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Teaching Writing: Structure and Style by Andrew Pudewa
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Teaching Writing: Structure and Style, by Andrew Pudewa of The Institute for Excellence in Writing, $130 for complete set, order from http://www.writing-edu.com
Teaching Writing: Structure and Style, consisting of seven videotapes and a notebook, is a "how to teach composition" program for parents of children in grades two to eleven. Andrew Pudewa of The Institute for Excellence in Writing teaches writing workshops throughout the country, and this program is a videotape of his two day seminar for parents and teachers. All of Mr. Pudewas programs, popularly referred to as simply "IEW," are based on Mrs. Anna Inghams "Blended Sound-Sight Program" and James B. Websters book, Blended Structure and Style in Composition. Teaching Writing: Structure and Style has the goal of making all children into effective writers by helping the parent to stretch out the writing of the reluctant child, while paring down and focusing the writing of the verbose child. The heart of Teaching Writing: Structure and Style is the modeling technique. Students begin by learning to take notes and to make a key word outline from a short selection. They then narrate and write the story from their notes to create a composition in their own words. Suggested adjustments to tailor the class to younger or older students are included in the notebook. After mastering the first step, Mr. Pudewa recommends working on style with the addition of what he calls "dress-ups," adjectives, adverbs, dependent clauses, and so forth. He does not feel that it is important for the student to know the technical term (such as adverbial clause) in order to use it. Rules of grammar may be introduced as they come up. Mr. Pudewa recommends a variety of wall charts to help the student think of more creative words to use while writing, and checklists to give the student a great feeling when he or she adds an element. Teaching Writing: Structure and Style introduces complex techniques in subsequent lessons. After teaching a method for summarizing stories, Mr. Pudewa covers the more advanced topic of summarizing references to build a research report. During this section, he explains how to begin paragraphs with a topic sentence and end with a clincher. In the following unit, Mr. Pudewa switches gears to more creative writing with making a story from a three-frame comic strip. In the later units, recommended for grades 4 and up, creative writing and essays are used to teach the concepts of an introduction and conclusion in longer compositions. The final lesson covers writing a "critique," something that resembles the high school level book report or short story report.The materials included in the Teaching Writing: Structure and Style package are videotapes and a notebook. Six of the professionally filmed videotapes show Mr. Pudewa conducting the seminar in front of a group of parents. His bouncy and charismatic style is easy to watch and holds ones attention. The notebook, also called the syllabus, offers notes for each of the units along with an appendix full of samples, ideas, on-line resources, and teaching suggestions. The seventh videotape shows Mr. Pudewa conducting an approximately two-hour seminar of the first two units of the program with children. The parents choice of the elementary (grade 2-4), intermediate (grades 5-7), or high school (grades 8-10+) tape is included in the package. While this tape is not of the same professional sound and video quality as the parent seminar tapes, it has great value in showing the technique used in a live situation with children.
Recommendation: If you never excelled in writing and you are fearful of teaching your children how to write, you cannot miss with this program. Mr. Pudewa offers a simple, step-by-step approach in laymans terms that will let those who are behind in writing skills rapidly catch up and will give effective formulas to new writers. Teaching Writing: Structure and Style will NOT take the place of a good grammar program. While effective use of grammar is not its goal, it will enhance the composition portions of any grammar program that the family wants to use. This program may not be needed if you are using a grammar program, such as Rod and Staff, that teaches composition gradually. If you are a natural writer and feel very comfortable in teaching your children the skill, you might find this program to be a bit too structured. Many people are confused over what to order from the many programs offered by The Institute for Excellence in Writing. The Teaching Writing: Structure and Style set is for parents to learn how to teach their children. The seventh tape included in the set, the student workshop tape, could be shown to your children, but it only covers the first couple of units. The "Starter set," $89, is for grades 2-5 and only covers the basics of Mr. Pudewas seminar. I highly recommend going with the better value of the "Complete set" for $130. Buying just the syllabus would not be effective unless you have seen the videos or been to a seminar. The syllabus includes notes, rather than text material. The Student Writing Intensive series (not reviewed) is a 10-hour video of Mr. Pudewa teaching the entire program to children. You could let your children follow the instructions of this course on their own. A combination package of the Teaching Writing: Structure and Style tapes and the Student Writing Intensive series tapes is available for $199, but basically the same material is covered with a different audience (parents versus students) so I do not think both would be needed. An additional program, Advanced Communication Series, is available for upper level high school and college level students and will be reviewed separately. Andrew Pudewas "IEW" is a highly popular program among homeschoolers, and its positive reputation is well-deserved. Mr. Pudewa gives confidence and knowledge to homeschooling parents who are anxious to have their childrens (and their own!) writing skills excel. Here is a nifty color
coded chart to help with implementation of this book: Jump in and visit our message boards! You're only a click away from ideas, encouragement, and information!
The above reviews are the opinions of the reviewers. Products, rather than companies or authors, have been reviewed. You may want to research companies further before choosing to buy any of the products reviewed. The reviews may or may not reflect the opinions of the management of HomeschoolChristian.com.
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