WELCOME TO IEW’S WRITING WITH STYLE & STRUCTURE, LEVEL A FOR GRADES 3-5!
This is a year-long, 2-day per week course (T and Th @ 9:00am-10:00am) and is part of the Upper Elementary Core Series. The Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) has been the go-to writing curriculum of homeschoolers for well over a decade. This two day per week class will teach, inspire, and encourage students to share their thoughts and ideas through the written word. This year-long, non-religious writing course for students in grades 3-5 and may be eligible for charter school funds. Be sure to check with your specific charter school to confirm their reimbursement policies.
COURSE DESCRIPTION (copied from the publisher):
IEW's methods for teaching writing are similar to methods one might use to teach music, art, or even sports. Students begin by analyzing and imitating existing good writing. Then through a series of incremental steps, they develop the ability to write their own original compositions.
Teaching Structure: With IEW's structural models, teachers teach the following step-by-step: note making and outlines, writing from notes, retelling narrative stories, summarizing a reference, writing from pictures, summarizing multiple references and inventive writing.
Teaching Style: Using IEW's stylistic techniques such as strong verbs, quality adjectives, and sentence openers, students incrementally move from basic to a variety of sentence structures, improved vocabulary and more sophisticated writing.
CLASSWORK & HOMEWORK EXPECTATIONS:
Weekly homework will be assigned through the ETHOS class page with the expectation that they spend time throughout the week creating quality pieces. In class we will fully discuss, explore, and practice the concepts at hand (which will include some grammar, spelling and vocabulary) and go over any questions they may have. They will also work in small groups for peer-to-peer feedback, support, encouragement, and ideas. Completed works will be shared with the class on a regular basis. Students are expected to write 1 to 3 paragraph papers.
REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS & SUPPLIES (links are attached, but feel free to purchase from the vendor of your choosing):
Fables, Myths and Fairy Tales Writing Lessons from IEW. This is a student workbook, so if you have multiple students, each will need a workbook.
Fix It Grammar Cards from IEW
Durable zippered pouch for the Fix It Grammar Cards
9.5" x 7.5" Composition Notebook
Mechanical Pencils with Refills (no pencil sharpeners in the classroom)
Colored Pencils
Dry Erase Markers (erasers & whiteboards supplied)
Thesaurus (please do NOT get a simplified elementary student version)
Supply box to keep things together & organized in their backpacks
Additional supplies worth having: water bottle (sports lid to prevent spills), tissue and hand sanitizer
***HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR FAMILIES UNFAMILIAR WITH IEW’S METHOD – Teaching Writing: Structure and Style, Second Edition. This resource is written to parents and students and will carry you through grades 3-5 of IEW’s writing program.
PAYMENT METHODS & SCHEDULE:
The cost of this course is $320/semester and will be paid directly to ETHOS. They will provide you with payment information and schedules.
There is a $15 materials fee for this course which will cover supplies and printing costs associated with class group work and activities. These fees are due 8/5 for the Fall semester and 1/5 for the Spring semester. You can pay this via Venmo or check. If paying by check when school is out of session, please contact me for an address at [email protected].