You will need the Student Kit to use these products. This may be obtained directly from the maker here.
As Daniel Schwabauer points out in the introduction to "Cover Story", writing programs often appeal to abstract ethical standards to get kids into writing. So instead of saying kids should write because it's an important skill or it'll build character, he says kids should write because it's fun. This conviction, we are given to understand, is the driving force behind his middle school writing program, which combines creative writing exercises with DVD lessons and journal entries.
Schwabauer himself is a writer, mostly of creative fiction and writing curriculum, so he has some idea what he's talking about. And he does take writing seriously—though he wants to make learning to write a relatively painless experience, he includes serious content about crafting interesting sentences, writing good dialog, and using proper grammar. He also includes everything needed to complete the course, easing the burden on parents significantly.
How Does This Work?
There are four main components: a set of seven DVDs, a Teacher's Guide, a Student Book, and "The Remarkable Journal of Professor Gunther von Steuben." These are intended to be used over the course of a 36-week school year (though there are only 24 weeks of work), sometime during sixth and eighth grade, and are self-directed by the student: parents/teachers need only grade completed work, make sure kids are doing the work, and answer questions as they arise.
72 regular lessons and 12 grammar lessons are divided into six units, each with a unique common theme. Students watch a DVD lesson three times a week and complete the corresponding exercises and reading in the Student Book, complete one major creative writing assignment per week, and write daily journal entries; at the end of each unit students take a test (once a month). There's quite a bit of work involved, and Schwabauer's insistence that parents keep kids on track should not be underestimated.
Weekly assignments range from haiku to short stories to letters to reviews, and much more. The conceit of the course is that students are writing their own magazine, and at the outset they choose an overriding theme governing every weekly assignment. In addition to these writing assignments, there are regular lesson exercises which help kids understand organization, thematic development, creating interest, using adjectives and adverbs, etc. They also read a handful of famous short stories by authors like Saki and O. Henry (and one by Schwabauer himself) and analyze them.
The DVD lessons feature Schwabauer in various costumes (vaguely steampunk) addressing his audience directly, with a few skits thrown in for good measure. They're fairly long, with lots of information in them, though there is significant overlap with the reading portions of the Student Book lessons. Students watch the lessons and do the corresponding work on their own recognizance.
The journal contains portions of a story about Professor von Steuben, a visitor from another planet sent by his alien overlords to observe and report on human society. Students read von Steuben's entries, which ask questions they must then respond to in their own. The alien visitor concept provides an interesting forum for helping students look at familiar things in a new light, as well as adding extra interest to a daily practice that can often become tedious.
Parents use the Teacher's Guide primarily to guide them in grading students's work. Schwabauer provides rubrics for grading the various assignments and exercises, along with charts for totaling up grades at the end of the year. He recommends waiting to grade assignments till the end of each unit, so that students are free to be creative without the tension of having someone looking over their shoulder all the time. The tests, along with sample answers to lesson exercises, are found in the back.
If everything goes as planned, students will have material for a sizeable magazine by the end of the school year. Schwabauer encourages parents to actually print off all the creative projects so students can actually hold them, whether or not they actually make a magazine out of them. This is a writing course, not a graphic design course, so while there is a little talk of making things look nice there's no stress on or guidance for creating an attractive volume. A nice folder to place everything in will do just fine.
There's no discernable religious aspect to the program, though it's fairly obvious Schwabauer is Christian—frequent mentions of C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and George MacDonald make that fairly obvious. The content is perfectly suitable for middle school students, though he does include one famous short story called "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell that features a rich eccentric who lures people to his island so he can hunt them like animals. It's a pretty good story, but some may find the premise iffy.
Our Honest Opinion
There are two basic questions we must ask of a course like this: does it adequately teach writing, and does it actually make writing appealing to middle school students? The answer to the first question is, Yes. "Cover Story" does teach kids creative writing while also equipping them with composition and stylistic tools that are more broadly applicable. Unfortunately, it often makes use of cheesy phrases meant to add excitement (the lesson on investing writing with emotion is called "Fightin' Words"), but it does get the concepts across.
As for whether it's fun, that's harder to answer. Some students may find the course enjoyable, especially the idea of planning and writing the content for their very own magazine. The DVD lessons are likely to leave even the most generous and patient early adolescents yawning, however. While Schwabauer does his best to make them fun, it's clear he either isn't comfortable in front of a camera, or he just isn't having fun himself (maybe both). He consistently looks left of center, giving viewers the uncomfortable impression there's someone in the room with them, and he never smiles. His humor is dry and not always funny, and it's obvious he shares that opinion of his own work.
Perhaps more unfortunate is the fact that the lessons are so long (or at least seem so long), and that they consist almost exclusively of Schwabauer simply saying stuff to the camera, or rather to the sound guy standing to the side of the camera. If middle school students are supposed to be impressed by how fun writing is, they need lectures that don't seem like lectures and a lecturer who jokes, smiles, laughs, and makes more facial expressions than simply raising his eyebrows to stress a point.
Making a comprehensive curriculum for any subject, especially a multimedia effort like this one, is very difficult. Schwabauer has clearly put a lot of time, effort, and thought into this one, and in many ways it pays off. The assignments are solid, and students who complete the course work will find themselves well equipped for more advanced efforts. However, they might also have narcolepsy by the time they finish, or at the very least a desire never again to watch an amateur DVD lesson.
Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews
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