Another writing option for tying together reading, discussion and composition.

[Tullia]

My son is taking an interesting seminar this summer, and I thought I'd pass along some of the things he's doing in the class. I was pleased when he found out about the class because, with the exception of Lysistrata, the reading list is awesome and gives him a chance to read several works we didn't have time for and to re-read several more that he'd enjoyed during high school. BTW, the fall term syllabus has been released and Lysistrata will be replaced with Oresteia which is still sitting unread on our bookshelf. I guess you can't have it all...:glare:

 

One of the requirements for the course is to write weekly "response papers". The main goal is to prepare students for class discussion. The instructor hands out a series of text-specific questions be answered in the response paper. What is required is that each response paper "be specific about at least three or four key passages (direct quotations with page numbers) that you would like to explore in class)." The papers are to be 1 1/2 to two pages, typed, single spaced. What makes writing these so enjoyable for my son is that they are not intended to be essays and are not graded as such. I think the instructor does expect that the writing will show decent grammar and syntax, but her focus is on the choice of quotations and analysis of the text.

 

This past weekend, I was discussing the "what I'd do differently" mantra with several other current and former hs moms. We agreed that having a read-write-discuss routine was important, but we also agreed that grading full-blown essays is not something that any of us enjoy doing. If I were to homeschool through high school with another child I'd definitely keep the focus on reading books. What I'd do differently, though, is bring TWEM more into the foreground instead of using it primarily as a self-ed resource. [Disclaimer: I don't get any pay or perks for suggesting this. :D]

 

I'd start with a reading list, and assign response papers which reflect the grammar-level questions in TWEM and gradually move into the logic and rhetoric questions. I'd still assign regular essays and a term paper each semester, but I think that having the response paper as the nucleus of the writing component would be a welcome relief.

 

Keep in mind, though, that it's not possible to turn out perfect students. Yesterday ds mentioned something about his latest assigned reading that made me think he'd jumped in w/o even doing a basic grammar-level inquiry (it was a context question about author we'd not covered in hs). I just told him that I'd recently moved TWEM and HTRAB; left bookcase, third shelf, somewhere about the middle, and that he was welcome to keep both on his own bookshelf for awhile...sigh...

Edited July 14, 2010 by Martha in NM
misinformation corrected in red type

[Michelle in AL]

Sounds great! Did the instructor give the students the quotes and they were required to disscuss them in their response paper or did the instructor give them topics to discuss and the students had to discuss the topic using quotes to back up their writing?

[Tullia]

Sounds great! Did the instructor give the students the quotes and they were required to disscuss them in their response paper or did the instructor give them topics to discuss and the students had to discuss the topic using quotes to back up their writing?

 

Ds just set me straight on this point; they are definitely supposed to address the text-specific questions she provides, but her questions are mostly intended to frame the paper. The students are expected to supply their own quotations and explore some general questions designed to help them offer some analysis of the text they chose. There is a list they can choose from, but they are merely suggestions:

 

What intrigues you about the texts?

What puzzles you?

Do you agree with the author? Why? Why not?

How can we apply these readings to our current lives and experiences? (The title of the course is "Ancient Legacies".)

 

Ds often adds in other things like the rhetorical situation, structural elements and explicit use of logic and gets a lot of positive feedback for doing so. I'd sometimes wondered over the years how much of the logic and rhetoric texts, and Robert Einarson's English Grammar Handouts he'd absorbed, but I'm beginning to see that it was worth the effort.

[Michelle in AL]

Sounds wonderful! Where does your son take these classes? Are they online?

[Cedarmom]

We tried response papers, but I just said write your thoughts. That was way too vague for my son. I like the questions the teacher asks-and I like that it didn't have to be essay. Of course, my ds is off to college, so its too late now-but I think it is a good suggestion.

[Tullia]

Sounds wonderful! Where does your son take these classes? Are they online?

 

He's out of high school and enrolled at the CC and taking the IRL version, although in the fall there will also be an online section offered. I'm staying busy purging files and clearing out our schoolroom closet. I was a diligent paper hound and threw very little away over the past 10 years...oh the mess! :eek: It's going to take some time to clear out everything, but our library/school room is slowly beginning to change into a library/sewing room.

