After watching for almost an hour, I have decided this YouTube channel presents several worthy points for consideration. These videos are taken from lectures for teachers; I think it’s equally important that students understand why formal writing is necessary for their education.
Royal Fireworks Press is a publishing company which focuses on books for teaching gifted children. I like the videos Michael Clay Thompson has made for YouTube because, in them, he discusses all the problems which SentenceWorks is designed to fix. Ideally, students should watch these videos when they are about 10 years old; if you’re over 10 and these concepts seem new and exciting, well…. 
If you’re not up for watching the entire channel, here’s a short run-down of my favourite RFP videos from the channel:
The Connection Between Vocabulary and Writing: if you don’t know many words, you can’t write many words. This is a most logical concept, but is one which many school systems have forgotten. Unfortunately, the Mark Twain quote is wrong; it should read “If you catch an adjective, kill it.”
“Cool Grammar”: grammar is interesting… and it’s necessary for writing. I like the idea of college classes on journal writing because that’s all the students know how to write when they finish high school.
Gifted Kids Need Classic Words and Academic Words: why are we teaching students to use informal language in school but then expect them to use big words in formal writing? Greek and Latin roots are highly integral to the English language. Thompson talks about the “National Vocabulary Prevention Programme”.
Paragraphs and Essays (What Matters is Structure): Thompson reads the opening sentence of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, demonstrating that it is one sentence. Breaking “rules” is not important providing the general structure is kept.
Why Gifted Kids Need To Be Taught Formal Writing: it doesn’t matter what your IQ might be, everyone needs to learn to write properly if they are going to succeed in the modern education system.
Tags: grammar, Mark Twain, Michael Clay Thompson, paragraphs, Royal Fireworks Press, vocabulary, writing style, YouTube