Amount/type of writing each week for your 9th/10th grader?

[6packofun]

I'm wondering how many writing assignments--and what kind--you give on a weekly or monthly basis--in any and all subjects. Are these mostly related to assigned reading/literature or spread across the curriculum (not several subjects each week, I assume...maybe. lol).

 

Just another can-I-compare-my-homeschool-to-yours-in-a-totally-noncompetitive-informative-way post. :D

[Rhondabee]

I'm wondering how many writing assignments--and what kind--you give on a weekly or monthly basis--in any and all subjects. Are these mostly related to assigned reading/literature or spread across the curriculum (not several subjects each week, I assume...maybe. lol).

 

Just another can-I-compare-my-homeschool-to-yours-in-a-totally-noncompetitive-informative-way post. :D

 

This year we are using IEW for the first time (SWI-C). Most weeks we just use their materials for writing in "composition". We are just about through with SWI-C, and I'll probably get (oh - I think it's called Elegant Essay?? ) by IEW to teach persuasive writing after Christmas.

 

I do *try* to apply the IEW to his history. He does history three days a week, and I use TruthQuest to find sources. I like for him to write *something* each day in history, but sometimes we need two days just for reading. The writing assignments vary greatly. Sometimes we just "take notes" so that he can use the notes during "composition". Other days, I have him write 1-3 paragraphs. These usually get edited, but not "polished" iykwim. We haven't started 5-paragraph persuasive essays in history, yet. I doubt that we will until next year.

 

We are doing Smarr for literature, and it is teaching how to write a 5-paragraph literature analysis essay. They are assigned about every 3-6 weeks?? (I think there are 8 scheduled in the year.) Each essay is followed by a week of "writing lessons". I have found these very helpful - it follows exactly what I learned in AP English (tho' that was years ago!). This is not the once-a-week writing in lit that SWB recommends. My compromise is to use the Critical Thinking questions as "oral essays". We brainstorm the thesis and possible supporting points and what evidence you would need from the text to back up the supporting points. I try to do this a couple of times each week.

 

We are using Apologia Biology this year, and I have not had much luck with assigning writing assignments in Science.

[AnitaMcC]

I'm wondering how many writing assignments--and what kind--you give on a weekly or monthly basis--in any and all subjects. Are these mostly related to assigned reading/literature or spread across the curriculum (not several subjects each week, I assume...maybe. lol).

 

Just another can-I-compare-my-homeschool-to-yours-in-a-totally-noncompetitive-informative-way post. :D

 

For our 9th graders:

 

Language Arts:

composition exercises 2 times a week in a work book.

1-2 page composition essay each week.

5 page research paper every semester.

World History:

complete 5 short essay questions over a two week period (they read a chapter from a text every two weeks).

1-2 page critical thinking essay every other week.

World Literature:

read 2-3 novels and write a book report every 8-10 weeks.

Health:

do an activity every 2-3 weeks (with a 1-2 page report).

 

This is pretty much all they do for writing. Ds is a very very slow writer and some times he can't finish the assignments as planned. He has such a high IQ but he struggles with the output. We are able to get more out of him than the public schools ever did with his IEP and he does very good quality work. Quantity is his difficulty-LOL. Dd generally has no problems getting the assignments done, just that she tends to rush and so her quality isn't as good as she could do.

[Anna]

My two kids are in college. Since one of my main goals with high school writing was to prepare my kids for college writing. I thought I would run this by my oldest dd, a college junior. This is what she had to say:

 

Good Lord, Momma! You want me to dig up my college freshman writing assignments? If a description from memory suffices, then...

 

French - no real writing assignments. Maybe 1 paragraph descriptions of myself, my friends, my house, etc. (in French, obviously).

Biology - no papers, just filling out lab forms.

History - multiple little reading responses. I recall a 1-page minimum. It was just to make sure we kept up with the reading; they weren't even graded. Dr. ------ just counted them as participation points.

Spreadsheets - no papers.

Art Appreciation - three 2-3 page papers responding to specific pieces of art at different venues; basically a free-write on how we felt about what we saw.

American Government and Politics - little outlines to show we were reading and three 2-3ish page media analysis papers (very light research: just comparing different media outlets)

Intro Psychology - one 3-4 page paper that was drawn strictly from the text (no research; just regurgitation)

Intro to Information Lit - no papers. This was the class that prepared you to write research papers (see below).

Algebra - no papers

World's Living Religions - one 10-page, research-intensive paper. NOTE: This is typically a junior/senior class. Molly suggested I take it because she felt I was ready for it writing-wise.

