I have a confession to make. This review actually came about because I pulled together the nerve and called Andrew Pudewa one day out of the clear blue and almost begged him for the chance to review his program.

As a curricula junkie, I had heard all sorts of wonderful things about Mr. Pudewa's products. Usually, all of the products from him were lumped together in the three letter term IEW. For example:

Homeschooling Parent 1: "I just can't find a writing program that I like." Homeschooling Parent 2: "Well, have you tried IEW?"

Thus, in the beginning of my phone call to Mr. Pudewa, I asked for the chance to be able to review "IEW" for the magazine. He then patiently explained to me that he has a wide variety of products, and that people are often confused about what they are supposed to purchase, but that he would be happy to explain them all to me.

More confessions: I found it all quite confusing. The different programs had names such as "Teaching Writing: Structure and Style" or "Student Writing Intensive" (with different "Groups" no less) and then I learned that they usually went by their first letters (TWSS or SWI) and that about did me in right there. Soon Mr. Pudewa sent me information about all of the available programs and now I can not only understand how to navigate through Mr. Pudewa's products, but also can interpret them for others. Thankfully, this is worth it, for Mr. Pudewa's products are excellent and well worth understanding.

_Pudewa for Dummies: A Quick Interpretation of Some of Andrew Pudewa's Products_

IEW stands for the "Institute for Excellence in Writing," which is NOT a writing program that you can purchase. It is actually the name of Mr. Pudewa's business. At this time, his business sells recorded writing seminars that he has given, together with other fabulous products such as spelling programs, poetry memorization tools and other supporting materials of interest to educators.

TWSS stands for "Teaching Writing: Structure and Style" and is the program that I will review and discuss in depth in just a moment. It is the recording of a live, two day seminar given by Mr. Pudewa to a classroom full of teachers. It is almost mind-bogglingly comprehensive and includes all of the writing techniques that he teaches students in all of the student seminars that he gives. It was recorded in May of 2000 and has since received Practical Homeschooling awards in 1999, 2001 and 2003. It comes with nine DVDs and a binder filled with roughly 100 pages of information that supports the DVDs. Six of the DVDs are the two day teacher's seminar discussing writing techniques and the other 3 DVDs are recorded, live seminars in which Mr. Pudewa teaches writing techniques directly to students of different age groups. The cost of this course is $159 and can be purchased directly from Mr. Pudewa's company or website.

SWI stands for "Student Writing Intensive." While TWSS (above, and discussed further below) is meant to be writing instruction for teachers (or, rephrased, it teaches teachers how to teach writing to various age groups), the Student Writing Intensive materials have Mr. Pudewa instructing a room full of students. These discs help to demonstrate how Mr. Pudewa's writing techniques (presented in TWSS) can be taught in a classroom or homeschool setting. In short, in the SWI discs some of the material presented in TWSS is taught to a classroom full of students. Group A of the student intensive shows him teaching a group of 4th and 5th graders, Group B shows him teaching 6th and 7th graders, and Group C shows him teaching 8th graders and above.

SICC stands for "Student Intensive Continuation Course," which has not been personally viewed by this reviewer, but which also is a set of 9 DVDs and a CD-ROM that has supporting materials that can be printed out. Each level, like the first student program (SWI, above), contains Mr. Pudewa teaching writing to different age groups of students (Groups A,B and C, as above). These materials contain more of the writing techniques taught to teachers in the teacher's course (TWSS), as demonstrated in a classroom setting with students.

Mr. Pudewa also makes available for purchase various books and resources from his website, such as the Imitation in Writing programs and other writing guides.

_Teaching Writing: Structure and Style (TWSS), The Teacher's Training Course_

To begin with, I was unable to really understand even the name of the course ("Teaching Writing: Structure and Style") until I watched the DVDs and went through the program. "Teaching Writing" refers to the fact that Mr. Pudewa leads you through the program in order to teach you how to teach writing. "Structure and Style" refers to the forms of writing that you learn to teach. You learn to teach writing structure, such as the ways to properly structure essays or stories or even sentences. You also learn to teach stylish writing to your students, such as the ability to write sentences that are rich and deep and vary well from one sentence to the other in order to hold the reader's attention.

Teaching Writing: Structure and Style (TWSS) is a course meant for teachers (and when I say 'teachers,' I of course mean homeschooling parents as well). This is the flagship program of Mr. Pudewa's in which he shares his writing knowledge and techniques with us, the teachers, therefore equipping us to go forth and teach writing to our students, whatever their ages or abilities. His other writing products show him teaching some of the techniques taught in this program directly to rooms full of students.

