Institute for Excellence in Writing
Hillsdale College's K-12 Education Office has partnered with the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW®) to bring schools a comprehensive writing program tailored for students in Grades 3-8. This program is designed to enhance your child’s writing, reading, listening, speaking, and thinking skills while aligning seamlessly with the Hillsdale K-12 curriculum.
Addressing the Challenge of Composition
Learning to write is one of the most challenging skills in a student’s education. Composition combines many different foundational skills, and each contributes to the end product—handwriting, reading, comprehending, summarizing, synthesizing, and creating cohesive thought, to name a few. Often, students struggle to understand the individual components of writing (i.e., how and what to write about) and thus struggle to feel successful. 
The Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW®) is a proven program that helps students to become confident and competent writers through:
- Systematic Learning: Students benefit from a carefully structured approach that builds writing skills progressively over several years. The first third-grade resource became available in summer 2023.
- Skill Development: The program focuses on essential writing techniques, helping students learn how to express their thoughts with clarity and creativity.
- Engaging Content: Through source texts with interesting content pulled from the Hillsdale K-12 Program Guide, students explore nine different ways to format compositions and discover stylistic techniques that elevate their writing.
Learning to write is a central skill because it is fundamentally about thinking, then transferring that thought from one person to the next. The writer must analyze, synthesize, and structure their thoughts so someone else can understand them and be informed, entertained, moved, or persuaded. The Hillsdale K-12 Office sought a writing program to cultivate these purposes in students and help teachers support their development.
How the IEW® Method Benefits Students
- Confidence Building: The step-by-step approach helps students know both how to write and what to write
- Skill Transferability: Students learn to apply writing techniques across various subjects and contexts
- Thinking Skills Enhancement: The process of asking questions and outlining thoughts fosters independent, analytical writing abilities
Andrew Pudewa, the founder of IEW®, emphasizes the connection between thinking and asking good questions, which ultimately informs the writing process, stating, "You can't get something out of a brain that isn't in there to begin with. If you want to think of something, you have to ask yourself a question."
By providing a structured framework and encouraging critical thinking through learning to ask pertinent questions, IEW® transforms writing education into a predictable and enjoyable process for students of all skill levels.
Curriculum Collaboration
Because writing is wrapped up in thinking about specific content, the Hillsdale K-12 Education Office has collaborated with IEW® to pair their method and presentation with our recommended content in disciplines like history, science, and literature. The following chart shows the currently available collaborative texts and those which are forthcoming:
These texts are intended to complement the IEW® Structure and Style for Students curriculum, and new schools should purchase the relevant Structure and Style for Students resources in Grades 4-8 to guide the first year or two of program implementation. With this curriculum comes invaluable resources to support teachers as they learn and navigate the program for the first time.
To Learn More
Hillsdale College Classical Education Podcast -
Andrew Pudewa: Developing a Comprehensive Writing Curriculum
The Arts of Language Podcast -
Episode 382: Announcing IEW’s Partnership with Hillsdale College!