YWI: Expository Writing: 7th/8th

Course Description

This live 4-week expository writing helps students learn to organize and express their ideas clearly. Skills taught in this course include how to convey written information for a specific audience with clarity, unity, coherence, and smooth transitions. These skills are crucial in college admission or job application essay, query letters, and proposals. These are skills that will help them improve all other areas of personal and academic writing.

In this course, students choose a subject that they are passionate about and complete a project where they are asked to mentor a younger person in that subject.

Expository Writing	Big Picture Lessons live class	Close Up Lessons (recorded, writing)	Looking Good (recorded, conventions)
Week One	motivation and purpose	point of view	-lie vs. lay -subject/verb agreement
Week Two	topic, subtopic, and format	purposeful dialogue	-lose vs loose -pronoun disagreement
Week Three	develop powerful content	types of opening sentences	-that vs who -incomplete comparisons
Week Four	organization of content	how to open so that your reader can’t stop	-then vs than -ending sentences with prepositions

This four-week course is part of the 16-week comprehensive writing course for 7th/8th graders intended to help students develop content and improve writing skills in four areas of writing curriculum:

• personal narrative
• expository writing
• persuasive writing
• creative writing

The key to each of the courses is that students are guided through the completion of a project specific to the curriculum and in so doing will learn the foundations to apply to all of their other writing in those areas. They will improve their writing skills as they enjoy completing each project.

Course Structure

Each of the four-week courses has in common nine recorded introductory sessions:

• three Big Picture lessons about developing content
• three Close Up lesson about improving writing skills
• three Looking Good lessons that focus on conventions
• writing activities to accompany each lesson

The course consists of four weeks of lessons. Each lesson is 30-40 minutes long. (the mini-lessons on grammar and word usage are about 20 minutes.) Each week looks like this:

• one live virtual interactive Big Picture lesson per week with focus on developing content
• one recorded Close Up lesson per week with a focus on improving writing skills
• one recorded Looking Good mini-lesson per week that each introduce students to one word usage concept and one grammar concept
• writing activities to accompany each lesson

Altogether, the four-week course contains 12 lessons, plus the introductory lessons.

Who should enroll?

Students in seventh or eighth grade who are interested in learning to write from a bestselling author and former struggling student.  No previous writing experience is required.

Technology Required

• High speed, broadband Internet
• Sound card and working microphone (for live sessions)
• Streaming video capabilities to watch recorded lecture

Evaluation and Feedback

Students will receive a certificate of completion signed by Sigmund at the close of the course. Major assignments receive feedback based on the Six-Traits of Great Writing rubric.

Communication

Parents and students are welcome to email the teacher at [email protected] Expect responses within 24-48 hours.

Required Texts

All materials provided by the instructor.