Before Mr. Pudewa was a writing teacher, he was a young student that hated writing. This is how he begins his programs; by actually discussing how much he hated writing as a child. I will wholeheartedly confess that one of my children is a young boy who also loathes writing. In fact, Mr. Pudewa describes my very son, for he says that there can be two extremes in the world of writing: the student (typically a boy) who just wants to (or only can) write the bare minimum and the 18 page student (typically a girl) who will write forever and ever, but not with any clear direction to her story. Well, I am the proud parent of a son who, if given a piece of paper and told to write about the tree outside his window, would burst into tears. The most I would get, if I tried really, really hard, would be:

"I see a tree."

And that's if I got really lucky. No description of the tree... nothing. So it was with a joyful heart that I heard Mr. Pudewa discuss the many kinds of students that this program can assist and help transform into better writers.

My son has no natural ability to write well, but this program has given me hope that slowly, precept upon precept, I will be able to equip him with one technique after another and lead him down the path of masterful writing. I have looked at and even tried many other popular writing programs and I have found that they presuppose too much. They presuppose that the student that comes to the table is already able to pull words from his or her brain and naturally create a much better sentence than "I see a tree." For my son, there is much more basic instruction needed, which is why this program is ideal for him.

On the other hand, if you are the parent of the proverbial 18-paged girl, this program will teach you how to help her take her natural talent but use it within the parameters of structured writing (no more 18 pages filled only with scenery descriptions). Thus, this program teaches a wide variety of writing techniques that will strengthen the writing abilities of both writing-allergic and verbose students.

It is also ideal for those of us who would like our children to practice narration, or the classical exercise of reading a passage and then putting the book down and retelling what was read back to the teacher. Mr. Pudewa's techniques could help students who were otherwise completely unable to narrate (my son) to be able to learn how. Once the techniques of this program are mastered, they can be used as part of any of your school subjects, from history to science to language arts (and it is also important to note that this program is a writing program only and not a spelling, handwriting or formal grammar program).

The first six of the nine discs are the teacher's seminar discs, recorded over the course of one of Mr. Pudewa's two-day teacher training seminars. These discs include instruction in some of the following areas:

Note Making and Outlines Finding the Key Words in a Passage Writing from those Key Words Public Speaking Summarizing from Notes General Style Guidelines Composition Checklist Summarizing Narrative Stories Sample Checklists for Narrative Stories Summarizing References and Library Reports Summarizing from Multiple References Three Paragraph Compositions Writing from Pictures Creative Writing with Structure Essay Writing Checklist for Five or More Paragraph Essays Library Research Reports

The beginning of the program teaches the use of Mr. Pudewa's foundational "key words" technique. In short, he teaches the students how to successfully select certain key words from a passage and then how to use those key words in order to re-write (or re-state) the most important parts of that passage by him or herself. Mr. Pudewa demonstrates how to help students become adept users of his key word technique, for this also helps in public speaking and in all more complicated forms of writing techniques that he teaches later in the program. He provides plenty of exercises and samples in the accompanying binder.

Next, Mr. Pudewa teaches tons of "stylistic techniques," which are fancy ways to take my son's original sentence ("I see a tree.") and make it a whole lot better. For example, one of the many techniques that he teaches is the addition of "sentence openers," or phrases that are placed at the front of a sentence ("As I look out the window, I see a tree."). He additionally teaches a wide variety of what he calls sentence "dress ups," "decorations" and "styles," which all serve to spruce up sentences further.

After extensively teaching the ability to write an interesting, stylish sentence (getting far beyond "I see a tree."), Mr. Pudewa teaches the techniques involved in reading, writing and understanding the technical parts of stories (such as the characters, setting, problems, climax and resolution). While still having the students incorporate their use of key words and sentence style techniques (taught previously), he now teaches the students to write within the confines of well-structured paragraphs. This forces the students to think carefully about the story they are telling (or retelling) and make certain that all areas are addressed with well-written sentences.

The next units in the program depart from the writing of stories and move to the use of reference materials (dictionaries or books that can be used as sources) and the writing of concise essays and research reports that are roughly five paragraphs in length. Making sure that they continue dressing up their sentences in a variety of ways in order to make their writing interesting, the students are taught how to quickly and easily pull information from their reference sources and use this information in order to write well-structured papers.

