wenti Posted January 4, 2017 Share Posted January 4, 2017 Any recommendations would be appreciated. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coloradomomof5 Posted January 4, 2017 Share Posted January 4, 2017 Not Home2Teach. Fine for intro but from what I saw not rigorous. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bethben Posted January 4, 2017 Share Posted January 4, 2017 Potter's school. They are mid year though and I'm not sure you can join a class mid year. I did this with my now 10th grader and the stuff he is required to write and the level he is required to write is excellent. I have my 6th grader in a class this year also. I really like how they challenge students to go above and beyond. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coloradomomof5 Posted January 4, 2017 Share Posted January 4, 2017 What class do they take? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fourisenough Posted January 4, 2017 Share Posted January 4, 2017 Wilson Hill Academy Intro to Expository Writing? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted January 4, 2017 Share Posted January 4, 2017 Wilson Hill Academy Intro to Expository Writing? It is rigorous. I have a kid in it now. They read The Odysseus and Canterbury Tales And Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (plus lots more). The teacher is fabulous, but it is difficult!! They write around three essays per semester, two short quizzes per week, and have lots of other small assignments. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wenti Posted January 4, 2017 Author Share Posted January 4, 2017 It is rigorous. I have a kid in it now. They read The Odysseus and Canterbury Tales And Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (plus lots more). The teacher is fabulous, but it is difficult!! They write around three essays per semester, two short quizzes per week, and have lots of other small assignments. The "Fundamentals of Expository Writing" course? I didn't find the tuition information. What's the cost for one year course? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bethben Posted January 4, 2017 Share Posted January 4, 2017 At Potter's school, my 16 has taken - Narnia, English 1, English 2, and is currently taking English 4/5 College Composition which is preparing him for college level writing. My 6th grader is taking Writing Fundamentals 6 and will continue through their English program as he gets older. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted January 4, 2017 Share Posted January 4, 2017 The "Fundamentals of Expository Writing" course? I didn't find the tuition information. What's the cost for one year course? Thanks. This year, it was $630. Registration for next year should open in February or March. That's when you'd be able to see more info (books used, days of the week/times, tuition). There are several people whose kids have taken or are taking this class. I honestly think it would be a really good, solid, freshman level (non-honors) course. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie of KY Posted January 4, 2017 Share Posted January 4, 2017 Brave Writer classes are great, start year round and last 4-6 weeks each. My middle schooler has taken several high school fiction writing classes through them. She's not ready for the more academic high school writing and will take those classes as a high schooler. Those classes did have several younger students, however, when my boys took the classes. Pick whatever class meets your need. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosepetal Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 At Potter's school, my 16 has taken - Narnia, English 1, English 2, and is currently taking English 4/5 College Composition which is preparing him for college level writing. My 6th grader is taking Writing Fundamentals 6 and will continue through their English program as he gets older. Did your son skip English 3 LS before English 4/5 CC? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fourisenough Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 It is rigorous. I have a kid in it now. They read The Odysseus and Canterbury Tales And Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (plus lots more). The teacher is fabulous, but it is difficult!! They write around three essays per semester, two short quizzes per week, and have lots of other small assignments. Speaking of WHA Fundamentals of Expository Writing, can you speak to how much time (as a percentage) is spent on: (1) close reading strategies/literary analysis, (2) grammar, (3) composition, and (possibly 4) vocabulary development (if any...)? I'm trying to find an "English" class that covers all/most strands of language arts. We've loved the two years of Expository Writing my daughter has taken at WTMA, I'm just overwhelmed with language arts - she's taking Expo 2, Socratic Discussion, JH Literature at Center for Lit, and is doing grammar (last season of AG) and vocabulary (a mish mash of good things) at home. I'd love to enroll her in ONE online class that hits all of this stuff for next year. Do you think Fundamentals of Expo Writing at WHA meets that goal? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 Speaking of WHA Fundamentals of Expository Writing, can you speak to how much time (as a percentage) is spent on: (1) close reading strategies/literary analysis, (2) grammar, (3) composition, and (possibly 4) vocabulary development (if any...)