Open to: Grades 5 - 7
Format: Email and Flexi-paced
Challenge Level: High school junior
Prerequisite: Qualifying verbal score
Recommended School Credit: 0.5 credit
Session Based:  Session Dates and Application Deadlines
Length:

• 20 weeks (Fall & Early Spring -- Email)
  
• 12 weeks (Early Summer -- Email)
  
• 6 weeks (Intensive Midsummer -- Email)
  
• up to 9 months (flexi-paced)
  

By approaching writing as a process, instructors encourage students to avoid closure on a piece of writing before exploring its full possibilities. The goal is for students to become personally invested in their work. By demystifying the elements of writing, instructors help students develop the confidence to take risks and challenge themselves. Level 1 students use the writing process to accomplish three projects:

1. a poem,
2. a nonfiction narrative, and
3. a fictional narrative.

For each project, students complete one assignment for each of the writing process' three stages:

1. prewriting to discover an idea,
2. drafting to see what you have to say about that idea, and
3. revising to express that idea to readers.

Students also write an autobiographical sketch. As they write each assignment, students apply their instructor's extensive comments about their previous assignments. Exchanging letters with the instructor about the experience of writing and about each others' comments on the assignments is an important part of the course.

Formats cover the same concepts, but differ in approach.

• In the email format, students email finished essays to instructors and receive detailed critiques of those essays. They download an assignment packet at the course's start.
  
• The flexi-paced format uses a web-based course management system that delivers assignments, receives finished essays, and returns instructor critiques. Students and instructors use the course management system's messaging module to communicate. Because due date schedules vary by student, peer review workshops are not possible. Students and instructor need not be online at the same time.
  

Sample Assignment 

Time Required:

• 2 hours weekly for 20 week sessions (Fall & Early Spring)
• 3.5 hours weekly for 12-week session (Early Summer)

• 1.5 hours Monday - Friday during 6-week session (Intensive Midsummer)

 Review Summer Session Daily Schedules
Learn more about the summer sessions.

• 4 hours per assignment (9-month Flexi-paced)

Get more information from Frequently Asked Questions.

Detailed Course Information

Read Comments and Feedback from Students, Parents, and Instructors

Tech Skills: students need for emailing

System Requirements

Course Code: ema1