High School Essay Intensive (A Homeschool Crew Review)

Being a senior in High School can be a very exciting time. Between activities like Senior Trips, Prom and Graduation itself, along with parties and barbecues. But it can also be a very stressful time as students prepare to make the transition from high school to college, which means entrance essays, SAT and ACT tests.

For the last few weeks, Alyssa has been working through High School Essay Intensive from the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) to help prepare herself for both writing attention grabbing essays for college applications as well as to give herself an advantage when it comes to the writing portion of her SAT exam. By being prepared for the essay portion of her SAT, that helps eliminate some of the stress she will have.


What is High School Essay Intensive

High School Essay Intensive consists of over 6.5 hours of instruction and practice to prepare college bound students on how to write college level compositions by offering tips and tools in general composition skills.  The packaged set includes 5 DVDs, student handouts and a Portable Wall for the Essayist.  Purchasing of the package also gives the buyer access to all five DVDs through streaming options through the IEW website after registering the product. High School Essay Intensive can be used with high school students grades 9th-12th.

There are five parts to the High School Essay Intensive program and each part has it's own DVD. Each features lectures regarding writing styles and structures given by Andrew Pudewa, the principal speaker and director of IEW.

The five parts break down as followed:

Part 1A – General Strategies for Essay Writing: Length and Structure

• Initial Exercise
• A Hurt and Rescue Operation
• What is an essay?
• Two Questions Writers Need to Ask
• Translating Assignment Length to Paragraphs
• Types of Paragraph
• The TRIAC Paragraph Model
• Essay Models

Part 1B – General Strategies for Essay Writing: Invention and Style

• Canons of Rhetoric
• Invention
• Practicing Common Topics of Invention
• Practice with TRIAC Outline
• Sentence Patterns
• Literary Devices: Schemes and Tropes
• Practice with Sentence Openers and Figures of Speech

Part 2 – Understanding and Preparing for the New ACT Essay

• ACT General Guidelines
• The Assignment
• Strategies for Planning
• Strategies for Writing
• Strategies for Proofing

Part 3 – Understanding and Preparing for the Redesigned SAT Essay

• General Guidelines
• The Assignment
• Annotating
• Handy Annotation System
• Annotating Practice
• Strategies for Planning
• Strategies for Writing
• Using Effective Vocabulary
• Strategies for Proofing

Part 4 – Strategies for the Personal Essay

• General Guidelines
• Sample Essay Prompts
• Strategies for Planning: Pop out from the Crowd
• Strategies for Writing, Editing, and Proofreading
• A Not-So-Secret Secret
• Final Practice
• Concluding Comments
• Last Bits of Advice for Life

In addition to the DVD instruction, 28 pages of handouts are also included that help to guide students through the writing process.  These handouts are contained with a folder system that IEW calls a Portable Wall.  For this program, the Portable Walls for the Essayist is included, which is a tri-fold folder that has tips for writing various types of essays as well as word lists, style techniques, and pointers for writing both introductory and concluding paragraphs printed on each surface. The 28 handout sheets are tucked safely away inside, making it lightweight and convenient to carry along with other books and folders and pulled out when needed. 

How We Used It

Alyssa is my senior this year and so for this review, it has primarily been on her to work though the program and begin incorporating what she is learning into her writing.  I have given her a bit of slack, since she's in Public School and being a Senior in her last 6 weeks of classes, it's been a very busy, stressful period for her.

However, she'll be the first to say that there's nothing stressful about working through this program.  The little kids and I are already very familiar with Andrew Pudewa, as I use much of IEW's various offerings in my homeschool setting already.  However, since Alyssa is gone for most of our school time, she hadn't had the Pudewa experience before.  