? The teacher weaves all sorts of things into each class. I can't really give percentages. They usually cover one literary analysis term (averages maybe one per week?), one grammar concept (a little less than one per week, more on this later), are reading & discussing something every class, and writing assignments are short-term & short at the beginning & scaffold up to longer-term essays fairly quickly. There isn't a formal vocab section, but right now they are picking words in Canterbury Tales (two words per story or section) that they don't know to define. They are supposed to be keeping a log of all the words the other kids also find with their definition. Some of this is vocab & some is "middle english knowledge." It really shows the difference in knowledge/exposure of the kids in the class as some pick unknown words like "shire," "heathen," "parishioners," and "engendering." Quite the spread there. They just got done with a short poetry unit. I'm glad my kid took a poetry class before this one as the teacher seemed to move quickly through terms (meter, iambic, scansion, trimeter, etc.) that would have been difficult for her to grasp had we not already done a semester-long poetry class. That part was review for my DD. Perhaps some kids can handle the quick pace & new material thrown at them. Perhaps it didn't sink in for others. I don't know. Literary Analysis - No close reading strategies that I know of. They read & discuss in class, having "queries" they are supposed to have answered by class time to go over. These are a mix of reading comprehension & thoughtful questions. DD doesn't really like the choices of short stories, poems, and books so far, so she thoroughly hates the material by the time they are done with it. I'm sure others feel differently. :coolgleamA: They cover a LOT of literary analysis terms - keeping a written list of them, being quizzed on them, and having a comprehensive test on them at the end of the school year. She has covered many that are in Figuratively Speaking. Grammar concepts - These are more like 'frequently messed up' usage. Less/fewer. Than/then. There/their/they're. I can't remember more right now. They covered semi-colon usage. The teacher assumes they already know basic grammar & punctuation, I believe. MLA - WHA is big on MLA. Mrs. Lange teaches MLA formatting, signal phrases, paper formatting, works cited pages, etc. Composition - I could write whole pages on this. Mrs. Lange uses the Schaffer Method to teach writing literary analysis papers. It is fairly rigid at the beginning, with lots of required charts. Soon, however, she lets up on it and explains that it is just a framework to help you develop and lay out your ideas. If your kid can already write them, they might feel constrained by the format, especially at the beginning. Grading is easier at the beginning and gets harder quickly. There isn't a stated rubric where you can see where you lost points, but the teacher writes LOTS of comments on each formal paper - wherever she wants to talk about what you did right or wrong. Does that help? I don't know if it will meet you goals. It is a tough class, at least for my good-at-writing, competent-reader, non-academically motivated, middle-of-the-road kid (8th grader). There are others on here that have kids taking this class. It IS a good class, IMO, but I wouldn't put a kid who isn't (1) a good reader and (2) a pretty competent writer in it. Did I mention I think it is tough? :lol: PM me if you have more specific questions. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 Just a quick followup on my note about WHA's Fundamentals of Expository Writing: WHA is having an "open campus" January 24-26 so people can attend classes and see what they are like. I don't have any details yet, but if you are interested in any of their classes, there should be an opportunity on those three days to sit in on the classes and see what they are like. (My DD & I did this with another online academy last spring and found it extremely useful in making a choice whether to go with that provider or not. It depends on how representative that class is of an average class, of course, but should be useful.) I'm sure one of us will make a post (and cross-post) when we get more information about how to do this. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h2bh Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 I have a child who took FOEW a year ago. I think the class has been tweaked some since then, particularly the grammar. However, I do think the class is a comprehensive English credit. You wouldn't need another English class. There is a WHA parent meeting soon and it is supposed to cover a change to the writing courses for next year. I'll try to post an update when I have it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wenti Posted January 12, 2017 Author Share Posted January 12, 2017 Just a quick followup on my note about WHA's Fundamentals of Expository Writing: WHA is having an "open campus" January 24-26 so people can attend classes and see what they are like. I don't have any details yet, but if you are interested in any of their classes, there should be an opportunity on those three days to sit in on the classes and see what they are like. (My DD & I did this with another online academy last spring and found it extremely useful in making a choice whether to go with that provider or not. It depends on how representative that class is of an average class, of course, but should be useful.) I'm sure one of us will make a post (and cross-post) when we get more information about how to do this. Thanks for the information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCB Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 My dd is in the Rhetoric 1 class at WTMA and I am really impressed with it. We haven't done any other courses there but if they are anything like her class I think they would be good. We did WWS ourselves and my dd was just saying this week how that helped prepare her for this class. