Discloser: I received Essentials in Writing level 8 and the Scoring Service for free in exchange for my honest review. Read my full disclosure here.
How Essentials in Writing Works
Essentials in Writing is an excellent homeschool writing curriculum for grades 1-12. It is video based with step-by-step instructions that make it easy for your child to understand and apply.
The Essentials in Writing (EIW) curriculum starts with grammar and moves into composition in the elementary levels. Upper levels (7th grade and up) focus primarily on writing with optional grammar lessons included if your student still struggles with grammar.
Take a peak inside the Essentials in Writing Level 8 workbook in this video.
The curriculum we received was a workbook with DVDs. Essentials in Writing now offers an online video subscription option as well. This might be beneficial for families that prefer working online over DVDs. A workbook will need to be purchased for both options.
EIW level 8, which is what we used this year, includes 64 video lessons that should take between 125-135 days to complete. If you choose to have your student do the grammar lessons then you will need to adjust your schedule to include 15 additional lessons. To see how many video lessons and class days are needed for other levels, visit the Essentials in Writing website and look under their FAQ page.
Very helpful checklists are provided to assist parents in grading their student’s writing assignments. You can also choose to purchase their Scoring Service which I will share about farther down in this review.
Essentials in Writing Review
My 8th grade daughter and I both enjoyed the Essentials in Writing curriculum.
I loved that all the lesson planning and teaching was done for me. My daughter was able to work through this entire course with very minimal help from me. I read over her writing assignments (before she submitted them to the Scoring Service) to help her look for errors. Besides that, she was able to complete this course on her own.
Using this curriculum made writing enjoyable for my daughter as well. She said that she never became overwhelmed while taking this course. The instruction was broken into manageable parts and explained in a way that was simple to understand.
Each level’s video lessons are at the appropriate grade level. The instructor, Matthew Stephens, lets students know when certain concepts will be taught in more detail in subsequent lessons. This allows students to build their writing skills in a sequential and logical manner as they work through the different levels.
Watch the sample lesson from level 8 below or go to their website to view samples of other levels.
My daughter really appreciated being taught how to write a persuasive paragraph first before learning how to write a persuasive essay. This allowed her to become familiar with different types of writing and gain a bit of confidence before being asked to write a full essay or report.
Compared to other homeschool writing curriculum, Essentials in Writing is very affordable. There customer service is excellent. You can talk with one of their teachers should you have any questions or concerns while using their curriculum. That is always a plus for us homeschool moms!
One thing to note. Essentials in Writing is a secular writing curriculum. I prefer to use curriculum that starts with a biblical worldview whenever possible. However, I did not find anything in the content that would be questionable for Christian families.
Scoring Service
I was not planning on using the Scoring Service for 8th grade since I don’t keep grades until high school. However, when Essentials in Writing offered to let me try the Scoring Service out for this review, I jumped at the chance!
The Scoring Service is available for grades 7 through 12 at an additional cost. Visit their website for more details on the service and pricing.
The Scoring Service is an online service. My daughter submitted her writing assignments online and received feedback and a grade within a few days.
The Scoring Service not only graded my daughter’s writing assignments but also provided valuable feedback. A rubric was used to determine her grade, which helped my daughter see which areas she needed improvement in and which areas she was doing well in.
Corrections were made within the writing assignment including things like spelling, punctuation and suggestions for improved wording.
A paragraph summary was also given for each writing assignment. This was probably the most valuable feedback for us. The paragraph summary encouraged my daughter in her strengths while also offering suggestions for improvement in future assignments.
As a homeschool parent, it is hard enough to determine a grade for my child. It is even harder to critique my child’s work and offer constructive criticism. The positive feedback from the person grading my daughter’s work helped boost my daughter’s confidence in writing. The suggestions for improvement helped my daughter grow leaps and bounds in her writing ability this year.
If you plan on using Essentials in Writing for the high school years then I highly recommend you purchase the Scoring Service. The Scoring Service is not necessary for the middle school years, however, if your student is struggling in writing, the Scoring Service may offer helpful feedback for your student.
Check out even more curriculum reviews here.
