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Do you worry that …
Your kids don’t write well enough?
They might not be ready for college...or be able get into a good college?
You don’t know how to teach writing?
You don’t know how to help them with their writing?
You’ve got too much to do on your own?
Well, there’s no need to worry anymore.
We’ve got you covered!
When your child takes the Essay Rockstar homeschool writing curriculum, they work with a live professional teacher who guides them through their lessons, answers their questions, grades their papers, and gives them individualized feedback until each assignment is completed to expectations…
No matter how long it takes.
And all you have to do is sit back and watch as your kids...
- Gain confidence in their ability to write
- Express their thoughts clearly in writing
- Develop critical thinking skills
- Learn how to respond to college application essays
- Tackle timed writing assignments with confidence
- Catch and correct their grammar errors, AND
- Never face another writing assignment with fear and dread again!
A Lack of Writing Ability Is a Critical Weakness
Our public school systems often don’t meet our teenagers’ needs, and parents at home need support! In 2011, a full 73% of U.S. teens tested failed to demonstrate writing competency, according to the annual report of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. Department of Education. This is especially alarming, since writing is a skill used in almost any academic or work environment.
Writing competency should be achieved by a majority of teens in the U.S., NOT a minority!
When your teenager goes out into the world, their writing will be their calling card. When a potential employer or college admissions officer reads their writing, they’re going to make judgments about your child’s education, intelligence, and work ethic. It’s of utmost importance that your kids go out into the world with the strongest writing skills possible.
Let’s face it. Teenagers today often don’t get the writing skills training they need in school. And for homeschooling families, writing is a very challenging subject to teach. In other subjects like science or math, there’s only one right answer. But there’s never one right answer when it comes to writing! That’s what makes writing so hard to grade or review objectively.
That kind of objectivity develops only with repeated experience in teaching writing many, many times. That’s what our professional teachers and our homeschool writing curriculum bring to your children and your family: thousands of hours of experience spent teaching the subject to hundreds of children. Our teachers know how to identify problems quickly, as well as which problems to address first and which to save until later. We have expertise in assorted teaching methods and a huge repertoire of quick and successful solutions to different issues we see in our students’ writing.
Our Online Writing Program Solves a Problem
Essay Rockstar’s goal is to combine the best aspects of live teaching into a flexible online setting that suits everyone’s needs.
In Essay Rockstar your kids work at their own pace, at whatever time of day they want, and on any device. PLUS they still get feedback and direct interaction with an instructor whenever they need it!
Our courses are self-paced with no deadline for completion, and we use a mastery approach. Each lesson and assignment builds on the one prior, so students aren’t allowed to move forward until each assignment is completed to teacher expectations.
In other words, kids can’t skip lessons or move ahead until their teacher decides they’re ready!
Lessons are already uploaded into our online writing program -- along with videos and audios -- so that our teachers can focus their daily teaching time not on content delivery, but on working with our students individually. We give your kids as much time with their teacher as they need to get each assignment right.
And you can use your own parent supervisor account to see exactly what’s going on in your kids’ course. At registration, you can create a parent supervisor account that allows you to “drop in” to your kids’ Essay Rockstar courses any time to see where they are, what they’ve sent in, and to read all teacher-student communications.
There’s no need to worry how an adult you’ve never met is interacting with your kids.
How Our Online Writing Program Works
After you complete the course registration form and make payment, your child will receive an automated email at their personal email account that you provided at registration. This automated email will direct them to set up their student username and password. After that, they can log in and start their course.
When your child signs in to their student account, they’ll see a bulletin board with their course titles and school wide announcements.
Below is a picture of the parent bulletin board that you’ll see after you log into your parent account. Note the difference in how the course titles are listed.
Next, your child will be directed to click on the highlighted course title to enter their online classroom. The first thing they’ll see is an orientation video, which they must watch the first time they log in. To the left of that is the classroom control panel. After watching the orientation video, they’ll be directed to training videos that teach how use the control panel to the left. They’ll learn how to start a lesson, how to send work to their teacher, how to message their teacher, and how to retrieve teacher feedback.
After orientation, it’s time to start their course! Here’s an image from one of our online writing program's lessons.
Within the lessons there are links to assorted worksheets and resource articles, all with audio recordings and links to downloadable pdfs, if they wish to keep a copy of the article.
Once your child listens to or reads the lesson, they’ll be given an assignment. Whenever they’re done, they’ll upload it to their dropbox and wait for teacher feedback. If they have questions about any lesson or assignment, they can message their teacher through the online classroom’s messaging system. They’ll get feedback on their assignment and a response to any questions within 24 business hours. Sometimes students will be asked to make corrections to their assignment, and sometimes the teacher will forward them to the next lesson straight away. It’s different with every student.
Last but not least, students receive a notification or “ping” by email whenever a message is waiting for them in their online classroom, so they never have to log in to check if the teacher has sent a reply.
The parent supervisor account is identical to the student account, but parent supervisors can’t message the teacher from the parent account or submit student work through the parent dropbox. Kids must contact their teacher and turn in their work from their own student accounts. The purpose of this is to foster independence in our students. Parents also can’t access lessons that their kids haven’t been allowed to open yet.
