Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW)

IEW is the specialist homeschool writing publisher whose Structure and Style method is the single most-adopted writing curriculum in the homeschool market. It is not a full curriculum; it is a writing-instruction system, and its combination of structure (outlining) and style (deliberate sentence techniques) has defined how a generation of homeschool students learned to write.

Last updated: 2026-04-20 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Structure and Style (outlining + deliberate stylistic techniques)
Worldview	Christian-founder, content-neutral in materials (occasional Christian-friendly examples)
Grades	2-12
Formats	DVD or streaming video instruction + student workbooks + teacher's manuals
Cost tier	Standard to Premium (per course)
Parent intensity	3 (video teaches; parent facilitates)
ESA-common	Yes
Accredited	No
Established	1996
Website	iew.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	4	Strong writing mechanics and structural thinking; less focused on creative voice
Ease of teaching	4	Andrew Pudewa's videos do the primary teaching
Content quality	5	The Structure and Style method is genuinely excellent pedagogy
Flexibility	4	Works alongside any other curriculum; thematic books let families choose topics
Value for money	3	Per-course pricing; the Teaching Writing: Structure and Style parent course is pricey but foundational
Worldview scope	4	Essentially neutral; usable by secular and religious families
Visual/design	3	Functional; workbooks are clean; videos are low-production-value but effective
Support resources	4	Strong community, IEW Forum, Andrew Pudewa's podcast

Who the publisher is

The Institute for Excellence in Writing was founded in 1996 by Andrew Pudewa, a writing educator who had developed what he calls the Structure and Style method over years of teaching writing to homeschool co-ops and classrooms. The method is adapted from the work of James B. Webster, a mid-20th-century writing educator whose techniques Pudewa studied and reformulated for contemporary use.

IEW's distinctive business and pedagogical approach is the Teaching Writing: Structure and Style course, a six-DVD or streaming parent-training program that teaches the method to the adult before the adult teaches it to students. This parent-first training is unusual in homeschool publishing and is the foundation of everything else IEW sells. Families who do the parent training well can use IEW materials effectively for a decade; families who skip the training sometimes struggle.

Scale is substantial among serious homeschool writing families. IEW is, in our editorial estimate, the most-used dedicated writing curriculum in the homeschool market, used both as a stand-alone program and as a supplement within other curricula (notably Classical Conversations, where IEW is the default writing method at the Essentials and Challenge levels).

The core pedagogy

IEW's Structure and Style method has two linked components.

Structure is a sequence of nine "units" that teach students how to organize writing at different lengths and for different purposes. Unit 1 (note-making) and Unit 2 (writing from notes) build the foundational skill of outlining and re-composing. Units 3-5 (narrative, summarizing references, writing from multiple sources) expand the toolkit. Units 6-9 (library research, creative writing, formal essay, and critique) take the student through high school writing demands.

Style is a set of deliberate sentence techniques, "dress-ups" and "sentence openers", that students are required to include in every paragraph. Dress-ups include strong verbs, quality adjectives, who-which clauses, and adverbial clauses. Sentence openers include prepositional openers, -ly adverb openers, adverbial clause openers, and several others. Students use a checklist to confirm they have included each required style element.

This combination is pedagogically distinctive. Most writing programs tell students to "write well" and hope for good prose; IEW tells students precisely what elements to include in each paragraph and requires them to produce those elements. The result is writing that is structured, mechanically rich, and distinctly recognizable (experienced readers can spot an IEW-trained student quickly).

Signature mechanics: (1) Teaching Writing: Structure and Style (TWSS), the parent-training course. This is foundational and almost non-optional for effective use of IEW materials. (2) Structure units 1-9, the nine-unit sequence of structural skills. (3) Style checklist, the required-inclusion checklist for dress-ups, sentence openers, and other style elements. (4) Thematic student books. IEW publishes student books with source materials on different themes (medieval history, fables and myths, American history, fairy tales, etc.) so families can choose topics that align with their history curriculum.

A day in the life

A fourth-grader using IEW's "Fix It!" grammar plus a student writing book does writing 3-4 days per week for 30-45 minutes per session. Typical session: the child reads a short source passage, takes notes using the IEW note-making format, rewrites the passage in their own words following the unit's structural requirements, and adds the required style elements (perhaps three strong verbs, two who-which clauses, one -ly adverb opener, one prepositional opener). The child checks the style checklist, revises if missing elements, and submits to the parent.

