How do these Email Courses work, anyway?

Writing Foundations Email Courses offer a great opportunity for students to develop independent study skills. Directions and modeling come from a combination of brief emails and downloadable handouts. Ms. B. edits with corrections, grammar rules, and encouraging suggestions and comments.

For students with greater auditory and accountability needs, Email Courses work wonderfully for parents who want lesson plans without the planning part. Everything a parent needs is included in the course. Parents can read through the handouts and directions with the student; the student completes and submits the work; and Ms. B. supplies the editing, commenting, scoring, and direction for the next lesson.

There are 3 stages to each Online Course:

Stage 1
After you register and pay for an online class, you will receive an email that provides the login and password for Handout City where your student can access the notebook handouts, score pages, and all the lesson plans for the course. After setting up the course writing notebook, students embark on their Stage One Banned Words Lesson, and the course officially begins.

Everything your student needs for the course will be found in Handout City – the teaching handouts, lessons directions, score pages, and upload links. Students need only to click on a link, download a handout, complete a lesson for that day, and upload it to Ms. B. who will edit, score, and make positive comments. Ms. B. promises to reply within 48 hours at the most. Supplementing with a grammar program such as Easy Grammar, English Grammar 101, or other program is a great way to fill in the “between emails” time.

Stage 2
After your student successfully completes the Banned Words assignment, Ms. B. will grant permission for the student to proceed to the 11 Technique Lessons. These progress one at a time, and students should be able to complete a lesson in about 30 minutes per day. Students should be able to complete all 11 lessons in about 3 weeks.

PLEASE NOTE: These Stage 2 lessons may seem extremely easy for advanced or prolific writers. The only trouble advanced writers have with these is thinking they are so easy they don’t need to read the handouts or directions. However, reading the handouts is crucial. The handouts help advanced writers know WHY they are good writers, what they have a natural sense of, and how to manipulate things for different effects. When students know the “why” of their success and how to manipulate those techniques, even advanced writers gain more control over their writing skills. These lessons also give the students and Ms. B. a common language for discussing how to structure and revise their writing throughout the Stage 3 lessons.

Stage 3
After successful completion of the Technique lessons, students will proceed to their core writing lessons. Students often take 1-2 weeks to complete each story/report as they send each step of the writing process – outline, best rough draft, revised draft – one at a time for Ms. B.’s review, comments, editing, and scoring. Again, students should be able to complete their writing work in about 30 minutes per day.

(Note: Writing Basics, Writing Summaries, and From the Brain include about 30 lessons per course. The Basic Essay takes 60 lessons to complete. Your student’s time frame may vary. A student has up to one year to complete each course.)

To learn more about the variety of Email Courses to choose from, see the Email Courses page on the Writing Foundations website. To sign up for a course, go to the Registration Page. Click on the Online course of your choice, and fill out the form. When you hit the submit button, the form will take you to Google Checkout where you can securely pay with a credit card. You will receive a notification of payment and your login information shortly after that.