BUT PARENTS CAN read all the lessons their kids have done, all the messages their children have exchanged with their teacher and see all the work their children have sent to their dropbox.
Parents can see for themselves how their kids are working through the Essay Rockstar writing curriculum, every step of the way.
Pretty cool, huh?
In fact, we've decided to give students and parents permanent access to their accounts, Essay Rockstar lessons, worksheets, and resource articles along with their corresponding audios and videos, even after they finish the online writing program. Past students who want a quick refresher on writing skills and strategies can simply log into their Essay Rockstar account to get the information they need.
Once you've joined the Essay Rockstar online writing program, you'll have access for life... or as long as we're in business!
Lots of Content in Essay Rockstar’s Writing Curriculum
In Essay Rockstar, your kids will learn how to do four types of non-fiction essays through four writing modules…
- A Personal Statement- always one of the essay requests in every college application. Writing about yourself can be very challenging, but we coax it out of your kids! They come away from this project with a template to use when it’s time to do their college applications.
- A Persuasive Essay- a type of writing assignment regularly encountered in school and beyond. Kids often make the mistake of not taking a firm position on an issue in this type of essay, and they lose points for that. We teach them exactly how to recognize and respond to a persuasive essay prompt.
- A Textual Analysis- often required in upper high school grade levels and always at the college level. A textual analysis is a review of someone else’s work to determine the purpose of that work and if the author achieved it. A book review, a movie review, an analysis of almost anything such as art, music or sports is a textual analysis. This essay is especially outstanding for developing your kids’ critical thinking skills!
- An Expository Essay- explaining a process in essay format. This is needed whenever asked to give a “how to” explanation in writing. Here we focus on developing skills in giving thorough, detailed explanations -- in writing, of course.
For every essay, kids are allowed to pick their own topic, except for the personal statement, where they’re required to write about themselves. The ability to comfortably write a well-structured paragraph is a prerequisite for this course.
Essay Rockstar is for students at the middle or high school grade level.
Our Five Step Writing Process:
In Essay Rockstar, students also learn and practice our 5-step writing process designed to break down writing into smaller, more manageable pieces.
This process eliminates resistance to writing and builds lots of confidence!
Step 1: Brainstorming - different activities are used for each type of essay assignment to generate content ideas.
Step 2: Organization - primary and supporting ideas are chosen and organized into an outline.
Step 3: Free Draft - students write their first draft with attention focused solely on explaining their ideas fully to develop content.
Step 4: Revision - students do major structural revision to their essays as well as craft a thesis statement, introduction and conclusion.
Step 5: Editing - we review grammar, punctuation, spelling and mechanics issues in detail until a finished product is complete.
Our supporting resource articles and exercises cover lots of topics in writing such as style, voice, purpose, audience, grammar, thesis statements, introductions, conclusions, and summarization.
Again, audio recordings of all lessons, worksheets, and resource articles are available and easy to access in Essay Rockstar.
There’s More Than A Great Writing Curriculum to Essay Rockstar
With Essay Rockstar, your teen receives...
- Writing instruction from a professional teacher with 10+ years of classroom experience
- Personal feedback
- Teacher responses within 24 business hours
- Lessons laid out in a simple, easy-to-follow format
- The ability to move through the course at their own pace
- Lessons that work well with different learning needs and styles
- Plenty of resources throughout the writing process that they can download and keep
- One semester of high school credit in English upon completion of this course if homeschooling
- An essay writing education that they’ll be able to use for the rest of their lives!
And if you’re homeschooling, YOU get to take a break from being the lead teacher in your teens’ writing skills education!
Get Essay Rockstar Today!Only $447!
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What Others Have to Say
“The Essay Rockstar course came at the perfect time for my eighth grade daughter. Although she is already a strong writer, she had never been assigned a writing topic and had never been taught how to write by anyone but me, her mom. I loved the break from teaching writing. I offered some advice here and there, but for the most part, I was hands-off. At the end of the first month, my daughter had composed a beautiful five paragraph essay essentially without any help from me. Lily’s notes prodded my daughter to correct her own mistakes and hone her writing while offering enough positive feedback to motivate her to persevere. I consider Essay Rockstar an excellent tool for pushing homeschooled writers toward more independence in their writing and toward greater confidence with real world writing tasks. I fully recommend the course.”
–Jimmie Lanley, founder of iHomeschool Network and Jimmie’s Collage
“Our homeschool contains more than a few dyslexic learners. This complicates our homeschooling days in several ways; our kids tend to be less independent in their studies, and mom-intensive schooling means that mom has limited time to teach each child individually. The Essay Rockstar program meets both of these needs in our home by providing audio instruction which helps my auditory learners learn independently and step by step instruction that takes a seemingly huge assignment and makes it manageable. Secondly, I’m a strong believer in the continuing education of homeschooling parents. The extensive list of resources included with the Essay Rockstar program is a huge benefit to both the student and the involved parent. Even if I was confident enough to teach my kids writing skills, it is sometimes hard for my children to take correction from me. Having such a professional teacher to provide the feedback relegates me more of a co-learner. Lily was able to provide just the right feedback that my daughter needed.”
