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Assigning credit for Great Books/English/History


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Just when I think I have this high school thing figured out, I find myself totally confused about how to assign credit for what we plan to do in 9th grade.

 

We plan to study Great Books I next year, covering Ancients thru Middle Ages, adopting a condensed version of TWTM. In 10th grade, we'll study Great Books II, covering the Renaissance thru Modern times. We'll study both history & literature, and we'll probably spend about 1.5-2 hours/day doing just this.

 

We'll also still be working our way thru grammar/writing (Writing Strands)/vocabulary, probably about an hour a day. So, do I incorporate this into a Great Books class, or would this count as a typical English I class for 9th grade?

 

I was assuming that Great Books would BE our 9th grade "English" class, but the more I read, the more I think they need to be separated. Does it look like overkill to have 2 full English credits in both 9th & 10th grades? How have you all handled this in terms of assigning credit on a transcript?

:confused:

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We are almost through our first year (Great Books, Ancients). I find it impossible to separate what is history and what is English - so I simply count the hours and split. With 150 hours last semester and the same amount probably again this semester, this will be sufficient for two credits: one for history and one for English.

I tie all writing into this; the assignments are related to the books or history topics.

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So then how will you title your course(s) to truly reflect what was studied? English I doesn't usually cover Great Books, and Great Books sounds more literature-based rather than covering grammar, writing, & vocab. But I do expect a lot of it to overlap.

 

I'm thinking Great Books sounds like a more reflective course title based on what we'll be spending most of our time on. I guess I could just include the "language arts" stuff we also cover in the course description. Is that how you'll handle it?

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So then how will you title your course(s) to truly reflect what was studied? English I doesn't usually cover Great Books, and Great Books sounds more literature-based rather than covering grammar, writing, & vocab. But I do expect a lot of it to overlap.

 

I'm thinking Great Books sounds like a more reflective course title based on what we'll be spending most of our time on. I guess I could just include the "language arts" stuff we also cover in the course description. Is that how you'll handle it?

 

Initially I had planned on using the labels "Great Books-Ancient", "Great Books-Medieval", etc. for two credits per academic year (one English credit and one History). But after discussion with the BTDT crowd here on the boards, I opted to create a more traditional transcript. English credits were in one section, History in another. On a separate document I listed text books. In the English section of this more detailed document, I provided the list of Great Books as well as other English materials (grammar, writing, vocab). It was clear that there was a parallel section for History where I mentioned the Spielvogel text as well as the various Teaching Company courses used.

 

The transcript and any other attachments serve the purpose of describing your student's unique homeschool education; but they also sell your student to Admissions officers. For that reason, we opted to go with a more traditional route.

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So then how will you title your course(s) to truly reflect what was studied? English I doesn't usually cover Great Books, and Great Books sounds more literature-based rather than covering grammar, writing, & vocab.

Is that how you'll handle it?

 

I will either call it English 1 or World Literature 1 (Ancients). I think it is understood that a literature course also includes writing. And since writing includes using correct grammar, and reading enhances vocabulary, those two components are also implicit.

 

There will be a separate detailed course description and book list.

 

From what I have learned here, one should not get too creative with course names, so admissions has some idea what the course could possibly be.

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We are doing waaaaayyyy more than 2 credits worth of work, but that is what I am giving. So for this year, I have called it:

 

English I: Composition & Ancient Literature

World History I: Ancient History

 

Next year will be II for each.

 

The third and fourth year, I will split it up into English and American literature, as well as American History and Modern History, plus add Governement and Economics credits.

 

In the course descriptions, I describe how it is a Great Books course. I list the books studied under both English and History, as we did both types of work for each book.

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Our situation (as always) is different, because my daughter leapt to an early entrance college program after her third year of what we were calling high school. However, here's what I did on her transcript.

 

In the course descriptions, I wrote a brief paragraph about the general design of each history/lit combination. And I listed all of the books she had read and materials she had used and everything else as a course outline.

 

On the transcript, though, it was just "English 1," "English 2," "English 3" and "American History," "History of the Ancient World," "History: Middle Ages and the Renaissance."

 

From everything I have read, this is the clearest approach. It's what most colleges expect to see on a transcript. I'm planning the same basic approach for my son.

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