Cornerstone Tutorials

Registration is open for IEW's US HISTORY WRITING with Fix It Grammar and Lit included! No IEW writing experience is needed. With my two-tier teaching, newbies and experienced IEW students are challenged. Get details at CornerstoneTutorials.com

IEW's US HISTORY-BASED WRITING with Fix It Grammar and literature is coming 2025! Registration opens April 1. Go to CornerstoneTutorials.com

Thanksgiving can be a scary time of year.😉

Both Medieval Writing and Modern World Writing classes are full and in full swing!

This. IEW Writing and Fix It Grammar helps students learn to think with comprehension, understanding, and analysis. We need excellent thinkers!

AI in education? Question from former student and my answer (long)

My name is Lucien Zwirtz, and I was one of your students in 2014-2016. I am writing because I wanted to express my gratitude for your work. Your writing intensives taught me a love for writing and public speaking that I use every day of my life. I have recently married, and I am eager for my future children to use the Institute for Excellence in Writing as part of our homeschool curriculum. In your class, you said it was critical that we learn grammar because there would never be a grammar calculator. In the last decade it seems that technology has progressed and tools like Grammarly are commonplace. What are your thoughts on this? Do you still insist that young people learn grammar?

Response: It's a good question—and obviously, AI has proven me wrong about there being automatic checkers that can fix grammar with a high degree of success. The writing AI churns out may have some problems with content, but its grammar tends to be impeccable. Thus, the question: Is there a need to teach grammar any longer?

I argue that there is. In much the same way that using calculators to perform basic math functions from an early age robs students of their ability to think mathematically, so does not learning sentence structure and punctuation significantly impact students' ability to comprehend the written text. We've been seeing that for some time now, even before the mushrooming of AI, as many school systems have reduced grammar instruction, arguing that it takes more time than it's worth. Students' ability to comprehend the written word has been on a downward slope for decades.

I've done some volunteer teaching of advanced international adults, some who were struggling to keep up with their assigned reading in grad school. In cases where I could work with them for a year or more on grammar using Fix It, they reported that their reading comprehension dramatically improved and that knowing why commas, for instance, are in certain places has gone far in helping them understand the sentences.

This doesn't surprise me. Grammar and punctuation help the brain interpret how the parts of a sentence fit together.

The reality is that cheating with AI is rampant (no surprise) and that few students will be visionaries enough to recognize the impact on their brain development—or simply won't care. I'll continue to teach the old way, however, as long as anyone values it, and I'm convinced that the students who do learn enough grammar to write well without artificial aids will be deeper thinkers and analysts. The same applies to writing itself. Yes, AI can do the writing for you, but in the process, it robs students of their ability to think.

Photo by Andrea de Santis on unsplash.com.

Need writing help? My IEW MODERN WORLD WRITING class with Fix It Grammar and lit is the answer! See my open house at CornerstoneTutorials.com

See my new Open House video here! CornerstoneTutorials.com

Modern World Writing with Fix It Grammar and lit included. I've added lit questions and discussion, MLA documentation and citation, and more! See details at CornerstoneTutorials.com

My assignments feature an overview for parents so you can plan your week, day-by-day directions so students know just what to do, example sentences and paragraphs, lit questions, vocabulary, specialized checklist, and more!

My IEW writing classes feature all IEW models with Fix It Grammar and lit!

I'm teaching IEW's Modern World Writing with Fix It Grammar and lit 2024-25. Get details at CornerstoneTutorials.com

I'm teaching IEW's Medieval Writing with Fix It Grammar and lit 2024-25. Details at CornerstoneTutorials.com