Hi there Janelle,
I absolutely love seeing your heart for Jesus through this blog. Thank you for all that you share by encouragement, resources and reviews. I love the books written by Elyse Fitzpatrick too. 😊
I was curious what your opinion is on how EIW & IEW compare in the development of writers. My daughter is in 1st grade and writing is pretty intuitive for her. She’s writing complete sentences and adding some punctuation and capitalization without my formal instruction. She’s an avid reader so I think she picks up a lot from the books she reads. Therefore…I have no idea where to start with her. I was looking at Writeshop, IEW & EIW as well reviewed possibilities. I guess what I fear most in a writing curriculum is that kids will get stuck in a rut of going through the exercises presented in the curriculum and not know how to apply these skills in their own free writing. Kinda like how I learned math. 🤦🏼♀️. I could figure out a problem within the lesson but could not apply the formulas when I came across the problem in a test or real life circumstance.
How have you started your young ones in writing?
I saw that IEW offers online services starting at 4th grade. Can you share your reasons for switching from IEW to EIW with your 8th grader? What are your thoughts on how these programs develope competent writers? So clueless and overwhelmed with the options and responsibility.
I highly recommend EIW and IEW for teaching writing/composition. I switch back and forth between the two. IEW is more teacher intensive so I can’t always use that every year with every student. Each of them have a different way of teaching writing so one method/curriculum often clicks better with a child than the other. I rotate between the two curriculums depending on our needs for the year. Keep in mind that EIW includes grammar in the lower levels (not the upper ones). IEW is just writing (although they have a separate grammar curriculum that is excellent called Fix It Grammar). You can’t go wrong with either one of these great options.
Hi, I’m trying to decide between BJU and EIW for my kiddos next year in grades 3,5&,7. I’ve been using BJU but I’m considering EIW for a few reasons. Since you’re familiar with both I wanted to ask you which one you prefer and if you think EIW is just as good or how it compares to BJU. I hope to hear back from you! Thanks!
Both are excellent options and similar in their method. I find that my kids get bored with the same curriculum year after year so I often switch out what curriculum we are using every few years to add a bit of variety. BJU does incorporate a biblical worldview so that is something to consider. We have rotated between EIW, BJU Press English and Institute for Excellence in Writing for our English (writing and grammar). I hope that helps.
Hi Janelle, my daughter is using the 7th grade EIW curriculum this year and I wanted to note that they have a blurb on page 101 noting that sometimes genders aren’t disclosed and using they as a singular pronoun is perfectly acceptable. This might not be a big deal for some families but I wanted to mention it in case it helped a family who might not appreciate that, hence the fact that it is a secular curriculum. Thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing what you discovered! It is always helpful to have as much information about a curriculum when making decisions and I’m sure this piece of information will be useful to others. Thanks!
Hi Beth! I reached out to EIW for clarification regarding your comment. This is the reply I received from EIW:
“Thank you for reaching out with your question. I am glad you sought clarification on this topic.
As the Head of Education and Curriculum, I am happy to provide our company’s philosophy regarding this topic. Essentials in Writing strives to provide a neutral homeschool writing curriculum for students and parents without any bias toward or against any social, political, or religious topic. We are in the business of teaching writing and that is all.
The “Did You Know” box on Lesson 16 of Level 7 is simply stating that it is acceptable to use “they” as a singular pronoun if the gender of the antecedent is not specified. Please note, we are not inferring anything about gender or gender identification, but just the fact that the antecedent in the sentence is unclear. In the future, we will be adding an example to clarify this statement. In the following sentence, it is not specified whether the “pharmacist” is male or female.
“I asked to speak to a pharmacist so they could explain the directions on my new medication.”
Language evolves over time and often informal language used in speech becomes acceptable in formal writing. When we speak, we often use “they” as a singular pronoun without even realizing it. However, it is not our intent to say this is the only way to do it. It is also still acceptable to use “he or she” when referring to an unknown antecedent like the following example.
“I asked to speak to a pharmacist so he or she could explain the directions on my new medication.”
Often the reason parents choose to homeschool is so they have the ability to make decisions about these types of topics, and at EIW, we support that. Again, our goal is to teach writing so students can effectively express themselves using written language. We support parents in making any and all decisions regarding the content taught to their students. Mr. Stephens himself will tell you we have NO ulterior motives within the company and the curriculum we provide.”
Hope this will help others with decisions regarding EIW. Thank you Janelle for the abundance of information provided on your blog. It has been very helpful!
Did you continue with Level 9 and up or did you switch it up for high school?
We ended up switching writing curriculum a few times from EIW (Essentials in Writing) to BJU Press English and then to IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing). All are excellent options.