As a former fifth-grade teacher, I had six years experience teaching students how to write. Therefore, I was confident in my abilities to teach these skills to my own children when we began homeschooling. Since most of the homeschool writing programs were almost identical to the public school system curriculum, which taught students what to write, I decided to create my own writing curriculum.
I was firmly convinced that this was the best approach to teaching writing, at least until I discovered the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW). Its founder, Andrew Pudewa, has created a fascinating product called Teaching Writing: Structure and Style. His program does not focus on helping students develop ideas to write about. Instead, he focuses on teaching students how to write. This seemed contrary to all my training - my students, like all others, were most concerned about finding a topic to write about.
Andrew Pudewa’s approach to writing is completely different. Rather than have students decide on the topic, he tells them what to write about. Using his lesson plans for writing process, students learn a variety of “structures”. These structures consist of outlines for various types of writings - essays, letters, and more. Students choose an appropriate outline depending on what kind of writing they are doing and the reasons for writing.
Once a structure is defined, the program teaches students how to develop their own “style”. By selecting strong verbs and adverbs, descriptive adjectives, and various clauses, students learn to dress up their writing and experiment with their writing style. They learn effective ways of opening and closing a sentence for maximum impact.
In part two of this series, I will show you a simple activity to do with your children. This activity can be done anytime - during the school year or over summer vacation. If you have a budding writer or an older student who is struggling to learn how to write, you won’t want to miss the second installment of teaching writing skills.