 

What I'm drooling over on my own account is another fall term class: The Modern Legacy: Utopian and Dystopian Fiction. Enrollment in this series of classes is by invitation and was sent to ds, but I just may hang onto the reading & film list included in his fall preview packet.

[Tullia]

We tried response papers, but I just said write your thoughts. That was way too vague for my son. I like the questions the teacher asks-and I like that it didn't have to be essay. Of course, my ds is off to college, so its too late now-but I think it is a good suggestion.

 

Ah, yes...what I could do with a chance at "do-overs". I'd definitely not stress quite so much over essays. I think the way this instructor has set the parameters strikes a nice balance between a LOT of formal essays and reading something just to check it off the list without really analyzing or responding to the ideas in a meaningful way. I decided to post about this after reading some other recent threads about the angst of teaching composition.

[Michelle in AL]

Martha, could you please post the reading and film list for the dystopia/utopia class? I'd love to see that!

[cindylee]

Thanks,

Cindy

[Tullia]

HTRAB is my shorthand for Adler's How to Read a Book.

[memphispeg]

We are doing composition/rhetoric along with our Am. Lit. this year. For popular books and short stories, there are tons of readers guides and reading group guides and study questions on the web. They allow you to get quite specific in generating questions for response papers if you need to be. Then you can have the student get specific about examples from the material to show that they have read it critically.

[Tullia]

Texts:

Thomas More: Utopia

William Morris: News from Nowhere

Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland

Ernest Callenbach: Ecotopia

George Orwell: 1984

H.D. Thoreau: Walden

Lois Lowry: The Giver

Ursula Le Guin: The Dispossessed

Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake

 

Films:

Avatar

District 9

[Michelle in AL]

Thank-You!!

[Tullia]

We are doing composition/rhetoric along with our Am. Lit. this year. For popular books and short stories, there are tons of readers guides and reading group guides and study questions on the web. They allow you to get quite specific in generating questions for response papers if you need to be. Then you can have the student get specific about examples from the material to show that they have read it critically.

 

Do have any particular websites you'd recommend, or do you usually search by individual titles?

[LanaTron]

I'd start with a reading list, and assign response papers which reflect the grammar-level questions in TWEM and gradually move into the logic and rhetoric questions. I'd still assign regular essays and a term paper each semester, but I think that having the response paper as the nucleus of the writing component would be a welcome relief.

 

 

When you say "gradually move into logic and rhetoric questions," do you mean as your dc's mental abilites develop to be able to handle those questions? Or do you mean something else.

 

I'm about ready to take the plunge and do literature with my 9th and 8th graders using WTEM next year, but I'm trying to get a better idea of whether or not they can handle the work. My other option is to use Lighting Literature.

[angela in ohio]

I took a Readings Conference class my freshman year of college for English. It was a great books course from ancients to modern over three quarters, and we wrote response papers just like this twice a week, along with two longer papers (one individual and one group) each quarter. I decided when I started homeschooling that if I could get my dc up to that level by high school, they would be well-prepared for college. :001_smile:

[Tullia]

When you say "gradually move into logic and rhetoric questions," do you mean as your dc's mental abilites develop to be able to handle those questions? Or do you mean something else.

 

I'm about ready to take the plunge and do literature with my 9th and 8th graders using WTEM next year, but I'm trying to get a better idea of whether or not they can handle the work. My other option is to use Lighting Literature.

 

Yes, that's what I meant. If you were to begin something like this in 7th-8th grade, most students would be able to handle the grammar level inquiry as laid out in TWEM. However, if I'm remembering my own experience accurately (it's been a few years) as a 7th grader my son would have needed a bit of prodding to follow through even at the grammar level, but that would have been more of a time management issue than problems with academic readiness or ability. I would focus on gradually increasing the difficulty of the questions as well as increasing the pace of work so that by the time a student finished high school he or she would be able to read fairly large portions of challenging books in a few days, and also be able to work on writing assignments while keeping up with daily work and other classes too.

[LanaTron]

Thank you. I'm feeling more and more encouraged to try TWEM, as it seems flexible enough that I can adjust it to my dc's skill levels, and work up from there.