This week’s episode is about preventing summer evaporation! Join Andrew Pudewa and Julie Walker as they discuss ideas for summer learning that won’t lead to long faces and complaints. From state history field trips to scavenger hunts, IEW’s customer service team gave Julie a host of ideas for a summer of fun and learning.

Referenced Materials

• 1000 Hours Outside blog
• Episode 367: 1000 Hours Outside – A Conversation with Ginny Yurich 
• Episode 323: Preventing Evaporation – Strategies for Summer Writing
• Episode 373: Summer Writing Ideas
• Read Aloud Revival
• Camp BOOK IT! Summer Program
• Principles of Motivation audio talk by Andrew Pudewa

If you have questions for Andrew, send them to [email protected]
Perhaps your question will be answered at the next Ask Andrew Anything (AAA).

If you have questions about IEW products or classes, contact customer service at 800.856.5815 or [email protected]

An encomium is a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly. In this week’s episode, Andrew Pudewa and Julie Walker brainstorm ways to show appreciation to teachers and mothers. They also reminisce about teachers who influenced them. Has your student ever written an encomium to show appreciation for you or a teacher? Listen to this episode to hear Andrew’s and Julie’s topic ideas for an encomium in praise of a teacher or mother.

Referenced Materials

• IEW Appreciates Teachers!  
• IEW Appreciates Teachers! blog post
• R23: Lessons in Cinema, Part 1
• Teaching Writing: Structure and Style® Seminar Workbook
• Unit 5 Student Sample

If you have questions for Andrew, send them to [email protected]
Perhaps your question will be answered at the next Ask Andrew Anything (AAA).

If you have questions about IEW products or classes, contact customer service at 800.856.5815 or [email protected]

Andrew Pudewa and Julie Walker discuss the IEW® 100% satisfaction guarantee and how the return policy works. Learn why Andrew established this policy and why IEW does not ever discount materials. 

Referenced Materials

• Satisfaction Guarantee
• Return Policy

If you have questions for Andrew, send them to [email protected]
Perhaps your question will be answered at the next Ask Andrew Anything (AAA).

If you have questions about IEW products or classes, contact customer service at 800.856.5815 or [email protected]

If you have been following along all year, we have made it to the final episode in this year’s series on the unit models. Join Andrew Pudewa and Julie Walker as they discuss Unit 9: Formal Critique. In some ways, it is the culmination of all the units. Explore the value of learning the skills of analysis and writing about literature even if students are not planning to pursue a literary career.

Referenced Materials

• Teaching Writing: Structure and Style®
• Seminar Workbook
• Magnum Opus Magazine Unit 9 Samples
• Formal Critiques: Going beyond the Boring Book Report webinar 
• Episode 417: Using IEW through the Years 

If you have questions for Andrew, send them to [email protected]
Perhaps your question will be answered at the next Ask Andrew Anything (AAA).

If you have questions about IEW products or classes, contact customer service at 800.856.5815 or [email protected]

In this week’s episode, Andrew Pudewa and Julie Walker are joined by Heidi Thomas and Joseph Tabenkin. Heidi is part of IEW's Product Development team. This past year she and her team have worked alongside Joseph, a product and software developer, to create IEW Gradebook, an online tool designed to help teachers grade more efficiently and effectively. Listen in for exciting details!

Referenced Materials

• IEW Gradebook
• Four Deadly Errors of Teaching Writing audio talk by Andrew Pudewa
• “Simplify Grading with IEW Gradebook” 
• Teaching Writing: Structure and Style® 
• Theme-Based Writing Lessons
• Structure and Style® for Students
• Heidi Thomas
• Joseph Tabenkin

If you have questions for Andrew, send them to [email protected]
Perhaps your question will be answered at the next Ask Andrew Anything (AAA).

If you have questions about IEW products or classes, contact customer service at 800.856.5815 or [email protected]

It’s time for another Live Ask Andrew Anything episode! Join Andrew Pudewa and Julie Walker as they answer questions from listeners. They were joined by Ashley from Joyful Noise Learning, who asked how to answer a child who asks, “Why do I have to learn writing when I am not going to be a writer when I grow up?” Andrew also shares what he is reading to his grandchildren as well as a few other book recommendations.

Referenced Materials

• Joyful Noise Learning 
• However Imperfectly by Andrew Pudewa
• Penrod by Booth Tarkington
• Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
• Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
• How to Think like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education by Scott Newstok
• Structure and Style® for Students: Year 1 Level C
• Dual Enrollment with Christian Halls International
• University-Ready Writing
• Introduction to Public Speaking

If you have questions for Andrew, send them to [email protected]
Perhaps your question will be answered at the next Ask Andrew Anything (AAA).