–Marianne Sunderland, Abundant Life
“So many online courses are automated, the program itself “checking” the child’s work. Not so with Essay Rockstar. With this writing course, you have a real instructor helping your child. Lily provides prompt feedback on every assignment. She doesn’t issue grades, which I appreciate. The program is great! My child, however, does have several difficulties. One is dyslexia, and the other is bipolar disorder. Lily has been incredibly understanding and accommodating, never pressuring Alexis forward at all. And that’s probably the best aspect of this online writing course: the teacher is human. In the end, we're getting through the program together. Progress is successfully being made and I highly recommend the program.”
–Michelle Cannon, Holistic Homeschooler
“My daughter thrived with Lily’s gentle way of critiquing her writing. I was pleasantly surprised by the extra effort that Kaylee put into her writing and by her genuine desire to please Lily. Lily’s sincere praise was an inspiration to Kaylee as well – positive reinforcement coming from someone other than “just mom” really boosted her confidence in writing. As a larger homeschool family, it can be difficult for us to fit in multiple outside commitments. With Essay Rockstar, Kaylee was able to turn on the laptop and do a lesson any time of the day, without ever leaving the house. Because Kaylee’s writing improved so much with Essay Rockstar, I’ve already purchased the course as part of my son’s tenth grade homeschool curriculum this year.”–
–Judy Hoch, Contented At Home
“By using the Essay Rockstar writing course, my son was able to dramatically improve his writing skills. He was not at all confident at the beginning of the course, asking me lots of questions as we went along. But, as time went on, he rarely asked me anything. I’d have to ask him or log into the platform to see if he had completed his assignments. The longer he was in the program, I was pleasantly surprised by the amazing results that I was finding! Each communication that Lily (a.k.a Mrs. I.) sent to my son was always so very encouraging. She never made him feel dumb, but always helped him to build his confidence in writing with her encouraging words of instruction. She has a gift for teaching children! Each time she communicated with my son, she would give useful tips to help him improve his essay, if needed. It was always just enough information to guide him in the needed direction, so that he could complete the assignment as instructed. My son went from hesitant writer to confident writer in two essay assignments. To say that makes me very happy is an understatement!”
–Sarah Robinson, Sidetracked Sarah
“I like when my children are good writers, but I don’t necessarily want to be the one to get them from point A to point B. And (for shame) I tend to neglect the mechanics of writing because of it. Enter Lily Iatridis of Writing Rockstars. Last semester, as a tenth grader, my daughter took Lily’s online Essay Rockstar Course which…well, rocked. Lily made sure those missing mechanics were plugged into my daughter’s writings! Lily is very positive in her feedback, but doesn’t allow lazy writing. I love that! Do you ever feel like you might not be quite strict enough with your expectations as a homeschool mom? Me, too. It was really good for Mahayla to be accountable to someone else for a change! Of course, you already guessed that I LOVED not having to teach or evaluate the writing myself, right?”
–Cindy West, Our Journey Westward
“Olivia, my budding authoress, seemed to breeze through the course essays. Even though she was already a strong writer, she still needed to learn some formal writing practices. This course helped hone her writing skills, and Lily’s feedback and high praise spurred her on through the process. Alec, my reluctant writer, was a different story. Because I was determined to take a ‘hands off’ approach with this course, I would ask him how he was doing and if he needed help, to which he would reply he was ‘fine.’ So, I went on with whatever I was working on. Big mistake. Apparently, he didn’t understand some things from the very beginning, and rather than asking for help, he thought he would just plod through the course until he was miraculously freed him from his bonds! Thankfully, Lily intervened by emailing me and asking to schedule a phone call with Alec. After sitting down with him and looking over his work, we got him back on course. I greatly appreciate the fact that Lily brought this to my attention.”
–Alisha Gratehouse, Alisha Gratehouse blog
“In my dealings with Lily, she has been completely professional, encouraging, and when it was clear my student was trying to take short cuts, she was diplomatic but didn’t let Lindsey get away with it. A perfect balance, in my opinion. For the in-lesson videos, Lily is always personable, pleasant, and clear in her explanations. I appreciate how easy it was for me to communicate with Lily. She was quick in her responses to any email questions I had for her, and always sent me emails with updates on Lindsey’s progress, as well as any potential issues. Because the instructor tailors all input to each student’s abilities, I believe the program would work for almost any high school level of writing, from average to advanced, and probably for struggling students as well.”
–Jamie Worley, See Jamie Blog
“I had my 9th and 7th grader work through Essay Rockstar (in addition to their regular studies), and they both enjoyed it for different reasons. My 9th grader loved the computer interface. He prefers to draft his writing on the computer so working with the webroom has been very enjoyable to him. My 7th grader loved the online graphic organizer she was introduced to through Essay Rockstar. Bubbles with words inside make her very happy! Both students will continue until they finish all the essay assignments as 10th and 8th graders.”
–Heather Woodie, Blog, She Wrote
Don’t miss out! Give your teenager the chance to write essays like a Rockstar!
Get Essay Rockstar Today!
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