This program will develop the skills needed to write effective themes.

It is not necessary to be a strong student in English to become an effective theme writer. It is necessary to know just how to develop a theme.

A theme has a structure that is definite. The principles of writing themes are what this program is about. By careful analysis, the complete structure has been determined by the author of this program and detailed here in easy steps for any student, no matter what his or her achievement level has usually been.

Many people think that they cannot write an adequate theme. The fact is that these principles have been taught to students who are typically low in English and in achievement in general, and they were compared to good students without this training.

The good students compared themes by the students mentioned above to themes on the same subject. The themes by the students who were so trained were significantly better than those of the students who had not received this training.

Now, this system is available through this computer program.  That gives it the added advantage of being available to look at repeatedly, and to learn using what we consider to be the best of teaching systems.

When theme writing was first discussed with this author, the questions raised by him were as follows:

1. If students have not learned theme writing, do they know the types of paragraphs that are available for a theme? The answer was NO.
2. Do they know the types of sentences that can be used in a given paragraph? The answer was NO.
3. Do they know from English grammar what kinds of sentences there are? The answer was NO.
4. Do they know how a simple sentence is constructed? The answer was NO.
5. Do they know what the subject of a sentence is? The answer was NO.
6. Do they know what the predicate of a sentence is? The answer was NO.

The answer was apparent. The place to start learning how to write an excellent theme was at the beginning of the skills needed -- NOT by just sitting down and writing more themes.

Each lesson in this program will consist of illustrations and explanations that can be reviewed at will, and exercises for the student to do to reinforce his or her learning.    There will be periodic review tests for the student to see how much is learned.

*NOTE: This is called a COOPERATIVE PROGRAM because the actual paragraph and theme writing the student does cannot be critiqued by a computer program.

In each lesson, a portion of the work done by the student is done in his or her own writing. That portion should be reviewed by a teacher, a parent, or a friend who is knowledgeable in the field of English or has thoroughly accompanied the student in using this program.

The program is effectively taught in this computer and reviewed in self-test at the end of each lesson. The only area where the computer cannot be effective is in evaluating what is written.

The MENU page(s) will show the table of contents - MENU- and buttons that will take the student to the different LESSONS. We would suggest that the student proceed from the beginning without skipping any lessons. Everything is in sequence as needed for learning. If a lesson is too easy, the student will be able to go through it quickly as a review. However, the program is set up so that the student can go back to any lesson or any part of the program, review, and try again.

The software described in this document is furnished under a Software License Agreement. Please read it thoroughly. The software may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of this agreement.

The Algebra Friendly 1.0 Development Team:  Dr. Harry E. Huls, Stephen P. Lowery, Robert A. Huls, Carol S. Lowery.