Overview 

Students enrolled in our Individualized Writing Course work with their own private writing teacher (called a writing consultant), every day, Monday through Friday, on papers and projects of their parents' choosing. Our teachers provide 100% individualized, hand-tailored instruction to meet each student's precise needs as a writer.  All our teachers hold at least one Masters degree in English or a related field, have years upon years of teaching experience, and are published writers.  The course is conducted entirely through our password-protected web portal.  Enrollment is ongoing throughout the calendar year, so you can schedule a course to begin on any day you wish, as long as it's not a weekend or holiday.  All aspects of the writing process are covered, including generating ideas, prewriting, outlining, research, taking notes, drafting, controlling tone, sentence and paragraph structure, literary and stylistic devices, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, editing, proofreading, and the process of revision.

Because we believe that parents are their children's most important teachers, parents are welcome to communicate with their child's writing consultant, and in fact are an integral part of the course. The instruction is asynchronous, meaning there aren't any scheduled meeting times. Instead, a student can log into his or her account whenever he's ready to submit his work or ask a question, and his writing consultant will always reply within 24 business hours. Our teachers provide approximately 30 to 45 minutes of work per day, with the understanding that the student has to submit the completed work before the teacher will provide any more. You can enroll for any number of months you wish, but the smallest block of time we can offer is a one month session. Because the course is truly individualized, there can be no predetermined syllabus. Rather, parents work with their child's writing consultant to decide on one particular project, at which point the writing consultant will be able to discern the student's level of skill and experience. After the first project is complete, the consultant will be glad to recommend a new project based on the student's progress, or will work on any project provided or decided upon by the parent.

When a student is enrolled in a course, he's given his own private student-account where he'll exchange messages and papers with his writing consultant.  Parents will likewise recieve their own private parent-account.  The parent-account allows parents to communicate with their children's writing consultant (or writing consultants, if you've enrolled more than one student with different teachers).  The parent account also allows parents to review all the messages that pass between the consultant and the students.  It's a lot like having a window into your children's classroom.  Student accounts, of course, don't have this capability at all, so any mail that a parent exchanges with a writing consultant remains completely confidential and private. 

Courses can be scheduled to begin on any weekday, Monday through Friday, excluding company holidays (our Policy page includes a list of holidays). On your scheduled starting date, parents and students should both log into their own private accounts (accessible at http://www.mywriteguide.com) where they'll find their writing consultant's first letters to them. The writing consultant will inquire as to the parent's goals for the course, and will begin working with the student on any project that the parent selects or designs. As the student and teacher begin working, parents are encouraged to communicate frequently with the teacher in order to provide further direction and insight. Parents can monitor all correspondence that passes between the student and teacher, and are welcome to join in the discussion at any point in time.

Four Approaches

Traditionally, families have used four identifiable approaches when participating in our courses.

The first and most popular approach is to ask your writing consultant to work with your child on a "from-scratch" writing project that you either choose or design yourself. You might know, for example, that you want your daughter to write a research paper this year, and that the paper should be at least ten pages long, citing a certain amount of references, etc. Or, you might ask your son's writing consultant to teach him how to write a five paragraph essay.

The second approach is to for a student and writing consultant to work together on a paper that has already been started.

The third approach is to request that your child's writing consultant work with him or her on one or more assignments from a particular curriculum or program. Some families ask their teachers to help their children with essays from school. Some ask them to guide a student through an assignment taken from a history or writing text. Many families ask their child's teacher to prepare their children for the writing portion of the SAT or ACT. As long as a parent can communicate the directions and parameters of the assignment in question, your child's writing consultant will be glad to work on it.

The fourth approach is to ask your writing consultant to take charge of selecting and designing all your child's assignments.

It's important to realize, however, that because the course is individualized, and because we recognize parents as their children's most important teachers, you can switch between these four different methods as often as you like.   Also, other approaches are possible!  Our aim is to support a parent's goals and intentions as home educators.  We take our "marching orders" from you.

What to Expect During the Course

Every time a student or parent writes to his or her writing consultant, the writing consultant will always respond within 24 hours (unless it's a weekend or holiday), providing whatever lessons or feedback are necessary to help the student move forward with the project. Enough instruction will be provided to give the student about half an hour to 45 minutes of work per day, so that the student can then write back to his or her writing consultant to receive more instruction. Ideally, students should write to their writing consultants every day, Monday through Friday, so that they'll receive five sets of individualized lessons, feedback, and instruction per week. Students can take as much time as they need before responding to their writing consultant, but please be aware that the consultant won't write back until the student has responded to his or her last message! Upon hearing back from his writing consultant, a student should complete the assigned work, and should respond with a message and a draft of his paper. Parents can also send one message per day to their child's writing consultant, in addition to the message or paper that the student sends.  We like to view our course as a partnership between two teachers (the parent and the writing consultant), and so frequent parent input is both anticipated and appreciated.

Sharing a Course

Although the course was designed to serve as a complete writing package for one individual, it can be shared by more than one student. The only stipulation is that if two or more students are sharing a course, no more than one submission can be sent to the family's writing consultant per day.

How Long it Lasts

We offer courses in increments of months. The shortest course is a one month course, but there are also two, three, four, five, six, nine, and twelve month courses as well. That way you can select the amount of time that will best serve your family. Many families enroll for three months before Christmas (September to December), and then five months after Christmas (January through May). We're also open all summer long, so a lot of students enroll for three months to cover June through August. 

A month in our course lasts from the starting date of the course to the corresponding calendar date in the next month. Therefore, a one month course started on June 8th (for example) would end on July 8th. Likewise, a three month course started on September 14th (again, a random date for the sake of example) would end on December 14th. We're closed on the weekends and on holidays. A student's ending date is always displayed in the student's web portal, and in her parent's web portal as well.

If you're still not sure...

If you're not sure whether or not our courses are a good fit for your family, please consider enrolling only for one month -- it's only $75.00. When the month is complete you can enroll in a new block of time. Our site contains samples of the course, as well as course reviews, and plenty of comments from families who have enrolled. Please review these items in order to gain a better idea of what to expect should you decide to enroll.  And when you are ready to enroll, you can click the "Enroll Now" links, or the spiffy green button that appears throughout our website.