Now, you can imagine the eye roll I received when I told Alyssa I wanted her to do some extra work after school. (If you have a teenager then I'm sure you know that eye roll quite well).  I sat her down in front of our family computer, loaded up the streaming video for Part 1a and just told her to watch.  About 5 minutes into it, she paused the video and tells me "I REALLY like this guy.".   And that's one of the beautiful things about IEW and Andrew Pudewa's instruction - he's a very likable, relatable guy, whether he's speaking to young students in Elementary school or to parents and teachers trying to learn how best to teach the difficult task of writing to students who are less than enthused.  His speaking and teaching style lures you in, making what could be a pretty dry topic into something you're going to want to pay attention to.

Over the last few weeks, Alyssa has slowly worked her way though the program, taking much of what she is learning to heart and transferring it to her writing.  Two weeks ago, she had to write the dreaded "What Do I Plan to Do After Graduation" and "Where Do I See Myself in 10 Years" essays and I watched as she referred back to her Portable Walls, the various handouts and even at one point went back to re-listen to what was said in a particular DVD lesson as she worked to make her essays as polished as possible.

Alyssa loved the streaming option for watching the lectures. I caught her on a number of occasions watching the lectures on her phone.

She hasn't yet begun the SAT and ACT portions of the DVD's yet as much of her concentration has been on Parts 1a, 1b and 4. She has not yet registered to take either tests as she's still working on deciding which college she wants to attend.  She plans to use time during the summer to work through Parts 2 and 3 once her school obligations are finished with so that she can really devote the time to those parts and get the most out of them.  

This is a great program for the high school level, especially for those students who just need that extra "push" when it comes to structuring their writing and polishing it to make it better.

For more information about the Institute For Excellence in Writing (IEW), be sure to visit their website or any of their social media sites :

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/excellenceinwriting

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/iewtv

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/iew  @IEW

Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/iewriting/

Language Smarts Level E (A Homeschool Crew Review)

We had the opportunity to review the physical copy of the Language Smarts™ Level E   workbook from The Critical Thinking Co.™.  A digital download of this workbook is also available from The Critical Thinking Co. website.

Language Arts Level E can be used as a complete curriculum or as a supplement to be used with Grade 4 students.  The softback workbook is 392 pages designed to improve reading, writing, spelling, punctuation, grammar, and thinking skills through various activities.  From starting with the basics such as recognizing the amount of syllables in a given word to progressing to writing three different style papers (Personal Narratives, Opinion and Informative writing), Language Arts Level E seamlessly progresses through all points in between while covering important skills such as parts of speech, punctuation, reading skills, and sentence structure. The workbook covers all grammar concepts that are expected to be known by fourth graders, as well as also including some skills that are taught in fifth grade. Each activity starts with a quick explanation of the concept being taught as well as demonstrate the concept in easy to understand examples in well marked charts.  Everything needed is included and easy to follow, making preparation for each lesson simple.


Specifically, the Level E workbook covers the following topics:

• Capitalization	• Prefixes, Suffixes, Roots
• Critical Thinking	• Silent E
• Compare/Contrast	• Singular/Plural
• Imply/Infer	• Syllables
• Inference	• Usage
• Opinion	• Homographs
• Prediction	• Homophones
• Adjectives	• Metaphors
• Adverbs	• Sequencing
• Antonyms	• Similes
• Conjunctions	• Writing
• Interjections	• Characters
• Nouns	• Comparing
• Prepositions	• Conflict
• Pronouns	• Context Clues
• Sentences	• Drama
• Subject and Predicate	• Editing
• Subject-Verb Agreement	• Fiction and Nonfiction
• Synonyms	• Idioms
• Verbs	• Parts of a Book
• Grammar	• Plot
• Punctuation	• Poems
• Colons	• Proverbs
• Commas	• Reference Materials
• Exclamation Marks	• Setting
• Periods	• Story Maps
• Question Marks	• Table of Contents
• Quotation Marks	• Titles
• Semicolons	• Topic and Main Idea
• Spelling	• Using a Dictionary
• Compound Words

I was a bit apprehensive originally about whether or not my kids would be able to use this workbook or not before selecting this particular book for reviewing. Fortunately, The Critical Thinking Co. has sample pages for their products which allowed me to have a better idea of how the workbook was laid out.  This allowed me to judge much easier whether or not the material would be something my kids would be able to handle.  Even thought my children are both third grade, these sample pages allowed for me to determine that this workbook would be something I could easily use with them based on their learning level.  

