Fortuigence Essay Rockstar: Our High School Writing Curriculum of Choice (My Review)

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when my husband and I agreed to sign up our 10th grade daughter for the Fortuigence review.

I don’t normally ask her to use review products because she is not a fan of the reviewing process. (Most people don’t realize this, but reviewing a product is quite a bit of work.) However, this one seemed enough like what we were looking for that I had my husband take a look. He has gotten very involved in helping with Clara’s homeschool since she entered high school, and I knew that if he was on board, she would be on board.

I just had no idea if he would like what he saw. What I did know was that our one and only stated goal for writing in 10th grade was for Clara to learn to write solid essays. It was time.

So we sat down one afternoon and looked over the website. He did indeed like what he saw enough to say, “Go for it.” We showed her the website, and she agreed to give it a try. In typical engineering style, my husband decided that she should start with the first of the series so that if she liked it, she would be doing them “in order.” I don’t know that there really is an order – but that’s why we requested the Essay Rock Star Personal Statement Writing Course ($57, ages 12-18).

I received the login information and was able to quickly and easily set up my teacher account and her student account. After that, she did all the work. She logged in each day, watched a short video, got her assignment, and set to work. Her assignments were turned in to an actual person, and that teacher responded with guidance and opened up the next assignment as each was completed. My daughter worked her way from the opening exercises (turning in a sample of her writing) to a finished personal statement essay in the course of about three weeks.

I logged in to my teacher account one time to request grades, but I really did not have to get involved in the day-to-day at all. Having someone else responsible for the teaching was a nice change of pace for both my daughter and I. In fact, one of the first things Clara said was, “I like the format of the class, it is a nice change of pace.”

The format wasn’t all that fancy, just a quick video, a page of explanation, and an assignment. When the assignment was turned in virtually, it was graded quickly (usually overnight) and the next assignment was given. Clara got messages from her teacher and sent messages back through the online classroom.

My Bottom Line: Clara has decided to finish the other courses in the Essay Rockstar series. She liked it that much. Each of the remaining three sections in the series are $57. My husband and I have decided to foot the bill. We liked it too.