If you have questions about IEW products or classes, contact customer service at 800.856.5815 or [email protected]

In this episode, Andrew Pudewa and Julie Walker discuss the goodness of memory. Andrew shares his experiences with memorization and some of the reasons behind his passion for it. They introduce a new tool that will help you furnish the mind with poetry, songs, math facts, and more. 

Referenced Materials

• Nurturing Competent Communicators audio talk by Andrew Pudewa
• Mastery Learning, Ability Development, and Individualized Education audio talk by Andrew Pudewa
• Ten Thousand Times and then Begins Understanding audio talk by Andrew Pudewa
• By Heart: The Goodness of Memory audio talk by Andrew Pudewa
• Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization
• Teaching Writing: Structure and Style®
• "The Fly" by Ogden Nash
• "Relativity" by Arthur Henry Reginald Buller
• How to Think like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education by Scott Newstok
• Episode 398: Think like Shakespeare, Part 1
• Memory Mentor
• "The Children’s Hour" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If you have questions for Andrew, send them to [email protected]
Perhaps your question will be answered at the next Ask Andrew Anything (AAA).

If you have questions about IEW products or classes, contact customer service at 800.856.5815 or [email protected]

In this episode Andrew Pudewa and Julie Walker discuss the importance of learning the basic essay model even when many say it is outdated or formulaic. Learn how to take the basic essay model and expand it to a super-essay. Andrew even discusses the name of the longest essay model that uses one of his favorite words.

Referenced Materials

• “De-Confusing Essays” article by Andrew Pudewa
• Unit 8: Easy Essays and Beyond webinar
• University-Ready Writing
• University-Ready Writing free lessons
• Teaching Writing: Structure and Style
• Seminar Workbook
• Magnum Opus Magazine Unit 8 samples

If you have questions for Andrew, send them to [email protected]
Perhaps your question will be answered at the next Ask Andrew Anything (AAA).

If you have questions about IEW products or classes, contact customer service at 800.856.5815 or [email protected]

Andrew Pudewa and Julie Walker give a quick overview of how to start with IEW before diving into the question of how long students should use IEW courses. Students sometimes complain that they are doing the same thing over and over again. Learn why Andrew recommends the repetition of the Structure and Style syllabus over multiple years and whether students will ever graduate from the checklist.

Referenced Materials

• How to Get Started with IEW
• IEW Homeschool Magalog
• IEW Pathway
• Teaching Writing: Structure and Style
• Structure and Style for Students
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• “Celebrate the Checklist”
• Introduction to Public Speaking
• Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization
• University-Ready Writing0
• Transcript of Podcast Episode 417

If you have questions for Andrew, send them to [email protected]

Perhaps your question will be answered at the next Ask Andrew Anything (AAA).

If you have questions about IEW products or classes, contact customer service at 800.856.5815 or [email protected]

Andrew Pudewa and Julie Walker spend this episode sharing the legacy of Dr. James B. Webster. Hear the stories behind the unit models and a few personal anecdotes from Andrew’s long friendship with him. As Andrew said, “If you have benefitted from IEW in any way, you can be grateful for his brilliance, his vision that all children could learn to write well, and his decades-long friendship with me—without which IEW would not exist.”

Referenced Materials

• Dr. James B. Webster
• Anna Ingham
• IEW’s story
• Dr. Webster’s obituary
• Blended Structure and Style in Composition by Dr. James B. Webster
• Blended Sound-Sight Program of Learning by Anna Ingham
• Transcript of Podcast Episode 416

If you have questions for Andrew, send them to [email protected]

Perhaps your question will be answered at the next Ask Andrew Anything (AAA).

If you have questions about IEW products or classes, contact customer service at 800.856.5815 or [email protected]

In this Homeschool 101 episode, Andrew Pudewa and Julie Walker discuss the importance of attending homeschooling conventions. They reminisce about the conventions they have attended and their favorite things to do when attending a convention. Andrew shares his heart on why home educators and grandparents should make the time and put forth the effort to attend a homeschool convention. 

Referenced Materials

• Great Homeschool Convention-South Carolina (GHC-SC) 
• GHC-Missouri
• GHC-Ohio
• UTCH Convention 2024
• IDEA Anchorage
• IDEA Soldotna 
• IDEA Fairbanks
• IDEA Juneau 
• FPEA Florida Homeschool Convention
• NCFCA National Championship
• 41st Annual Virginia Homeschool Convention (HEAV)
• CHEA's Annual Homeschool Convention
• 2024 Northern California Homeschool Convention 
• Transcript of Podcast Episode 415

If you have questions for Andrew, send them to [email protected]

Perhaps your question will be answered at the next Ask Andrew Anything (AAA).

If you have questions about IEW products or classes, contact customer service at 800.856.5815 or [email protected]