Writing - IEW

I've had several people ask about the writing program I talked about in my earlier school post. I finally found some time and focus so that I can try to explain it. I have been working on my Writing Wall reminder signs today...so I will blog about the writing itself.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have started using IEW - Institute for Excellence in Writing as my writing program in my classroom. This program is a program that neither my school nor district uses. I found out about it through my sister-in-law. She homeschools her children, and they use this with great success. I really liked the logic behind it. It made perfect sense to me!

We are taught to teach grammar, and that will improve writing. If students know the basics, the rest will fall into place. Helpful as grammar may be, it does not by itself teach a student to write a sentence, paragraph, or short essay. I am teaching students practical methods that they will continue to use through college: taking notes and organize, outline, and write an essay or story. With this method, I am teaching language rules and skills as the need arises - as we write. IEW teaches 8 different structures for writing. With third graders, I only teach the first three: Note Making, Summarizing from Notes, and Story Summaries. Of course, I give the students time to "freewrite," but my focus is on teaching them HOW to write with this program. This learning method focuses on modeling!

How does it work? Unit One focuses on making an outline from a paragraph already written. Any short paragraph will do. The students choose 2-3 key words in each sentence to add to the outline. When finished, they will rewrite the paragraph in their own words using their key word outlines. They do this orally (maybe to a partner). I model this several times before I expect third graders to do it independently. When they have mastered the outline, we move to Unit Two - Summarizing from Notes. The students will begin writing their new paragraph from their outlines. During this unit, I begin to add "dress-ups." We add these one at a time, and don't move on until each is mastered. The students will learn and use -ly words (adverbs), strong verbs, quality adjective, who/which clause, etc. There is a checklist for them to follow to make sure their writing has at least one of each. The same idea continues in Unit Three for Story Summaries (the outline is slightly different...but you get the gist).

As the students write - since we are all working on the same paragraph - it is easier to focus on grammar where needed. I don't have to rewrite paragraphs that make no sense! The students know what a paragraph looks like (you'd be surprised at what they will come up with when freewriting), when to capitalize, how to punctuate, etc. We learn each of these as we write. Teaching grammar this way, we are able to get more accomplished - no wasted time on worksheets!

Of course, I have to make sure to relate this to that dreaded state test! You can teach anything! The test doesn't limit that! I learned that last year. No matter what you teach, you can come up with 3-5 questions (in test format), and show the students how this skill might be formatted on a test. Use it as closure after a lesson or homework. Again, not wasting time on drill...and teaching quality material. If the students "know that they know" the material, they will do fine on a test as long as they've seen the format before. Of course, this is simply my opinion. But, I have learned that they MUST see the format to do well - it won't just come from the activities, unfortunately! Every first year teacher has that ideal because we were taught that way.

I hope this helps those who have asked about it! If you have more questions, email me. I'll try to answer them - if I don't know, I'll ask my sister-in-law! Ha!