When asked what they most remember about IEW classes, students respond with the stylistic techniques. They recount their early struggles to fit all the required style into each paragraph. They smile as they recall the later joy of finding they had already included a number of style items without even thinking about them. They reflect on the impact that experience has had on their later writing experiences. Choosing strong vocabulary helps writers communicate their thoughts more clearly and is often what a reader will notice first.
Not often recognized by students, though, is the hidden benefit of the structure they have learned in their IEW writing classes. In fact, Andrew Pudewa would say that the true power of the Structure and Style® writing method is the structure. Learning to organize their writing, students internalize the writing process, which students review repeatedly during each course. Each unit equips students for later units and fills their writing toolbox with skills they can apply long after they are no longer taking IEW writing classes.
Let’s take a closer look at the various units to highlight each one’s value. Keep in mind that all Structure and Style writing students repeat these units each year although more experienced students will move through the earlier units more rapidly than students who are younger or inexperienced.
In Unit 1: Note Making and Outlines, students learn how to capture the main idea in a source text. These ideas are selected from each sentence in the source text and placed in the key word outline. Using the outline created, students then test it by telling back each line of notes using a complete sentence. Developing strong key word outline skills, students are prepared not only to take notes from sources but also to take efficient, effective notes from live lectures. Next comes Unit 2, Writing from Notes, where students expand on Unit 1 by writing a summary from their key word outline. Together, these two units form the foundation for the entire Structure and Style method.
From there the units diverge. Units 3, 5, 7, and 9 focus on narrative, descriptive, and prompt-based writing while Units 4, 6, and 8 focus on reports, research, and essays. This alternating arrangement allows students who prefer one genre over the other opportunities to transition between both every month. All students benefit from being able to write both types well.
Moving on to Unit 3: Retelling Narrative Stories, students use the key word outline differently. Instead of writing key words from each sentence in a source text, the students organize and outline this three-paragraph story by answering Story Sequence Chart questions. This is students’ first exposure to asking questions to develop content for the key word outline. Students will revisit this skill in later assignments. Andrew Pudewa has long maintained that learning to ask questions builds strong critical thinking.
Unit 4: Summarizing a Reference moves from fiction to fact-based writing, leveraging students’ skills from earlier units. In this unit students read a single source text, determine the topic(s), and then write their key word outlines by asking questions and selecting facts to support and illustrate each topic. Students learn to limit the number of facts, a critical skill that will be used in all future units. The need to limit builds discernment skills: what is the most interesting, important, or relevant information. Additionally, students learn how to organize body paragraphs with the topic-clincher rule.
Next up is Unit 5: Writing from Pictures. It shares characteristics of both fiction and nonfiction writing and marks a transition in how students obtain their facts for their key word outlines. Rather than jumping straight from written source texts to writing prompts, Unit 5 bridges the gap by providing a series of pictures that students use to craft their key word outlines by asking questions and then writing an event description. Paragraphs still follow the topic-clincher rule, this time with students reflecting on the central fact of the image.
As students transition into Unit 6: Summarizing Multiple References, they circle back to what they learned in Unit 4 but add to their skillset. This time, students are summarizing multiple references. Unit 6 introduces students to the basics of building body paragraphs for formal essays. Students advance their skills as they write source text outlines, combine the most important facts from those outlines into a fused outline, and then write their body paragraphs. Learning to evaluate sources that might offer different viewpoints is a life skill for students.
Up to this point, students have not yet written complete essays. With the introduction of Unit 7: Inventive Writing, that changes. This unit teaches students to write essays from prompts. Although many writing programs begin here, IEW reserves it for later because it minimizes students’ stress. How? In Unit 7 students gather all the previously learned skills together to organize their content and ask themselves questions to populate their key word outlines. The skill is not new. It is familiar! Building upon these skills, students learn how to construct meaningful conclusions and introductions, thereby moving beyond basic body paragraphs into complete essays. Writing from a prompt is the basis of application essays, whether they are for college admission, scholarships, or grants.
After students write introductions and conclusions in Unit 7, the next step forward in Unit 8: Formal Essay Models is to apply what they have learned to write essays, such as informative, persuasive, and compare-contrast, just to name a few. These essay structures had their seeds planted in Unit 4, watered in Unit 6, and brought to fruition in Unit 8. This unit requires the critical thinking skills developed through learning to ask questions. What information does the reader need to properly understand the writer’s point?
The final unit, Unit 9, addresses how to write the formal critique. Utilizing the Story Sequence Chart, introduced in Unit 3, students writing about literature. Eventually, more experienced students will delve more deeply into literary analysis. Students consider a question related to an aspect of the story, perhaps a question about character development or the author’s use of style, and craft their body paragraphs to prove their thesis. This unit requires a high level of thinking, and the students pull together everything they have learned in the previous units to write their essays.
Trust the process. Move through the units methodically and sequentially. When you do, your students build a solid foundation in writing, enabling them to confidently carry their knowledge forward into other courses, no matter the subject. Regardless of how eye-catching the style is, the true power of IEW’s writing method is in the structure.
by Jennifer Mauser