After the student is adept at writing reports (and these can be reports on anything from science to stage plays, etc.), he then learns to describe events or write from pictures. The student is taught how to view pictures that are without text or explanation and then write about them. He learns how to address the technical parts of the story (such as characters, setting, etc.) and tell what is happening in the story and why. After this, the student is ready to move on to creative writing with structure. He or she is equipped to be able to write about virtually anything, including personal experiences, within the confines of a structured pattern that keeps students on task. This also instructs the students how to write interesting personal letters.

Techniques for writing formal essays that are longer than five paragraphs are presented next, with models given for essay writing. These models include five paragraph essays, "Expanded Essays" (longer essays) and "Super Essays" (really long essays). Following this, he presents techniques and models (using a debate format) for writing persuasive essays. The final unit teaches critiques, or the use of previously taught paragraph patterns in order to write book reports and other literary analysis. These techniques can also be used while reviewing stories, novels, plays, films, etc.

Above and beyond the formal lessons taught, the supporting notebook of information also includes fifty pages of extra materials such as adverb lists, student samples, assignment ideas, pep talks, suggestions for homeschoolers (this is one page in length), grading suggestions, online resources and brief sample lessons plans.

As stated above, TWSS comes with nine DVDs total. Six of them are Mr. Pudewa's recorded lessons from his two-day teacher's training seminar and the additional three DVDs are recorded seminars of Mr. Pudewa instructing three separate age groups of students: 2nd through 4th graders, 5th through 7th graders and 8th through 10th graders. It is very helpful to be able to view the first six DVDs, learn all about Mr. Pudewa's writing techniques, and then watch him teach a few of those techniques to a classroom full of students.

TWSS gives you, the teacher/parent, the opportunity to learn all about Mr. Pudewa's extensive writing techniques. All other products sold by Mr. Pudewa that have to do with writing instruction are taught not to teachers, but to students directly. This gives you, the purchaser, a variety of choices, for if you would like to learn all of his "tricks of the trade," and then turn around and teach them to your student(s), then you would do very well purchasing TWSS, as this will equip you to teach multiple age groups. Thus, while TWSS is pricey, it is all inclusive, can be applied to all age groups, and will equip you with far more than what is shown on the SWI discs.

Of course, there are no perfect curricula, and as such I will address areas in which TWSS could be improved.

_Areas Needing Improvement_

The notebook of paperwork that accompanies the DVDs sorely needs revision. I was expecting that the DVDs and the notebook would mirror or track each other closely and that his lectures would be easily kept up with while teacher trainees are led through the lesson pages, but, unfortunately, that is not the case.

The pages in the notebook do not always match Mr. Pudewa's lectures. I often had to flip around in the notebook in order to keep up with the examples Mr. Pudewa was giving in the DVD. Also, the printed lessons and examples are difficult to read and to keep up with in and of themselves, as they are crowded (almost stuffed) onto each page and seem to be placed there in random order. I am used to a style that is more corporate in nature, where an audience member is told what they are going to be told, then told the information, then reminded of what they have been told, so as to make certain that the information in the presentation is crystal clear. However, the notebook that accompanies the DVDs is packed so full of information and is so loosely arranged that I felt like Mr. Pudewa lost an opportunity to keep his program easier to follow and more streamlined, which also mirrors some of my complaints about the DVDs.

There are some instances where the DVDs drag, especially when Mr. Pudewa reads long story excerpts aloud; and it seems as though the six-disc teacher program could have been shortened and streamlined more. Furthermore, I felt that some of the examples that were used made the lessons more complicated or difficult to follow than they could have been, and I found myself wishing that, instead of using former students' writings (with their errors and omissions), Mr. Pudewa himself had drawn up and presented crystal clear examples that fit his methods and checklists perfectly.

To his enormous credit, Mr. Pudewa finishes the program with a heartfelt offer to pay for any of the program's "sins of omission" with his long distance telephone bills. This offer means that if you purchase his program and at all need further direction, that he will gladly field your 1-800 telephone calls and walk you through any areas of difficulty, doing, as he says, "Whatever it takes to make you successful." As patient as he was with all of my confusion and questions, I can see that he means this offer wholeheartedly, and the sheer volume of incredibly helpful writing instruction contained in this program is well worth overlooking whatever minor flaws I can ferret out of the program's paperwork.