Online learning is a growing part of the curriculum choices available to homeschoolers today. Griggs University and International Academy has refined the concept making it even more effective from an academic point of view. Once priced outside the range of many single-income families, online learning is now much more affordable with Griggs University ($730 including books and technology fees) when compared to a traditional bricks and mortar private school. The curriculum design and course materials Griggs uses are of a very high quality. Griggs University is an accredited school offering distance-learning programs for students at all grade levels--from preschool through college. This review covers a high school intermediate-level grammar and composition course.

Students enrolled in the Intermediate English course receive two textbooks, Writers Inc. and Literature: Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes (Gold Level). Both books are on the higher end of the price spectrum, but the school has a textbook buy-back program that can save families money if there is no need to keep the textbooks.

Our family has relied on Writers Inc. since one of our children, now in college, used it as a textbook for his grammar and composition class in high school. Since we already own this book, we did not need to order it for the course. Writers Inc . is a well-organized resource for writers in all genres. In addition to clear and concise information about the writing process itself, Writers Inc . is packed with useful tips on research and report writing in both the MLA and APA styles. Along with Strunk and White's Elements of Style , it is a must-have language arts resource for homeschoolers.

Literature: Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes is a literature collection and instructional textbook in one volume. Included are samples of various literary genre and explanations on how each can be analyzed. A Prentice Hall publication, the book gives particular attention to multi-cultural themes in literature, with writing samples from people of various ethnic and social backgrounds. Unlike most books with a multi-cultural emphasis, this one does not appear to have a political agenda, though some of the samples may deal with political or social causes of historical importance. For example, an extended section on Carl Sandburg explains his approach to Abraham Lincoln's biographies while Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech is complemented by the U-2 tribute to King, Pride: In the Name of Love. " The book encourages students to build vocabulary and critical thinking skills through practical exercises and suggested outside readings. As a companion to Writers Inc . and the Griggs courseware itself, this book is a worthwhile tool.

The $35 per semester Technology Fee provides student access to the Griggs University online learning management system ("LMS" for short). While we had some difficulty navigating the system on the first day, reading the simple instructions and following the provided tutorial made for a very small learning curve. A hallmark of the LMS technology is simplicity of organization and modular design. In plain English, that means students can focus on learning the subject they enrolled to learn quickly and without a lot of time spent learning how to use the LMS itself.

Lessons are well written and broken into easily understood "chunks." Each lesson is designed to take a week to work through at a normal pace, which results in a 15-week semester. There are ample writing assignments, exams, essays, and a final writing project. Although an intermediate-level writing program, this course starts at the most basic level--writing effective sentences--and builds toward the ultimate goal of writing effective research papers.

The student is encouraged to have textbook in hand as he reads through the online lessons. Review questions in most lessons refer to specific passages in the textbook. Each lesson appears as its own outline in a table of contents in the left-hand column of the screen. The outline serves as a course navigation tool as well. The student can go back and review past lessons, but he can't go forward until each lesson is complete. This may be a source of frustration for the curious, but it helps prevent distraction and keeps the student on track toward his or her learning goals. Enrolled students can correspond with their teacher, and the teacher in this course was responsive to queries. The teacher's "office hours" are posted on the course home page.

Not all Griggs University courses are available online, and those that are can be taken offline with instructional guides provided at no extra charge. For families considering a full course of instruction, the $35 per semester Technology Fee for each course may be a consideration. When looking at the cost of distance education, sticker shock is inevitable. However, Griggs University compares favorably with a modestly priced private school. More than the savings compared to a traditional bricks and mortar private school, the Griggs homeschool experience offers all of the benefits of a parent-directed education while providing a challenging curriculum from an accredited institution.

Product review by Tony Silva, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, September 2010