For quite some time, I have been hearing wonderful things about Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW.) I was excited to find out I was selected to try out the Deluxe Combo Teacher/Student Writing Package Level A with Fix It Grammar 1 & 2:, A Word Write Now and Portable Walls. When I received the package in the mail and began to look through it, I have to admit I became a little overwhelmed; this package is so full of great resources and information! I will do my best to try to describe what it contains.
- Teaching Writing: Structure and Style, Second Edition
- Seminar on DVD (12 DVDs)
- Seminar and Practicum Workbook in 3-ring binder
- and Premium Subscription online.
- Student Writing Intensive Student Seminar Materials in 3-ring binder
- Student Writing Intensive Level A on DVDs
- Fix It! Grammar: The Nose Tree (Teacher’s Manual book 1) – Which includes access to:
- Fix It! Student Book 1 – ebook
- Mastery Learning e-audio
- But…But…But…What About Grammar? e-audio
- Fix It! Grammar:Robin Hood (Teacher’s Manual book 2)- Which includes access to:
- Fix It! Student Book 2 – ebook
- Mastery Learning e-audio
- But…But…But…What About Grammar? e-audio
- A Word Write Now: A Thematic Thesaurus for Stylized Writing
- Portable Walls: Handy fold-outs with writing models and word lists.
Teaching Writing Structure and Style, Second Edition
Teaching Writing Structure and Style (TWSS) provides the “why we do, what we do” of the Institute for Excellence in Writing program. The nine DVDs provide 14 hours of instruction for the parent or teacher. Taught by Andrew Pudewa, these are FULL of helpful instruction for the parent or teacher.
The topics covered on both the DVDs and in the Seminar and Practicum Workbook include:
- Disc 1
- History and Overview
- Note Making and Outlines
- Writing from Notes
- Disc 2
- Stylistic Techniques: Dress-Ups
- Modeling and Practicum: Units 1-2
- Disc 3
- Retelling Narrative Stories
- Sentence Openers
- Disc 4
- Summarizing a Reference
- Topic/Clincher Rule
- Decorations and Triple Extensions
- Disc 5 – Writing from Pictures
- Disc 6
- Summarizing Multiple References
- Advanced Dress-Ups
- Disc 7
- Inventive Writing
- Author Imitation
- Disc 8
- Formal Essay Models
- Basic, Expanded, Super, Persuasive
- TRIAC Model
- Disc 9
- Formal Critique
- Literature: Response to Literature
- Literary Analysis
The other three DVDs have demonstrative lessons for students in grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12.
I have been learning so much from listening to the TWSS DVDs! Teaching writing has not been a strong suit for me. Before when I have tried to have the kids write they would immediately grumble or would sit in their seat staring blindly at their papers. I really, really appreciate that with TWSS I am learning how to teach them!
Student Writing Intensive-Seminar Materials and
Student Writing Intensive Level A on DVDs
The Student Writing Intensive (SWI) Student Seminar contains teacher’s notes, lesson plans and student handouts in a 3-ring binder. SWI is divided into 30 weeks of lessons (scheduled for 5 days per week.)
In addition to the four Student Writing Intensive (SWI) Level A DVDs, there is a Structure and Style Overview DVD that gives an overview of the teaching style behind TWSS.
The kids have actually ENJOYED learning how to write! Andrew Pudewa does a great job engaging the kids on the DVD. In the first lesson, an informational paragraph about sea snakes is provided. Then Mr. Pudewa demonstrates how to make an outline of the most important thoughts from the paragraph. On occasion, I had to stop the DVD so the younger kids could catch up writing the outline. This brings me to the first rule that Mr. Pudewa presents; they may only have three words per sentence on their outline. However, they can have numbers and simple pictures. This is great, because it helps the kids to grasp the main idea of the sentence without copying it. The kids then wrote their own Sea Snakes paragraph from their outline. Another rule he has is that the kids are to use pens rather than pencils; my kids happily obliged; especially since Mr. Pudewa threatened to come bite the eraser off anyone’s pencil if they dared to try erasing. The kids thought that was great!
Fix It! Grammar: The Nose Tree and
Fix It! Grammar: Robin Hood
I began all the kids in Fix it! Grammar 1: The Nose Tree, because we had never before used Fix It! Grammar. According to the IEW website, they recommend that all students begin with Book 1 and just move through it faster or slower as they need to. The Teacher’s Manual comes with instructions on how to download the Fix it! Student Book, the Mastery Learning e-audio and the But…But…But…What About Grammar? e-audio.
For the Fix It! Grammar, each student needs a single subject notebook; in which, they will be correcting the grammatical errors and handwriting the The Nose Tree one small increment at a time. In the back of their notebook, they have a vocabulary section in which they record the definitions for the bold words in that day’s sentence.
I really like this approach to grammar! I find that it has been helpful for the kids to see the grammar rules they are learning in a “real life” environment. I also like that they are adding to their vocabulary skills at the same time.
A Word Write Now: A Thematic Thesaurus for Stylized Writing
The A Word Write Now book is such a wonderful resource. It is divided into four sections: 
- Section A – Character Traits such as anger, cheerfulness, honor, hostility, obedience, and wisdom to name just a few.
- Section B – Descriptive Words including appearance, size, time, texture etc.
- Section C – Words For Movement and the Senses; some of the words are for feet, hearing, smelling, and speaking.
- Section D – Appendix
Section A – On the left-hand page, there is definition of the topic word. Next there is a thought about that character trait, followed by an excerpt from classical literature. Then the words are listed in columns under their types of words; such as nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs with a column to add additional words.
Section B – The descriptive words are divided into groups of nouns, adjectives, and verbs.
Section C – The movement and senses words are also divided by their part of speech; noun, verb, adverb etc.
Section D – The appendix includes some game ideas, a list of transition words, a list of prepositions and other helpful resources.
Portable Walls
The portable wall is a three fold wall with a pocket. It contains ideas for dress-ups, 
sentence openers, decorations, triple extensions, as well as word lists. It also briefly reviews the 9 lessons of writing such as notes and outlines, story sequencing model, summarizing references, etc.
There is a wealth of learning in this package! I am learning so much from the Teaching Writing Structure and Style DVDs. I really like that the kids and I are able to watch and learn together with the Student Writing Intensive DVDs. We all enjoy the way the material is presented. I like that the grammar is in easy to do bite sized chunks but that they are learning so much. There really is a lot to the Deluxe Combo Teacher/Student Writing Package Level A with Fix It Grammar 1 & 2:, A Word Write Now and Portable Walls!
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Blessings,
Jennifer
*I would really appreciate it if you would take the time to sign up to receive an email for each post so you don’t miss anything. You can find the “Subscribe to Blog via Email” button at the top of the blog and enter your email. Thank you!
Blessings,
Jennifer
*I would really appreciate it if you would take the time to sign up to receive an email for each post so you don’t miss anything. You can find the “Subscribe to Blog via Email” button at the top of the blog and enter your email. Thank you!
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