One of the first things I absolutely love about this workbook is the reproduction agreement that the Critical Thinking Co. allows with their printed materials.  The Critical Thinking Co. allows for families who purchase their workbooks to make copies for other students in their family.  This is always something I love to see from companies and can be a "make or break" when I'm making decisions on curriculum as it tends to offset the cost of a more pricey curriculum (in this case, $42.99 for this particular workbook).  Since both Ash and Garrett use the same curriculum, if I am able to make copies of the material instead of having to buy two separate workbooks, that's always a plus for me. 

Another thing that I really like about this book is that there's a wonderful Table of Contents that allows for me to find exactly what I need to print out.  If we're discussing Adverbs, I can quickly find Adverbs in the table of contents and see which pages apply to that topic so that I can quickly turn to those particular pages and print them out for the kids.  This is extremely helpful when dealing with a hefty 392 page workbook.  Anything that saves time makes a huge difference in our homeschool. 

In addition to the Table of Contents, the end of the workbook includes the Answer Key for every activity in the book.  There's nothing more annoying then to purchase a pricey workbook and have to purchase a separate answer key booklet (that might cost 10 to 20 dollars more) to be able to grade the activities. 

So far, I have used this book as a supplement to our current English/Grammar curriculum.  However, as impressed as I have been with the activities in the book, I've been giving serious consideration to instead begin to use this workbook as our full time curriculum after the holidays are over.

To learn more about The Critical Thinking Co. and their large array of educational material, be sure to visit their website or one of their various social media sites:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Critical-Thinking-Co/46128092293 

Google+: https://plus.google.com/114500823774999703181 

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/source/criticalthinking.com/ 

Here To Help Learning (A Schoolhouse Crew Review)

If there's one thing my son hate more than anything, it's writing.   Simply asking him to write a sentence with 6 words in it elicits a response equal to if I had asked him to give up ice cream for an entire year.  Simply put, writing is NOT a fun subject in our house yet so many subjects require it.  Because of this reason, after watching the introduction video for Here to Help Learning, I figured this would be a great review for us to be on in the hopes that maybe he would come to enjoy writing.  (Miracles do happen, you know!)   For the purpose of this review, I received a one year membership to the Here to Help Learning website.  While there are various options, this review will concentrate on Flight 1 Paragraph Writing.

About Here to Help Learning:

Mrs Mora - Your Writing Guide

Here to Help Learning is a website for a video based writing
program for grades 1-6, hosted by Beth Mora (Mrs Mora) and her trusty pooch, Captain Knucklehead.  Using short segments of video that are engaging to students along with scripted worksheets for parents/teachers to follow, Here To Help Learning creates a systemic writing program to help teach students work through the building blocks of paragraph writing and then on to writing a 5 paragraph essay. Paragraph and Essay writing are both broken into three 32 week "Flights".   Flights 1, 2 and 3 for Paragraph Writing is aimed at grades 1-3 while Flights 1, 2 and 3 of Essey Writing are for grades 4-6. Membership includes access to all 6 "Flights" and can be used with multiple children in the same family.

Weekly lessons are divided up to 2 days a week with quick "writing warmups", interactive games, interesting video scenarios, and also a reward system to help students have a positive outlook on writing.

Also included with membership are literature lessons (currently focusing on the novel "Island of the Blue Dolphins"), resources about writing, a members forum, and events such as writing contests sponsored by the website.

Review:

Since Garrett is what one could call "reluctant writers", I decided to start at the very beginning with Flight 1 Paragraph Writing.  I went into this review with a very open mind but honestly, I knew that it would take something very special to get Garrett to write anything on his own.

