Upper Elementary Writing

This content will cover only half of the originally published course (which is meant to take 23 weeks).

Topics covered in Spring 2025:

• Keyword outlining & oral reports
• Writing from outlines
• Creating titles
• Using strong verbs
• Using quality adjectives
• Sentence openers
• Introduction to topic sentences and clinchers

Required materials:

• Small (1″ to 1-1/2″) 3-ring binder
• 3-5 binder dividers
• approximately 50 sheets of lined notebook paper
• writing utensils (preferably a mechanical pencil for those who like a consistently sharp point!)

Families should plan to spend about one hour/week on writing at home.

PARENTS will be required to read a weekly summary of skills on our learning management system so that you can appropriately support your student at home. Parents will also have to submit (or help students submit) their writing work on the learning management system.

Students will get feedback and guidance from the instructor.

Students ages 8-10/11 should be able to read and write relatively clearly.  Spelling will be corrected as we move through the content.

IEW has a master outline of 9 writing topics/concepts that are taught through their curricula.  Each course covers a combination of the master curricula’s units, but they all cover Unit 1 to ensure that students with no prior IEW experience have the foundation of keyword outlining.

IEW’s method is to teach writing by first learning from existing pieces of writing.  The students learn the mechanics of good writing FIRST and then help them create original works.

Many of IEW’s writing concepts are taught to all ages with the major difference being the complexity of the sample or model content.  These will be shorter and easier written works for younger students and longer works for the older students.  For older students, the work may be more in-depth or complicated.  If the older students are not able to read and interpret complex pieces of work the lower level IEW courses can teach the same content–simply swapping out the model writings for less lengthy or complicated work.

This particular course’s content is targeted to students roughly aged 8-11 years old.  This means the content is often only one paragraph long and not complex in interpretation or high level vocabulary.  The writing concepts taught will not be different from a higher level course–only the model writings used.  As a result, the student work products will also be shorter at the elementary level.

If you have a child that is intimidated by writing, has no formal writing experience or is new to IEW’s writing model, this can be a good fit.