teaching grammar and composition to students in grades 3-12.
100% Money-Back Guarantee
Because of IEW’s incredible 100% Money-Back Guarantee, we highly recommend purchasing products directly from IEW instead of through 3rd-party sellers.