Over the years I have come to believe one of the most important parts of a child's education is knowing how to write well. Fortuigence may help your child on the way to becoming a rockstar--an essay writing rockstar that is! Our family received Essay Rockstar Expository Essay Writing to use in our homeschool. My 8th grader used it for several weeks until he had completed the entire short course.
The methods used were fairly familiar to us, but getting to "turn in" my son's work to another teacher was completely different for us! It was a neat experience. I was glad to let someone else to the grading/editing for a while--and I think it gave my son confidence to hear feedback from someone besides "mom."
The writing instruction involved 5 basic steps: brainstorming, organization, free writing, revision and editing. These were arranged into several lessons. For each lesson we visited the Fortuigence website, entered our password and clicked on "classroom." (Always an easy process!) For each lesson, my son watched a short video with the teacher. He then listened to the teacher as she gave further audio instructions. He was able to read along with her on the screen as she read. Several links and pdf's were available for further instruction and help. My son then completed the assignment. It was typed and sent to the teacher via the website.
We would then wait a day or two and then my son would receive an email back from Mrs. Iatridis (or "Mrs. I"). She would then instruct what the next step would be. The "classroom" was automatically updated each time an assignment was completed. (A gray check indicated an assignment being graded/turned in. A red check meant it was all done.) Everything was done very linearly and was very self-explanatory. Each level is mastered before moving on.
The Teacher:
Lily Iatridis taught in the traditional classroom for 10+ years. She holds a master's degrees in: secondary education and liberal studies. She also has a Bachelor of Arts degree. She now does her online teaching full time. Fortuigence works mostly with homeschooling families.
Age Range: 12-18 years old
Cost: $57
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Pros:
- A great choice for many types of learners: audio learners, visual learners, etc.
- The clearly mapped out format was a huge benefit. My son was able to easily proceed to the next step without confusion. Very little (if any) help was needed from "mom."
- There is no strict due date for assignments. I love this. Life happens.
- Quick feedback. Very impressed with this!
(Possible) Cons:
- I had trouble getting the website to upload a word document. All it took was an email to Fortuigence and it was handled immediately. Mrs. I even wrote me a personal email explaining how to make it work in the future. I was very impressed with this and I never had any more problems uploading anything.
- We did not receive a lot of "corrections" on my son's work--not until the final editing process. I was hoping to get a bit more instruction, but in the end it turned out great.
Thanks for your review! I'm glad we were able to sort out the techical difficulty, and in my opinion, your son came to the course with very strong writing skills already. You've taught him well!
ReplyDeleteHave a great day,
Lily :)