 

To sum it up, for first year, 100-level courses, the writing was not at all intensive and barely research-based. They were mostly designed to make sure we were working and start getting us used to writing papers. Second year jumped into research, sooooo...

 

Based on my personal experience as a student and a TA, there are two essential components of preparation for college writing

• Familiarization

o Know HOW to research. This is strictly mechanics. Know how to pick a topic, formulate an outline, find academic sources, when/how to cite sources.

o Know the college's resources. If this isn't covered in a tour/general education requirement class, go to the library and ask a librarian to show you what options you have for research: databases, full-text online journals, microforms, bounds, periodicals, books, interlibrary loans, etc. This will be how you find information for a paper. NOTE: Ask a librarian, not a circulation assistant. Circ assistants won't know/remember everything.

o Know what's academic! Most professors do not consider encyclopedic entries as scholarly, nor things from publications like TIME / Newsweek.

o Know when to cite. Actually, my advice is to cite the bejeebers out of papers: professors have become sharks about plagarism and if you're not extreeeemely careful, you could wind up in the dean's office looking at suspension/expulsion.

• Organization

o Know how to organize your research process, your information, and your paper. This is CRUCIAL. I can't tell you how many papers I've seen (from peers and mentorees) that ramble all over the place: they start a thought, leave it, and sometimes come back to poke at it once more towards the end of a paper. It makes for very incoherent reading. Come up with a system that keeps you organized and on target once you start your paper. That's my two cents worth.

Edited November 18, 2009 by Anna

[Nan in Mass]

Here is a recent thread about this: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136939&highlight=pages

[Kareni]

Anna,

 

Thanks for sharing your daughter's experiences. Here is what I know of my daughter's first semester as regards writing ....

 

Intensive Latin Grammar -- she's mentioned no writing with regards to this class.

 

Geology -- labs have involved more fill in the blank than full scale lab reports. There has been one poster project which entailed writing. There have been tests which have involved filling whole blue books with text and subsequent complaints of her hand hurting!

 

Freshman writing seminar -- four two page papers. Each of these has required a draft to be submitted and a follow-up appointment to discuss said draft with the instructor. I forget the exact word count (perhaps 750 words); however, each paper and draft must be within 10 words of that number.

 

Early Medieval History -- four papers starting with two pages and working up to a final research paper of either eight or ten pages (not including references). This instructor went over a handout before the first paper of unacceptable errors such as use of accept for except and their for there plus many more.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Osmosis Mom]

Hmmm, while I don't have numbers or subjects right here then I can say right off the bat that dd is having a lot more writing projects than that.

 

Her college is known to produce/encourage? strong writers. All freshmen must take a mandatory writing class (50 different ones or so to choose from!) with several papers there, biology has papers as does her psychology classes (since her freshman year although her levels has been 2-300). Tons of writing. Even Arabic has writing assignments(Arabic and English).

 

However, there is also a nice support system (if you can fit those hours into your work-schedule and classes).

 

I am not sure how a boy (my boys!) would fare in such a liberal arts college -so at least it is reassuring they only take girls, haha!! Seriously, then I'd love to see the day when my ds 14 will use words and language as play and ornament and not just as mere descriptive explanations!!

[Mandy in TN]

Uh, my ds went to the local CC and had way more writing than that in his 2 semesters of American History.

 

American History 1:

1. 3 movie reviews (each being 2-3 pages at least 500 words not including the bibliography) These had to compare/ contrast the movie with the historical event being portrayed.

 

2. Political Research and Debate Project (3-5 pages not including bibliography) The day the paper was turned in they also had an in class debate where they had to defend the stance taken in their paper.

 

3. Research Paper (5-7 pages not including bibliography) They were allowed to pick their topic with the only stipulation being that it had to fall within the scope of the class.

 

They also had 4 exams and were expected to participate in class. On the professor's syllabus under course objectives she begins with, "By using critical thinking and communication skills, students will understand the following:"

 

So, in a 16 week class that only met once a week, they had 5 papers, 4 exams, and 1 formal in class debate. Ds had the same professor for American History 2 and she had similar requirements for that class.

 

I know someone who has a ds in a fine arts class at the same CC and it sounded like it required papers as well.

