Rose Academy: College-Ready Writing Essentials Review

College-Ready Writing Essentials is a writing program produced by the company called BetterRhetor to help prepare students for college level writing success. Two of my students have begun to work through the program. They are in high school--grades 11 and 12 and have had quite sufficient writing instruction thus far. I wanted to review this program to see how it stacks up and how well the other programs have prepared them this far.

When you login to the program, it looks like other typical online type programs. The lessons are listed to the left and then there is an area to display the lessons on the main screen. As students complete lessons, they are marked as complete and the student moves onto the next lesson.

These lessons are not for the faint of heart. When it says College-Ready, it really truly means college-ready! I do believe that there are students who leave high school unprepared for the level of writing that is required of them to succeed in college. This program will most definitely prepare your student to not only know how to write, but it will teach them how to write well and obtain a passing grade.

The assignments are specific and able to be completed in one session. The sessions are meant to be completed over a five week period with one lesson being completed per day. Of course a very motivated student could work more quickly, but for my students the pace of one lesson per day was a challenge. I felt it was ok to allow them to go at a slower speed as they needed to. I know they have had a lot of practice with writing and are going to get a lot more practice as the year progresses.

The lessons are typed out lessons for the students to read through. This is not a bad way to take an online course. It would easily prepare a student for taking online courses as the format could become familiar. It would be more interesting for students if the lessons were recorded as videos, but as they are written out, it forces the students to pay attention to what they are reading and to comprehend the teachings. With the lessons being presented in this way, students are able to refer back to something if they need to.

For this review we received the premium package. That means that the instructor will review an essay for my students. We have not yet finished the essay so I am unable to comment on that aspect of the program. I am sure the feedback will be very valuable.