Due to a number of changes to our school year, we had to abandon our plan of an "Institute for Excellence in Writing" (IEW) writing class for my high schooler. Now, we have been fans of Andrew Pudewa and all he offers with IEW for a decade or more and still are, so I was very leery of taking a different direction with my grade 10'er; however I think we found a solution!
This child is not so much a fan of school, but if she HAS to sit down and put things in writing she gravitates toward journalism and creating newspapers and magazines and the like. So, when our supervising English teacher brought Byline, by Clearwater Press, to our attention, it seemed like a no-brainer! She gets to spend the year writing a newspaper!
The curriculum is by the same folks who produced "The One Year Adventure Novel" and "Cover Story", which allow students to spend the year writing either a novel or a magazine as their English class. "Byline" is all about essays and other forms of writing disguised as journalism. For a reluctant writer, I can't think of anything more intriguing - if one MUST do a formal program - than producing your own finished, cohesive product.
"Byline" consists of online or DVD videos, a Teacher's Guide, a Student Manual, two reference newspapers, and a "Reporter's Notebook". It looks extremely well laid-out and easy to follow, with simple, clear marking rubrics and learning schedules. Having been privy to some pretty lame teacher's materials, I could not be more pleased to see this. It's the difference between daily frustration for both of us for the next 30 weeks and a non-issue for the next 30 weeks. Once we get into the swing of it all, we will report back on the "issue-level" and give a more in-depth review.
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| Byline high school writing curriculum |
Can you make them write? Well, no. But maybe you can sweeten the paper and pen a little?
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