Structure and Style for Students

The curriculum reduces teacher training requirements by having Pudewa teach directly through videos. Comprehensive teacher manuals and optional access to Teaching Writing seminars provide support.

No parent training required unlike other IEW programs; detailed teacher manuals included; premier packages include access to Teaching Writing: Structure and Style seminar

The curriculum exemplifies direct instruction with Andrew Pudewa teaching students explicitly through video lessons. Lessons include clear modeling, step-by-step guidance, and structured practice.

Andrew Pudewa teaches directly through videos with clear explanations on whiteboard; lessons are highly structured with specific requirements and checklists

The curriculum includes extensive vocabulary instruction as part of the writing lessons. Students learn to use 'quality adjectives,' strong verbs, and are given banned words lists to force stronger vocabulary choices.

Reviews note vocabulary is covered extensively; curriculum teaches quality adjectives, strong verbs, and uses banned words lists to encourage stronger vocabulary

This is the curriculum's primary strength, offering highly structured, systematic writing instruction through nine core units. Students learn incremental skills from key word outlines through formal essays and literary analysis.

Teaches nine core units from note-making through formal critique; uses structured dress-ups, sentence openers, and systematic skill building; includes rough draft and editing process

The curriculum uses excerpts and short source texts rather than whole books for writing instruction. Literature suggestions for read-alouds include whole books like Little House on the Prairie, but these have no structured lesson activities.

Source material includes fables, tales, and informational pieces about specific topics; literature suggestions are for reading aloud with no lesson activities

The curriculum includes some domain knowledge through varied source texts covering history, science, and culture, but this appears secondary to writing skill development. Source material covers topics like desert creatures, Antarctica, and African nomads.

Source material includes informational pieces about reptiles, desert creatures, Antarctica, and African nomads; vocabulary is covered extensively within lessons

The curriculum uses grade-appropriate source materials that increase in complexity across levels. However, the focus is more on writing instruction than challenging reading comprehension.

Three levels (A, B, C) with increasing difficulty; source materials become more challenging with each level; includes both fiction and non-fiction texts

Students practice retelling stories from key word outlines and review core units across multiple levels, but formal retrieval practice and spaced review are not emphasized. The curriculum focuses more on incremental skill building.

Students test outlines by retelling stories; core units are reviewed across levels; grading focuses on completion rather than retention assessment

No evidence of systematic phonics instruction as this is primarily a writing-focused curriculum for grades 3-12. The curriculum assumes students can already decode at grade level.

Curriculum focuses on composition skills for grades 3-12; reviews mention it may need to be supplemented with advanced phonics for some students