 

OTOH, ds's Computer Applications class required no papers and all the written work was designed to demonstrate proficiency in the applications rather than composition skills. This semester ds dropped Engl Comp. Anyway, there was a lot of writing, because after all it was a writing class. He is currently taking College Algebra and there are no papers.:D

 

Mandy

[LibrarianMom]

At the college where I work freshman have several 10 page research papers in several different classes. This does not count their smaller reflection papers or their larger researched project. However, keep in mind that types and amount of writing differs widely on where you attend school and what your major is. I have worked with graduate students who went to prestigious mid-western universities and majored in biology or engineering and never wrote a researched paper outside of their English 101 type classes but spent a lot of time writing up lab results. Yet other majors will require lots of researched writing. My advice would be to emphasize writing a lot of different types of things and writing well versus length in writing.

 

I would echo Anna's daughter's advice on learning about what resources are available at your college library (and even your public library). I'm always telling students that citing good journal articles instead of just books is the surest way to an A. In classes professors have concurred indicating that they often look at the bibliography before grading a paper and are more favorably disposed to papers which list journal articles as they know this student is likely to have put forth extra effort.

[Lori D.]

- Weekly: timed essay practice from past SAT prompts. (Depending on which DS and how well they connected with the prompt, comes out to about 2-5 paragraphs.) We manage to do this about 28-30 weeks out of the 36 week school year.

 

- Weekly: a paragraph (sometimes several a week) from writing program, or response to literature. We go in spurts working through the program. Lately, none, due to a lot of other things cropping up. Need to get back to this.

 

- Once a month: a five paragraph paper from history, literature, whatever. We're 15 weeks into the school year and have only managed one so far. Way overdue in assigning another.

 

- Once every 6 weeks: practice note taking/outlining from a book to give a 3-5 minute oral report on a sub topic. Comes out to about 2-4 paragraphs of material, but it's not complete sentences, just what THEY need in order to present the material and answer questions. I don't look it over or grade this writing. So far we've done 3 and are working on the fourth, so we're ahead of the game on this one.

 

- Once a quarter: longer paper (3-6 pages) usually from history. So far we've got the first one about 3/4 of the way done, after multiple re-writes. Ug. I am hating this. I am seriously considering forgetting this one in the bottom of a pile of papers, and moving on to new topics. We are not going to make our projected quota at this rate.

 

 

Other minor, miscellaneous, occasional writing:

- note taking for American Government

- answering questions in the textbook and for tests for Science

- a few paragraphs long paper or information for Youth & Government (mock legislation program)

[Anna]

For those of you who say your college kids do more writing than what my dd shared-- Keep in mind that most college professors seem to prefer less writing of excellent quality over more writing which is mediocre to poor. That's what my dd sees in her TA work. And her school doesn't have a high percentage of ex-homeschool students so her findings may be way off from how homeschoolers are performing in college.

 

She's always telling me how much time she puts into retraining freshmen in their writing skills so that they will have a chance at succeeding in their classes. Of the freshmen she helps, most of them are in Honors Program and yet... they've entered the program with less than stellar writing skills. That's all she's saying here and I'll quote here again part of what she shared.

 

Based on my personal experience as a student and a TA, there are two essential components of preparation for college writing

• Familiarization

o Know HOW to research. This is strictly mechanics. Know how to pick a topic, formulate an outline, find academic sources, when/how to cite sources.

o Know the college's resources. If this isn't covered in a tour/general education requirement class, go to the library and ask a librarian to show you what options you have for research: databases, full-text online journals, microforms, bounds, periodicals, books, interlibrary loans, etc. This will be how you find information for a paper. NOTE: Ask a librarian, not a circulation assistant. Circ assistants won't know/remember everything.

o Know what's academic! Most professors do not consider encyclopedic entries as scholarly, nor things from publications like TIME / Newsweek.

o Know when to cite. Actually, my advice is to cite the bejeebers out of papers: professors have become sharks about plagarism and if you're not extreeeemely careful, you could wind up in the dean's office looking at suspension/expulsion.

• Organization

o Know how to organize your research process, your information, and your paper. This is CRUCIAL. I can't tell you how many papers I've seen (from peers and mentorees) that ramble all over the place: they start a thought, leave it, and sometimes come back to poke at it once more towards the end of a paper. It makes for very incoherent reading. Come up with a system that keeps you organized and on target once you start your paper. That's my two cents worth.

Edited November 19, 2009 by Anna

[Nan in Mass]

You mean you have a 14yo boy who isn't an expert at sarcasm? Lucky you. Two out of my three have enjoyed telling a story (paying attention to the way the story is told to maximize the impact or humour). So do their friends. And a different two of the three have a dry sense of humour. Five minutes after they make their joke, when they are beginning to think their mother is very stupid indeed, I get the joke. Usually in between I am lecturing them on the stupidity of what they just said. Sigh. Sons who play with language can make life uncomfortable for their mothers.

-Nan