Why We Love the Cover Story Writing Program for Middle School
In 2019, while attending a homeschool convention, we met Daniel Schwabauer MA, (or Mr. S as his students call him) at the Clear Water Press booth. We had a great conversation and he had some fun props my 4th grader enjoyed. As we walked away I heard, “Mom, I have to take that class!!”
Clear Water Press‘ materials are mostly for high school students, with the exception of Cover Story for middle school students. We filed away the information for later when they would be ready. Mr. S. was very approachable and you could tell he had fun with the students in addition to teaching the material. I was really intrigued by the approach to put stories first in writing instead of rules, and also the idea that Cover Story encouraged the students to choose their topics for every writing assignment, which was different than other programs we had tried thus far.
What attracted us to the Cover Story Writing Program
Two years ago on accident, we started writing a family newspaper with all three students contributing articles of their choosing around our theme or just for fun. Each issue got longer as their writing grew. As I thought about the next school year, I remembered that convention visit. I knew growing their writing skills by writing a full magazine themselves seemed like a logical next step!
My incoming 8th grader was just finishing 4 years of formal essay writing and wanted to explore other kinds of writing and be creative. The variety of writing projects and creativity appealed to them and made it a good fit.
My incoming 6th grader has not yet used any formal writing curriculum, in part because of their dysgraphia and autism. Knowing they could write about a favorite topic for each and every assignment was a big motivator for them. I was also impressed at the formal process of planning each writing assignment which would introduce this student to the full writing process for the first time.
What is the Cover Story Writing Program?
Cover Story is a middle school writing program from Clear Water Press. Over the course of the one year program they write content for their own magazine on a topic of their choosing.
“They write poems, short stories, non-fiction articles, letters, and many other short pieces. They also learn to journal every day by following the creative structure of The Remarkable Journal of Professor Gunther Von Steuben. Along the way, they study not just a story’s form, but its execution.”
Clear Water Press
Cover Story is suggested for 7th and 8th grade students and can be used for a 9th grade English credit if you add your own literature. My students are both strong creative writers and were challenged equally by the course.
As we started our year of the Cover Story Writing Program we visited the library and looked through a variety of youth magazines to get an idea of what we were embarking on. The first few lessons help the student select a topic for their magazine, broad enough you will have enough to write about but narrow enough to have a strong focus. One of my student selected their favorite video game app, Angry Birds, and the other selected their favorite book series, Harry Potter, as their topic.
What is included in Cover Story?
The Cover Story writing program has several components which were explained well in the teacher’s guide. We were able to dive in quickly and the course has you start slowly adding the different parts over the first few weeks.
- Video lessons available on DVD or Digital Cloud
- Student Workbook
- The Remarkable Journal of Professor Gunther von Steuben (Daily Journal)
- Teacher’s Guide with Unit Tests & Grading Rubrics
How the Cover Story works
The instruction is done by Mr. S himself in the video lessons. My kids found these highly entertaining and their 4th grade brother even insisted on joining in as well. To complete the course as scheduled 3 videos are watched each week. Each video lesson has a matching assignment in the workbook.
The workbook assignments were challenging for my students. They were forced to think through their ideas and begin writing with a plan instead of just writing as they thought of ideas. Sometimes they were even led through the process to brainstorm several story ideas to pick the best one.
The Journal is a unique part of the course and was especially challenging for my 6th grader. This part of the course reminded me of Charlotte Mason programs and creating habits. The purpose of this daily component was to build curiosity and observation skills which are both important habits for good writers. My 6th grader really pushed back about this daily assignment but as they persevered their writing skills grew and at the end of the course, they told me it was a habit they would miss doing.
Each unit has both informal and formal writing assignments. The informal assignments help them build their skills and the formal assignments become the parts of their magazine and are graded for the course. A few of their assignments included Short Stories, Poetry, Letters to the Editor and both sides of an advice column.
The Teacher’s Guide provides an overview of each week’s topic and assignments, a suggested grading for the course, as well as the unit tests and answers which you are allowed to copy for your students.
Does Cover Story work for Outside the Box Kids?
With all the different learning needs of my kids it is really exciting when I can use a program as written. Cover Story fit my kids with little to no adaptions! A few things that made it a good fit were the interesting video lessons, the ability to create buy-in with their interests, and not focusing on rules.
Mr. S captures the student’s interest in the DVD lessons by telling his own story throughout the videos. He uses humor, skits and animations to present the different lessons. I’m not joking when I say that their 9 yearly brother would cry if he couldn’t watch the videos with them, but the videos were not dumbed down at all. He spoke their pre-teen language and related the information in creative ways that they remembered later.
Some Outside the Box kids including autistic students have very strong passions. It can make or break the learning to be able to include these passions and topics in their learning. Cover Story is specifically designed and intentionally creates opportunities for your student to write about what they are passionate about and grow their writing while they do it! This was my 6th grader’s first formal writing curriculum and now I’m worried about telling him that not every program is designed to let him write about what he is passionate about every time.
Writing is often taught with many rules for structure, but when you add creativity it can be hard to follow the rules. For autistic or rigid kids, learning these nuances can be a challenge. The Cover Story writing program leads with creating good stories without a rigid writing structure being taught. It allowed my student to focus on the creativity of writing instead of getting stuck and upset on making their writing fit the rules.
The workbook has a lot of writing for each lesson, I was worried that my dysgraphic struggling writer would be overwhelmed by the amount they were asked to write by hand. Some days there was some complaints but most of the time because he was writing about his interests he was motivated to persevere and do the full assignment by hand. Typing is always an option for them, and they used it for all of their larger assignments. All of the written work did have the bonus of building stamina for his handwriting abilities.
We love This Interest Led Writing Homeschool Curriculum
I had two different middle schoolers using Cover Story, a 6th grader and an 8th grader. They both were challenged and excelled at the program. I know they both look back on this year of writing with great fondness.
The 8th grader is eager to continue on with Clear Water Press’s High School courses and will enroll in One Year Novel next as a 9th grader. In One Year Novel they will spend the first semester brainstorming and outlining their novel and the second semester writing the rough draft of their 12 chapter book. This student can’t wait to begin their next writing adventure.
The 6th grader is still very much in middle school and is not ready to jump to the High School products offered by Clear Water Press, but I’m sure they will in the future. We will continue growing their writing in other ways and both my student and myself will continue to use the strategies and teaching ideas we learned this year as we write and share more stories.
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