On August 1, the 2019-2020 Scoring Service begins! In this service, we assist homeschool families in grading the writing of their middle school and high school students. The Scoring Service has grown from one scorer to five in the last four years, and our customer base has tripled! As we have expanded and adapted, we’ve…
Essential Conversations
This blog is devoted to all aspects of writing, literature, and teaching. We are excited to partner with you on your homeschool journey and provide you with helpful and quality content in our blog posts.
“But When Will I Use This in Real Life?”: Why Writing Matters After Homeschool
“But When Will I Use This in Real Life?”: Why Writing Matters After Homeschool Summertime (when the living is easy) is an excellent span in which to reflect on the past year of schooling and the coming year as well. What subjects were successfully learned? Which topics caused troubles and struggles? If your homeschool…
5 Things I’ve Learned Working at Essentials in Writing
Whenever someone asks me what I do, and I tell them I’m a curriculum creator, they immediately respond with, “Oh, cool. Wait, what does that mean?” “You know those workbooks you had as a kid that would tell you to find all of the nouns in a paragraph or whatever? I write those.” “Wait, that’s…
7 Writing Mistakes You Didn’t Know You and Your Homeschool Student Were Making
I was in the midst of deep conversation about the state of modern politics with a relative (a very intelligent and well-educated relative) when it came out of nowhere. A single word which sent shivers up my spine, turned my hands to fists, and completely derailed my focus on the conversation. The word? Irregardless. Now,…
When to Correct Someone’s Writing and When to Hold Back
Last week, I posted a picture to Instagram. Immediately after I clicked “Share,” my phone started buzzing in my hands. “Hey, Hope! It’s Jenna!” “Oh, hey! What’s up?” “Well, I’m actually at lunch with some friends, so I can’t really talk, but you made a spelling error in the caption under that picture you just…