As you can see from the above video, your host, Mrs Mora, is a complete cheese, hamming it up for the students in each video, all in the name of learning.  My kids LOVE her (yes, I meant to emphasize love).   Mrs Mora is completely engaging and relatable to my kids and they really have come to look forward to seeing the quick videos.   Mrs Mora has a very positive attitude that rubbed off quickly onto my kids and really helped to set the mood for what we were about to work on.  If they love Mrs Mora, well, they simply adore Knucklehead.  Rather than calling this program "Here to Help Learning" or even "writing class", my kids refer to this part of their day as "Doing Knucklehead".   Together, Mrs Mora and Knucklehead are the perfect combination, at least for my kids.

Twice a week, my kids and I sit down together with the video instructions and begin working on the flight work for the week we are on.   Some weeks we were playing a game called "Sentence - No Sentence" (which one more than one occasion I have caught the kids playing on their own outside of our school hours). another week we were working on brainstorming our writing assignment.   A couple of weeks, we actually worked on the same week twice in a row rather than moving on to the next week, which allowed the kids both extra time to work on the previous assignment.  This worked really well for us, especially for Garrett, as he did not feel rushed and knew that if he didn't finish the assignment, he would have more time later.  While writing normally results in a major emotional breakdown for poor Garrett, the combination of the slower pace and Mrs Mora/Knucklehead actually proved to be a positive experience for him.

Garrett's first assignment - Week 1.  No structure or full thoughts written. 

Week 3 - He's writing his own sentences.  "Play dog is skateboarding. He is white. He has big floppy ears"...   PROGRESS!

I really like that while the flights are broken down into the weekly lessons, I don't feel bad for extending them out for a 2nd week as needed, as the program states you can modify it as needed to your student.  Whether it's getting them to just copy what you dictate to them or they are actually writing their own ideas,  it's okay, so long as they are learning the building blocks of the hows and why of paragraph and essay writing.  I have noticed that as Garrett's confidence in his writing grows, we have gone from him writing words in no particular order, to him writing what I dictate, to him asking me how to write what he wants to say, all after only a few weeks of lessons.

Week 1 of Making a list. 

The one thing we've really taken some extra time on is the actual writing assignment.  We are still working on the first assignment entitled "All By Myself" which requires kids to brainstorm and then write about something that they once had to have help doing but have now learned how to do it on their own.  Garrett has decided he wanted to write about the fact that he can take care of his own personal hygiene, such as taking a bath, brushing his teeth and going to be bathroom by himself.    Here to Help Learning provides a very simple but specific process in how they teach paragraph writing which includes steps such as brainstorming, making a list, webbing (organizing the information), ect.  We are currently on the webbing step of our current writing assignment as we spent a bit of extra time on both brainstorming and making a list since we were working at Garrett's pace.    While it took Garrett a bit of extra time, he now has a full list of those things he wishes to write about and is ready to start the next step to organize so that he can writing his first paragraph, which for Garrett, is an AMAZING accomplishment.  Mrs Mora was able to help me (as parent involvement is VERY important with Here to Help Learning) to help him progress to this step and for him, this is a major achievement.

Overall, I am very happy with Here to Help Learning and I can see us using this, at least for the next few years, as our primary writing curriculum.  The kids love it and it seems to work perfectly for the learning method that relates best to Garrett when it comes to writing.

Want to learn more??  Check out Here to Help Learning on their various social media platforms:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heretohelplearning/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HTHLTweets

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/HTHLearning/ 

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/HereToHelpLearning

To read other members opinions about Here to Help Learning, click the banner below.

CursiveLogic - (A Schoolhouse Crew Review)

Many (MANY!!) years ago when I was in school, we began learning cursive writing in early elementary. I want to say it was roughly around 3rd grade and by 5th grade, all classroom assignments were no longer allowed to be printed in manuscript and instead had to be in cursive. Today, with the prevalence of computers and technology, learning to write in cursive has fallen to the wayside in favor of computer classes.

