Each student has unique perspectives and opinions. However, conveying thoughts into flowing, coherent writing can be challenging. We work with students on a variety of writing tasks and we ultimately break down our approach to three major steps:

Structure and Drafting — We teach our students the appropriate structure(s) to use in their writing. A research document is written differently from a narrative, and an essay is written differently from a biography. We help students to structure their ideas and to communicate in effective and logical ways. Once a structural foundation is set, we work with students to create a comprehensive draft to cover all assignment requirements.

Revision and Remodeling — After our students complete a draft, we move into the revision and remodeling stages. In this phase, we teach our students to look at their own work critically. We discuss spelling, grammar/sentence structure, and content presentation to create flowing writing pieces. Additionally, we review the main points of students’ writing to ensure that main points are supported, sentences are positioned logically, and that all necessary quotations and citations are handled correctly. We work with students to add supporting details and to remove irrelevant information to maximize the effectiveness of their writing.

Context and Style — Once revisions are complete, writing can be further enhanced by reviewing word context and style. For the context step, let’s consider a writing piece that contains the adjective “good.” This word does not have a precise meaning; you might have a “good” day if you find a dollar on the ground, or you might have a “good” day if you win the lottery! Instead, we encourage our students to exercise the vocabulary of the English language to find a precise shade of meaning — finding a dollar might be “fortunate” while winning the lottery might be “providential”!

Finally, we help our students to develop their own voices in their writing. Every writer makes use of a distinct mix of techniques and we encourage our students to try representing their ideas in different ways.  Once a student develops a mix that he or she feels comfortable with, we encourage the student to continue mastering his or her own unique style.