Hi all I am currently planning our courses for next year and was talking to a freind who taught high school English. I was going over my plan with her and she said it was 10x the amount of work they do in the ps. Now I am questioning myself even though dh said what I am planning seems reasonable. Here is what I am thinking of doing. This year we are focusing on writting and literature. Every day she will have a one page workbook assignment from her spelling book (there are only about 10-15 fillins on each page or doing a correction paragraph nothing intensive). This is to reinforce many of the "rules" she either never learned or has forgotten. Then we will be working out of Jensen's Format writting(only doing the paragraphs and essay section). We will spend the 1st month or so working on just paragraphs. She will either have an approximately 10 question assignment or have to write one paragraph a day. After we finish the pragraphs we will start on litterature and essay writting. I planned on introducing one type of essay a week and have her write one 5 paragraph essay (based on the type we have gone over). In addition to the essay she would read a couple of chapters in the book we are doing. There might also be some vocabulary assignments but I would not do a ton of that if we are still doing the essays. Once we finished with all the types of essays I would concentrate more on the vocabulary and writting assignments in conjunction to the book we are reading. I think I want to have her read at least 4 novels this year. Does this seem unreasonable to anyone? I know I did essays almost every week between history and English while I was in high school. I do not want to over burden her but I do not want her slacking either.
I am by far an expert but this seems reasonable to me. I am planning something along those lines with my son, of course it will be easier since he is at a 3rd grade level but still. 4 novels a year? That's what he reads a week...:lol:
I was planning on doing The Scarlet Letter, Red Badge Of Courage, The Jungle and Of Mice and Men. If we had time I thought I would do something like Black Boy or October Sky. This summer I have her reading The Bluest Eyes(tough subject but good book) and The Hounds of Baskerville. For the ones through out the year we are concentrating on American themes since we are doing US History. If what we are doing is so much more than what they are doing in the ps then what are they spening their time on in the schools?
My guess would be "administrative tasks" but I wouldn't worry about it...it doesn't really matter to you anyway. You are preparing your child in a way that is appropriate for her. What you are doing seems to be reasonable, especially if it's in line with what she did last year and she want to go on to college. Then it will only benefit her. I remember I had a freshman English class that was about how to do research - a complete review of something I had done in the 6th, yes, 6th grade! I couldn't believe it! I mentioned this to the professor and he said I would be an "exeption to the rule" if I actually knew how to do research. He made me a deal that if I turned in an acceptable research paper (the basis for the final grade) he would let me skip the rest of the classes. The next week, I handed in a paper, made an A on it and in the class and got to use the time I would have had to spend sitting in that boring review class studying other subjects. BTW, I went to public school, but has an AWESOME teacher - actually I thought it was AWFUL as I was going throught it, but in hindsight she was a blessing and I went back and told her this story! Best wishes!
Discipline! And constant reviewing so the kids that are only there once or twice a week don't fall behind!
Two Thumbs Up!! This is awesome! I think it is so important to do this with whomever you realize was a blessing in the past. Good job! Forgot to add that I actually went back and apologized to my high school assistant basketball coach for giving him such a hard time growing up. Boy - he irritated me. I couldn't stand him. Now, I realize I had a chip on my shoulder a lot of the time and he was only trying to make me better. Should have listened, Even at 6' tall, I still am not all that whoopy at BB. LOL
Oops! Just noticed my typo "has" instead of "had". Not too swift to make that error in a post bragging on my great language teacher!
I'm a college english prof and this schedule sounds great - and remarkably like what I have planned for my 7th grader! However, here is the one change I would recommend; DO NOT TEACH THE 5 PARAGRAPH METHOD!!!! It was developed as a recommendation to students taking timed essay tests (like AP or SAT) and so educator got their hands on it and thought it would be a great way to teach slow kids to write, then it morphed into a way to teach high schoolers to write. Now, I get kids straight from high school who do not know how to develop an essay beyond 5 paragraphs - and only the first essay in my freshman comp class can work as a 5 paragraph - all the rest are 3 pgs or more! The 5 paragraph method hinders students in that they cannot think outside of that format. Instead - focus on the overall development of ideas, regardless of if it is two ideas in an essay, three, or four. Show your student how one paragraph can introduce the basics of the idea, and the next paragraph can provide more for examples, details, quotes and support. This is HUGELY important when it comes to writing rhetoric (argument) - students get stuck and cannot develop their ideas fully, becuase they think only within the constructs of one paragraph for each argument. Instead of doing a different 5 paragraph essay each week, spend two weeks on it - the first is the basics of writing - getting a few paragraphs (intro, body (any number of paragraphs) and conclusion) - then spend the next week on development to better craft that essay - what additional support, details, examples, quotes are needed to better paint the writer's picture in the reader's mind? What can the writer add/change/rework in the intro and conclusion? What writing techniques can the writer use to create a better written picture? This way, instead of several ok 5 paragraph essays, you will have fewer, well written, well developed essays of varying length, and your student will have a better understand of the writing process - not that they have to have 5 paragraphs. If that is what you teach, that is all she will learn, and her college instructors will despise you for it! (j/k) I spend so much time UN-teaching the 5 paragraph method. Feel free to ask questions or PM me if you want more info - as if my feeling on this were not apparent enough! Good luck and happy writing!
