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Instructional Writing (Ages 5-15)


OVERVIEW

The purpose of the one-hour instructional writing workshops is to ensure that the students are correctly integrating what they learned in the CORE class into their writing samples. Participants, of all ages, are brought "back to basics"¯ by rebuilding their skills… one-word-at-a-time. Students are taught strategies for organizing their thoughts and transposing them into grammatically-correct and non-repetitive sentences that more closely resemble the profound depth of their minds and emotions. These workshops also provide differentiated instruction to help each student, at their own pace, integrate the writing skills they've learned in their CORE classes into their assignments outside of the program. Improvement can be easily identified after the first class.

METHODOLOGY

All VEG age groupings are taught using its trademarked/patented teaching methodology, "The Phillips RBM (Reawakening Brilliant Minds) Approach® ". Through "Dialectical Practices"and elements of "randomness", students are taught the "rites of writing" based on the VEG grammar curriculum that "subliminally" helps students master the written word. Students are never asked to "sit down and write about something". Instead, random story prompts, unique characters and creative plots are suggested. Then… every student has the opportunity to write their individual interpretations together on a glass whiteboard culminating with an "oral sharing session".

CURRICULUM

All writing samples must follow the strict guidelines of VEG's "Surreptitious Grammar Book" and the "Error Eradicator" rubric written by its founder, Tobi J. Phillips, Ed. D. (cert.) This instructional manual contains hundreds of rules and methods of "unraveling" the gifted students' innovative ideas, concepts and newly-learned facts into coherent and sequential written reports, oral presentations, reflective essays, news articles and short stories. Meticulous attention is paid to editing "handwritten" drafts because computers will correct their mistakes. After the assignments have been "perfected", the students are "permitted" to type their final draft on the computer.

The following skills are taught and enforced: concise sentence structure, parts of speech parallel structures, subject-verb-pronoun agreements, advanced vocabulary building and integration, synonym replacements, syntax, idea sequencing, orthography techniques, collaborative writing, essay organization, expository writing, factual-fiction stories, journalism, data research and collection, outlining and fine editing.