When it comes to teaching writing, Andrew Pudewa has spent decades helping teachers rediscover something that feels both old and new: a structured, systematic approach to language that builds confident communicators. Andrew has carried forward a legacy that began long before the digital age, rooted in the one-room schoolhouse and refined through generations of teachers.
In this conversation, Andrew traces that history, reflects on the evolution of IEW from its Canadian classroom origins and its root in the progymnasmata, and explains why returning to the basics may, in fact, be education’s most forward-looking move.
How did the Structure and Style method begin?
The method was born in schools. The story begins with a Canadian educator named Dr. James B. Webster, whose early teaching experiences in the 1940s planted the seeds of what would later become IEW’s Structure and Style method, which he refined as a college professor.
Fresh out of high school at seventeen years old, Webster was recruited to teach in a one-room schoolhouse in Saskatchewan during a teacher shortage at the end of World War II. He discovered that one of the best ways to keep all the kids busy and learning was to have them write about their history, their geography, their stories. He realized they learned better when they wrote about what they were learning.
After the war ended, he completed a two-year teacher credential, which was all that was required at the time, and began teaching fifth grade in Vancouver. From the insights he learned in the one-room schoolhouse, Webster developed techniques that would eventually become the elements of the Structure and Style writing method.
The key word outline was born from the practical need to manage classroom chaos while he fostered creativity. It is a funny story, really. He noticed that when he turned to write on the board, students tended to mess around, throw spitballs, and read their comic books. He came up with the idea of the key word outline so that he could write a couple of words and turn around quickly to watch the students to make sure they were not misbehaving. He discovered two benefits of writing just a few key words for each sentence. First, his students became more creative in their writing assignments. Second, it helped with public speaking skills.
He began using the Story Sequence Chart, devised by his aunt Anna Ingham, to help students organize their narratives. During a visit with his aunt, he noticed that the stories her second graders were writing were much better than his fifth graders’ stories. He took her one-paragraph model and expanded it to the three-paragraph format.
By observing good writing and noticing that paragraphs that began with the important information and ended by restating the topic were easier to read and remember, he developed the topic-clincher rule. Webster found that this rule made writing more coherent and memorable.
Most of what became the nine units of IEW came straight out of his classroom experience. He was not theorizing. He was solving real problems teachers face every day.
When did you first encounter Dr. Webster’s work?
I first met Dr. Webster in 1990 while I was teaching at a small school in Montana. One of the teachers was from Edmonton and convinced teachers at the school to attend the Blended Sound-Sight teacher training course in Alberta. All nine of us went. That is when I met Webster.
At the time, Webster and his aunt had developed a ten-day teacher training program that combined their methods for teaching reading and writing. Up to that point, it was entirely a school-based program. I returned to Montana and used it in my own classroom, and although I barely knew what I was doing, it worked. The students wrote better than ever.
Encouraged, I returned to Canada the following summer to take the course again, refining my understanding of Webster’s system. Eventually, I became a member of Webster’s training team.
.
By this time I had quit teaching at the school and moved to Idaho. I began offering small seminars for teachers and homeschoolers. I made a little handout and taught the nine units in one day. I didn’t know it then, but that was the start of IEW.
How did IEW move from homeschooling into schools?
Interestingly, IEW’s modern success in schools came full circle from Webster’s public school origins, through the homeschool movement, and back into classrooms.
I started by teaching homeschoolers because that was where my connections were. Then a teacher friend would hear about it and try it in her classroom, witness great results, and invite me to share the method with her colleagues.
One of the first major adoptions happened in the Rocklin School District in California, where teachers compared student writing before and after implementing IEW’s methods. The gains were especially clear in grades four through six.
Word spread through conferences, workshops, and teachers sharing their experiences. I did not market to schools. It was always teachers talking to other teachers.
Why does Structure and Style work in so many different classrooms?
At first, IEW gained traction in classical and Christian schools, then in special education departments, where teachers found it adaptable for diverse learners. Structure and Style works on both ends of the spectrum. You can tweak it for advanced students or struggling learners. You can use it for tutoring individuals or teaching an entire classroom.
The method’s success lies in its timelessness. Almost everything we teach in Structure and Style is not new. It is ancient. You can trace it back to the progymnasmata, the rhetorical exercises used in classical education, or observe it in the writing instruction of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is simply solid pedagogy rediscovered.
How has IEW stayed relevant amid educational shifts and technology?
Writing instruction has struggled since the 1970s, and in many ways the challenges have continued to grow over time. Traditional grammar and spelling instruction has been set aside, and technology has often replaced deeper thinking. Now with the rise of AI, there is a concern we may neglect teaching essential skills of writing altogether.
Thankfully, a growing number of teachers, schools, and parents are reacting against that. They understand that learning to write is learning to think. If you want to foster better writing, you have to read aloud, build vocabulary, and nurture language. You cannot get something out of the brain that is not in there.
What role has Hillsdale College K-12 Education played in IEW’s growth?
One example of that return to classical principles is IEW’s partnership with Hillsdale College and its growing network of K-12 classical schools.
Hillsdale has shown that you can draw from the past. You can teach phonics, grammar, geography, and writing and achieve excellent results. They are proving that traditional methods work, and parents instinctively know that is what their kids need.
Seeing IEW trusted by such institutions affirms that the movement toward classical, language-rich education is gaining ground. It is not about doing something new; it is about bringing back what worked.
What does this legacy mean to you?
After more than three decades of doing this, I now meet adults who once learned IEW as children and are now teaching it to their own students. That is when you start to see the generational impact. What began as a way for me to make a few extra dollars has turned into a small part of a much bigger educational restoration.
What advice do you have for teachers new to IEW?
For teachers new to IEW, my advice is simple:
- Trust the system. Give it time. It works.
- Do the practicum exercises. You can’t teach what you haven’t practiced.
- Don’t worry about perfection. Even partial success encourages growth. Every teacher improves over time. You don’t have to do it perfectly to get positive results.
by Andrea Pewthers