Gwenny, I read with interest your comments on the 5-paragraph essay! That's the class Rachael took when she was 12, by a retired high school teacher that spent his Wednesdays teaching various English classes to hs'ed kids. He turned my daughter who had trouble writing just one paragraph into someone quite confident (got 97% in his class). She has for the past two years placed in the library writing contest for Middle School Fiction. So the class was VERY successful for us! He also teaches a research class, limiting it to three or four kids, and won't let you take it until the year before you graduate. My friend's daughter says it was the best college prep she had.
gwenny99 I understand what you are saying but I unfortunately think she needs the structure of the f5 paragraph style. Currently she only really tries for 3 paragraph essays since that is what they taught her in ps. She is the type that really needs structure. I understand what you mean by having to unteach a formula but with her I think she needs that as a basis so she can feel comfortable writting. I am hoping that in the following year I can take her past that and explain that this is a jumping off point. I do like the idea of maybe taking two weeks instead of one. She is unfortunately the type that will put off something till the last minute so I am not 100% sure on the two weeks but maybe we will do a week and 1/2. I think I will have to play that one a little by ear. I know I plan on going over the essays with her and seeing what would make it better. Since I was planning on doing that on Thursday maybe I will have her turn in a revised essay on Monday. Right now she just does not have any focus or understanding that essays can be written from different approaches. She just goes intro, body, conclusion with all the information in the body. Is there a different curriculum you would do instead of Jensen's?
Gwenny, I wish you lived near me and I could send my kids to you! We mived a lot when I was growing up, and I really don't have a clue how to teach this stuff! mschickie, That schedule looks good to me; doesn't look like too much at all for that grade level! I'd go with what you're planning, what Gwenny says, and be VERY thankful your dd is with you and not in ps!
I really appreciate that, Gwenny. You see, I have never learnt how to write so I don't even know how to teach it. Now at least I know what to look for in a writing curriculum.
I am trying Excellence in writing this year, and we used Voyages by Loyola successfully this year, but I don't know if they go beyond 8th grade. I understand what you are saying about her paragraphing, but in my experience, work on development of idea and get away from any mandated paragraph number, otherwise, that is all kids think. My ds is going into 7th this year, and at the end of last year finally made it to his first essay that was 5 paragraphs - we didn't do it by saying, you need 5 paragraphs, we worked on it all year, adding more detail with each essay he wrote. We worked up to 5 paragraphs, and we talked about how, for 7th grade, he needs to work up to 2 pages (6th paragraphs or more). Best of luck with your daughter's writing.
I'm not sure what grade level this book is - Connections Basic Skills in Writing published by Steck-Vaughn - but I started using it with my dd (13) this past spring and like it so far. It combines writing along with the grammar. The book includes narrative writing, descriptive writing, work place writing and report writing.
I think what you're saying is that it's similar to "500 Words". So the kid counts and stops at #500, regardless of whether or not the paper is finished. The development of ideas is more important than the number of words or paragraphs. My dss had to do a paper on the Dred Scott Case and was told a certain number of words. He kept writing "Dred Scott and his master, Dr. John Emerson...." I told him he needed to say THEY in place of that phrase! His reply, "But THEY is only one word. DRED SCOTT AND HIS MASTER DR. JOHN EMERSON has EIGHT words!" And where did he get this bit of knowledge? FROM HIS FATHER!!! Sigh.... His teacher (a friend of the family, btw) wrote, "You need to use pronouns!"
HAHAHAHA!! I see that all the time, but I think that is the longest repetitive compound noun to take up space that I have EVER seen!
I do not think that I would tell her it has to be only 5 paragraphs but for what we are doing that would be the minimum. She tried EIW but that did not work well for her. I think if she was younger I would work up to the longer essay but being that she is going to be in 11th grade and has had some experience with writing longer essays this might be our direction. I just really liked the fact they show the different types of essays and ways to write. It is something I know instinctively but I do not think that sd gets that yet. She approaches all writting the same and does not look at the question to tell her what type of essay it should be.
what youa re doing is about the same as we are doing with our program of SOS, it is working on all the same techniques and I am adding to that because dd will be reading more than 4 books a week too she is a bookworm gone wild lol! She devoirs at least 5 books a week on a bad week, She reads several at once sometimes, when they are in a series to follow each character or what not. Or she will read one for a few hours then put it down and see another one she wanted to "just look at for a moment' and get lost in it! I have to tell her to turn her light off at night or she will read all night!
I wish sd was like that. She is a very slow reader. It is only in recent years that she began to enjoy reading. We used to have to force her to read 30 pages a day, we tried doing 1/2 hr but she would only read about 3 pages and then daydream the rest of the time.
