Essentials in Writing - Our Writing Curriculum for 2017 and 2018

With a 5th grader and 8th grader learning at home, this is the first year we have followed a structured writing curriculum.

As I've stated in the past, I believe reading, writing and math are fundamental skills required for any education. Although we haven't followed a structured writing curriculum, we have worked on writing. The Brave Writer philosophy has had lots of influence on our past writing, and we have always placed value on working on writing 3 to 4 times per week.

So why now? This year my 11th grader is thriving in an AP Composition class at our local high school. Obviously, the lack of a writing curriculum hasn't had too much of an impact. Well, the main reason is that I finally found a curriculum I wanted to follow.

The Essentials in Writing program is very much in-line with our family's approach to writing. It covers grammar, but doesn't over emphasize it. Instead, it places a large focus on making writing interesting. There are many lessons on incorporating action verbs, descriptive adjectives, adverbs, simile, metaphor, personification, and onomatopoeia. The lessons begin by identifying literary elements and then teach incorporation through the use of writing short paragraphs.

In addition, I was drawn to the program because it was simple to implement. The book comes with video professor lessons which are between 2 to 10 minutes in length per lesson. We usually watch the lessons, and then work on the assignments in the book. Our family chooses to work on writing four days per week, one hour per day for a total of four hours per week. Most days we cover one lesson, but often cover one-and-a-half, to two lessons. I believe we are on-track to complete the book over the school year.

As with most curriculum, this one is far from perfect. I have found mistakes and a few questions that could have been worded better. Overall, I feel Essentials in Writing has been a good addition to our school day this year. It has kept our writing sessions short and focused, and made them a lot easier for me to implement. I'm still undecided as to whether or not we will follow the curriculum next year and at what level, but this year it has taught the kids a lot and we will continue to finish the book.

As a side note, this is not the writing program IEW, or Institute for Excellence in Writing, which is very popular but a different writing program.