A ninth-grader using IEW's high school writing programs does writing 4-5 days per week for 45-60 minutes. The student is working in Units 7-9, library research papers, creative writing, and formal essays, with higher word-count requirements and more sophisticated style elements. Formal research papers and critiques are standard ninth-grade output.

What they do exceptionally well

Teaching Writing: Structure and Style (parent training). The TWSS course is, in our editorial view, the best writing-pedagogy course available to homeschool parents. A parent who completes TWSS genuinely knows how to teach writing, not just follow a curriculum, but understand the underlying pedagogy. This is rare and valuable.

Reliable output from students who would otherwise struggle. IEW's structural approach produces competent writing from students who might otherwise not produce much writing at all. A student who doesn't know what to write about finds that the note-taking-and-rewriting approach gives them something to start with; a student who writes unstructured mush finds that the style checklist requires them to produce structured prose. This is a genuine and replicable result.

Longevity of method. The IEW method works at age 9 and at age 18. The same structural units and style techniques scale from simple narrative summaries in elementary to full research papers in high school. This longevity means a family's investment in learning the method pays dividends for a decade.

What they do poorly

Writing can feel formulaic. The style checklist approach, "include three dress-ups and four sentence openers", can produce writing that meets all the checklist requirements but feels mechanical rather than genuinely expressive. IEW-trained students sometimes sound like IEW-trained students: structurally sound, stylistically present, but less distinctively themselves. Experienced writing teachers sometimes request IEW students to write "without the checklist" to see the student's natural voice.

Content is secondary to mechanics. IEW is focused on how to write rather than what to write. Content comes from source materials the student summarizes, from assigned topics, or from the student's own selection. Families who want a writing program that teaches content creation, argumentation, or independent research topic selection often pair IEW with a separate rhetoric or essay-writing program at the high school level.

Per-course pricing adds up. TWSS is approximately $200-$250 for the parent training (one-time, though subsequent use benefits). Student courses run $60-$120 each. A family going deep into IEW across multiple years spends meaningful money.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick IEW if: you want structured, reliable writing instruction; your child struggles with where to start when writing; you value the parent-training investment; you want a writing program that works from age 9 through high school; you want writing that produces reliable mechanics and structure.

• Skip IEW if: you have a strong natural writer who will chafe at the structural constraints; you prefer writing programs that emphasize voice and content over mechanics; you want the absolute cheapest option; you won't invest in TWSS (without it, IEW is much less effective); you want writing instruction integrated into a literature program rather than a stand-alone skill.

Cost honest assessment

Teaching Writing: Structure and Style (TWSS) parent course runs approximately $200-$250 one-time. Each student writing course, typically one thematic book per year, runs $60-$120. Fix It! grammar (a separately-purchased parallel program) runs $30-$60 per level.

For a family of three children using IEW across multiple years: TWSS one-time ($200-$250), plus $180-$360 annually for student books across all three children, plus Fix It! at $90-$180 annually. All-in across multiple years, per-child IEW costs amortize to approximately $100-$200 annually.

Compared to stand-alone writing programs like Wordsmith or Writing Strands (roughly $50-$100 per year), IEW is more expensive up-front but produces measurably stronger results in community assessment.

ESA eligibility notes

IEW is approved on nearly all state ESA marketplaces including Arizona ClassWallet, Florida Step Up For Students, Iowa Student First, Utah Fits All, and Arkansas LEARNS. TWSS (parent training) is ESA-eligible in most marketplaces as curriculum, though some states distinguish between materials for students and materials for parents; IEW has experience working with these distinctions and can provide appropriate documentation.

Alternatives

• Writing & Rhetoric (Classical Academic Press), a family would choose W&R over IEW because W&R teaches writing through classical progymnasmata (the ancient sequence of writing exercises) and produces writing with classical coherence rather than checklist structure.
• Write Shop, a family would choose Write Shop over IEW because Write Shop is more gentle and incremental, and its elementary levels are better-suited to young or reluctant writers.
• Bravewriter, a family would choose Bravewriter over IEW because Bravewriter emphasizes voice, authentic writing, and writing-as-lifestyle rather than structural mechanics.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed IEW's catalog at iew.com, sample content from Teaching Writing: Structure and Style, Student Writing Intensive Level A and B, and several thematic student books. We cross-referenced against Cathy Duffy's review, community feedback from IEW and non-IEW writing-curriculum users, and Andrew Pudewa's publicly-available podcasts and conference talks.