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redsquirrel Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 I would check out either the Expository Writing 3 or Intro to Rhetoric at The Well Trained Mind Academy. The people there are very nice and open to questions etc. The second semester is just about to start, but there might still be time to enroll. It would be half way through the year, though.... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommaof5 Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 Speaking of WHA Fundamentals of Expository Writing, can you speak to how much time (as a percentage) is spent on: (1) close reading strategies/literary analysis, (2) grammar, (3) composition, and (possibly 4) vocabulary development (if any...)? I'm trying to find an "English" class that covers all/most strands of language arts. We've loved the two years of Expository Writing my daughter has taken at WTMA, I'm just overwhelmed with language arts - she's taking Expo 2, Socratic Discussion, JH Literature at Center for Lit, and is doing grammar (last season of AG) and vocabulary (a mish mash of good things) at home. I'd love to enroll her in ONE online class that hits all of this stuff for next year. Do you think Fundamentals of Expo Writing at WHA meets that goal? I had looked at these classes and was curious as to how exactly Socratic Discussion at WTMA and JH Literature at the Center for Lit were similar and different in terms of amount of work/time commitment for students, content, and skills the student learns. They seem like classes with similar purposes but different strategies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fourisenough Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 (edited) I had looked at these classes and was curious as to how exactly Socratic Discussion at WTMA and JH Literature at the Center for Lit were similar and different in terms of amount of work/time commitment for students, content, and skills the student learns. They seem like classes with similar purposes but different strategies.Yes, I would say that's accurate. I see SD as being the microscope through which my DD is learning close reading strategies and annotation of short works of fiction and non-fiction (short stories, poems, speeches, etc), whereas Center for Lit is the telescope through which she's learning to appreciate, understand, and connect with whole works of classic fiction. The former is the up-close, very detailed approach and the latter is the big picture way to read and love whole books without slicing and dicing them so much that she learns to hate them. Both encourage the reader to interact with the text and her classmates using thoughtful inquiry and discussion. She has loved both classes and has gotten so much benefit from each. Next year, I'd like to merge the two skill sets and see her tackle her reading using whichever tool seems right for the situation. Does that help? Feel free to ask more specific questions if you have any.ETA: Forgot to address time/work for each. Rough estimate is that she reads 30-60 minutes per day for the monthly 2-hour lit class with Center for Lit. SD requires one reading/annotating assignment that takes 30-60 minutes in addition to the weekly 1-hour class. Edited January 13, 2017 by fourisenough 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 (edited) Socratic Discussion, while great, is not a writing class. We are doing the WTMA Intro to Rhetoric class, having done exactly zero essay/non fiction writing previously, and it has been great here. DS does other stuff for literature and for fiction writing, but that's his thing. He writes the most in his CLRC Great Books class (and receives very detailed feedback) but the focus of that class is the massive reading. I do love the writing he has to do there, it's very well thought through, but it is not *taught* per se, like it is block-by-block in the WTMA class. Feedback is detailed and there's re-writes, so there's some teaching there in that way. Edited January 13, 2017 by madteaparty 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 Just a quick followup on my note about WHA's Fundamentals of Expository Writing: WHA is having an "open campus" January 24-26 so people can attend classes and see what they are like. I don't have any details yet, but if you are interested in any of their classes, there should be an opportunity on those three days to sit in on the classes and see what they are like. (My DD & I did this with another online academy last spring and found it extremely useful in making a choice whether to go with that provider or not. It depends on how representative that class is of an average class, of course, but should be useful.) I'm sure one of us will make a post (and cross-post) when we get more information about how to do this. Here is a link to the announcement. I believe you have to request the schedule via the link on the page. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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