We were given the opportunity to review the CursiveLogic Workbook produced by CursiveLogic. Since my youngest daughter was already doing another cursive program, I decided to instead use this particular program with my oldest daughter who is in the 11th grade.  She already had the basic understanding of writing in cursive, however, the process was extremely slow for her and the outcome lacked a lot to be desired. I felt she would be a perfect candidate to try this new cursive formula and see if it would work well for her.

What is Cursive Logic?

"CursiveLogic is different from other handwriting methods because, instead of relying on rote memorization, CursiveLogic relies on the inherent structure of the cursive alphabet."

CursiveLogic was founded by Harvard graduate Linda Shrewsbury, a homeschool mother, teacher and college professor who developed the CursiveLogic way of teaching cursive in order to meet the needs of one of her adult special education students who wanted to learn to sign his own name.  From there, Shrewsbury along with her daughter, Prisca LeCroy, also a Harvard graduate and homeschooling mother, have put together the CursiveLogic style of learning cursive to help educators teach their own students cursive in an easy method. After a successful Kickstarter.com campaign, CursiveLogic became a reality.

What Is CursiveLogic?

The CursiveLogic method of teaching cursive works on the inherent structure of the cursive alphabet:

• Letters grouped by shape: Four basic shapes make up the entire alphabet. CursiveLogic teaches all of the similar letters in one lesson, greatly simplifying the learning process. Rather than teaching the letters alphabetically, CursiveLogic groups the lowercase alphabet into four groups based on the shape of the initial stroke of the letters and teaches all of the similarly-shaped letters in a single lesson.  Letters are also taught in a specific order that reinforces the pattern.  By teaching all of the similar letters together, CursiveLogic captures the natural synergy of the alphabet itself, allowing each letter in the series to reinforce the proper formation of all the others.

• Letter strings: Rather than teaching letters individually, CursiveLogic teaches all of the letters that share a common shape in a connected string. This allows the letters to reinforce each other and means students are writing cursively from the very beginning. CursiveLogic captures the flow of cursive by teaching all of the similarly shaped letters in a connected string rather than as individual letters. 

• Color coding: Each letter string has a theme color that helps students remember the shape.

• Catch phrases: CursiveLogic uses “verbal task analysis,” or saying an action verbally as it is performed  manually, to aid the development of muscle memory and to give students a mnemonic they can return to over and over. Students learn a simple, rhythmical chant that describes the path of the writing instrument as the letter shapes are formed.  The process of verbally describing a motor task while performing it aids the acquisition of new motor skills. 

• Real words: Because CursiveLogic teaches a group of letters in a single lesson, students can write real words at the end of the first lesson. For some students, this immediate success is a huge motivator.

How Did It Work For Us?

As mentioned above, my oldest daughter had a basic understanding of writing in cursive. However, for her it was a long process and for her to do any sort of copy work took a lengthy amount of time if she cared for it to be legible.  A simple sheet of copy work with two or three sentences would take her nearly 30 minutes to complete.  With SATs right around the corner for her, I hoped that learning a more efficient system of writing that would both speed up the process as well as increase overall legibility might help her.

Her speed and efficiency has noticeably improved.  She doesn't seem as if she's got to think about the formation of each letter.  The same sentences that I asked her to write prior to the start of CursiveLogic took about half the time the second time around.  The legibility of the writing has also improved over what it was when she was forced to write quickly - before it barely legible when she was rushed and now it's pretty similar to that of before when she would take her time.  With both the increase in speed and efficiency, I will say that the CursiveLogic method indeed made a marked difference in her penmanship.

This program would work well for both the beginner writer as well as the older student who's penmanship needs improvement.  In my own opinion,  I would recommend it for either/or.   The CursiveLogic Wookbook can be purchased from the CursiveLogic Website for $29.00 and includes all lessons and materials needed to teach/learn the CursiveLogic Method.

CursiveLogic can be found both on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.