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Frequently Asked Questions about Our Writing Curriculum

If your question is about Cloud streaming, please see the separate FAQ on the Benefits of Cloud Streaming page.

The One Year Adventure Novel is designed to be used three days a week (about 1.5 hours per day) or five days per week for about an hour. The first semester has more readings, and the second semester is more writing intensive. This does not include the optional but encouraged critique time on the Student Forum.

The cost to manufacture the DVDs has increased significantly since our last production, so the DVD version is unavailable indefinitely. We may be able to offer The One Year Adventure Novel DVD sets again in the future, however we have no timeline to do so.

Learn more about the Cloud version on our “Benefits to Cloud Streaming” page.

To be eligible for 1 credit, a course must involve a minimum of 120 hours of instruction and activities. On average, a student using One Year Adventure Novel (OYAN) will spend 1.5 to 2 hours on each lesson, including watching the video. There will be times, however, when the student will need more time for a chapter draft. (Notably, the second semester of OYAN is more time-intensive because the student is writing the chapters; some students are very wordy writers.) We anticipate this, and we intentionally allow wiggle room in the traditional school year schedule for using an extra day here and there. Accounting for this, every student will meet the 120-hour requirement handily.

Yes!
It can be used either way. However, it is not a traditional English curriculum. Students study classic adventure novels and write their own book through a process of answering questions and story building.

It offers a great deal of depth, because students learn by doing. In actually writing their own novel, they will understand characterization and conflict much better than they would by merely reading about them, or even by analyzing them in Romeo and Juliet or Cyrano de Bergerac. It is a little like learning to work on an engine. You can read as much as you want about how engines work, but some things must be learned by the experience of taking an engine apart and putting it back. Such practical experience builds understanding and confidence.

That’s the approach taken by The One Year Adventure Novel. First we take stories apart; then we put one together.

But because of this, the writing curriculum isn’t as broad in scope as a traditional English class. We don’t study as many topics as traditional curriculums do. And we don’t assign five-point essays. What we do study, we study in depth.

View Syllabus and Lesson Table »

Although the Student Forum is not essential to the curriculum, it is much more than just a place to ask questions.

Read about the Student Forum »

Whether their finished novel will be publishable depends on many factors, but the short answer is “probably not.” Why? Because of the market. Because of your student’s age. It’s hard to write a meaningful novel before you’ve really lived.

Publishing a novel through a traditional publisher takes an enormous amount of both skill and even luck. Yes, we know about young Christopher Paolini. It is possible. But it is not likely that your student will sell millions of copies of the novel they write during this course.

However, if they work hard and follow carefully the instructions in the writing curriculum, they may write a novel of publishable quality—and certainly they can see it up on the Student Forum. We also offer many opportunities through our Creative Community for students to improve their writing.

Our press only publishes educational material. The only student novel we have published is Fable Weaver; we published it as an example of a strong novel produced with our course, so it is also an educational publication.

Yes, we offer a licensing option for co-ops and classes. To read about using The One Year Adventure Novel in a group setting, check out the “Using Our Programs in a Co-op or Group” page.

Adults are welcome to use The One Year Adventure Novel, but Daniel Schwabauer offers a course that is specifically designed for adult writers. It is called Story Coach. Story Coach covers the same in-depth Story training. You will not find it on the Clear Water Press web site because it is completely separate. Whereas adults using the high school course will find some of the interactive aspects unavailable to them because of age limits, Story Coach is made for adults.

We also offer Cover Story for grades 6–9, and Byline for grades 9–12.

Visit the Cover Story website »

Visit the Byline website »

We do not offer any curriculum packages for lower elementary.

The One Year Adventure Novel curriculum is non-sectarian, and is approved for purchase with public funding. It is a writing program, not religious instruction. However, the instructor himself is a Christian, and everything taught in the course is compatible with a biblical worldview.

Most of the families who use our programs are Christians, but we also have families who are secular or of a different faith.

The One Year Adventure Novel is published by Clear Water Press. Please contact your educational representative to find out if Clear Water Press is an approved vendor in your area or program. We may also be listed as “One Year Adventure Novel.”

Qualifications for government funding vary, but in general, yes, we are approved for government funding because we are nonsectarian. If we have not yet been considered as a potential vendor, your representative will contact us directly.

We do accept purchase orders.

We are the sole distributor of our curriculum, worldwide.

One Year Adventure Novel Cloud video lessons offer English closed captions. (Closed captions provide a text transcription of the instructor’s speech and detail sounds in the background.) We added captioning to the videos to serve students and/or parents who are hearing-impaired.

To view closed captions: You must select subtitles in media player menu. On a computer, you may need to turn subtitles on in the player settings.

(DVD lessons for The One Year Adventure Novel do NOT have subtitles or closed captions.)

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