Liza Q Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 This got pretty long - I hope anyone interested in this class will find it helpful! This class is for student who can already write - this quote is from the website: The course is a capstone class and assumes that the student can write grammatically correct and complete sentences. It also assumes a student has written essays and papers before (not necessarily a research paper), but does not assume completion of our Classical Composition program. https://www.memoriapressacademy.com/catalog?pagename=thesis You should know that my son doesn't like writing. He can turn out a decent, if plain and boring, essay if he needs to, but he'll moan and whine quite a bit. He hated studying grammar, complained all the time, but is actually very careful with his writing. Too careful - he was a perfectionist and driving me crazy. Because it was really affecting our relationship, I had him take a few Bravewriter classes and was extremely pleased with the results. I made him take this class because I didn't feel like working with him and teaching him to write a research paper, MLA citation, etc. I did this with my daughters before they went to college without any fuss but he is way more of a drama queen than they are lol and I didn't want the struggle. Also. Bravewriter has a class like this but it is shorter and more expensive...and I thought it would be good for my son to try a different approach. He told me this about the class (I'm paraphrasing this as he wouldn't actually write something for me about the class!): Because I don't like writing I didn't enjoy the writing. But the class was good and I really enjoyed it. I learned stuff. It was not that focused on grammar and editing and it could have been. It was more about the process. They met once a week for 90 minutes and the class ran from September through January. Excluding holidays, it met for 17 weeks. I am not very techy but I will do my best to explain the set-up - there was a camera so you could see as well as hear the teacher and he used slides during the class. The students communicated through a chat box but could use the mic for a complicated question. The assignments were done in Word and were uploaded to Memoria's site - simple. There is an online Forum where they can ask the teacher a question and all of the assignments/grades/etc are online and easy to access. The 17 weeks were set up this way - 3 weeks on initial research and choosing a topic, 4 weeks on choosing sources, drafting a thesis statement, and writing an outline, 2 weeks for the rough draft and final draft (but this included Thanksgiving week so they really had 3 weeks), and 6 weeks for Student Presentations and short analyses of each paper. Each student read their paper out loud and then the following week they each wrote about each paper. There were 2 texts used - Research Papers for Dummies and an MLA Handbook. Since I got them used from Amazon, they were very inexpensive. There were weekly reading assignments and my son said they were helpful. The paper itself had to be about 15 pages, double-spaced, and the student had to use a minimum of 8 sources. My son wrote on the colonization of Mars but he could have chosen any topic. Some of the other students wrote on topics like why fathers are necessary to families, genetic engineering, even the history of gingerbread! It was a small class of 8 students and I think my son received plenty of personal attention. Here are a few examples of the comments my son received on his work: On his adjusted Thesis Statement: This should work. You've dialed it back a bit, but you are still clearly intending to argue for a definite position. Good work! Later, in his rough draft, my son wanted to change the wording of his thesis and wrote this: For this section, I'm finding that the thesis statement feels pretty clunky. Would you be okay with me changing this section to "...or some combination of the two. The best way to do it is to combine the resources of both public programs and private industries." or at least something along those lines. It doesn't really change the meaning, but really helps the paragraph flow. And this was the teacher's response: I agree with the need to rephrase it. I think what you’ve proposed, or something like it, should work just fine. On this sentence (George H. W. Bush tried and failed to bring greater life back to NASA.) from his rough draft : Maybe elaborate on this sentence and the following ones. How did these presidents seek to enhance NASA, and why didn’t they have more support? On his final draft: Mechanics-19/20pts Content-70/70pts Presentation-10/10pts 99/100 This is a well-sourced and thoughtfully planned paper. You deal with the necessary issues and argue appropriately and consistently for your thesis throughout the paper. The few errors that cropped up dealt more with citation placement (inside the period on short quotes, outside on block), and really do not seriously detract from the overall effectiveness of the paper. Considering this topic’s rather offhand or seemingly random beginnings, I think the project turned out very well. Great work! I put his entire grade on that last one so you can see how the paper was graded. The teacher was Dr. Kevin Dray. My son thinks he was marvelous. Like, even slightly better than "Mrs. Jetta" of Clover Creek Physics (sorry Jetta/morningglory lol!! He did say that he loved you!) Personally, I disagree - my son learned to love Physics and did not learn to love writing, kwim? But my son said that Dr. Dray was hilarious in both his personality and his comments, he taught well, was likable and fun, had a dry sense of humor. That's all I can think of. Let me know if you have any questions! Oh. Obviously - yes, I would definitely recommend this class if you want your child to learn to write a research paper with MLA citation and don't want to teach it yourself. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TarynB Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 Great review! Thank you for taking the time to share this. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 Thanks for posting this. Could you cut and paste the text into a post in the Master Online Class list pinned on the General Board? It is easier to find reviews all in one place and sometimes links break. . . I have heard good things about Dr Dray. (Dd#1 hates writing and nothing could induce her to like it, but she is a sucker for a great teacher!) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiguirre Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 The grading format is the same for High School Composition 1. Trinqueta has gotten similarly detailed comments on her weekly submissions and the grading rubric is the same. This must be standard for all their high school comp classes. T also had Dr. Dray for Latin a few years ago. She was a fan too. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorningGlory Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 The teacher was Dr. Kevin Dray. My son thinks he was marvelous. Like, even slightly better than "Mrs. Jetta" of Clover Creek Physics (sorry Jetta/morningglory lol!! He did say that he loved you!) Personally, I disagree - my son learned to love Physics and did not learn to love writing, kwim? But my son said that Dr. Dray was hilarious in both his personality and his comments, he taught well, was likable and fun, had a dry sense of humor. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: This made me laugh out loud! (I need to look into this class for my own son. Thank you for this detailed review!) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
historymatters Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 This got pretty long - I hope anyone interested in this class will find it helpful! This class is for student who can already write - this quote is from the website: The course is a capstone class and assumes that the student can write grammatically correct and complete sentences. It also assumes a student has written essays and papers before (not necessarily a research paper), but does not assume completion of our Classical Composition program. https://www.memoriapressacademy.com/catalog?pagename=thesis You should know that my son doesn't like writing. He can turn out a decent, if plain and boring, essay if he needs to, but he'll moan and whine quite a bit. He hated studying grammar, complained all the time, but is actually very careful with his writing. Too careful - he was a perfectionist and driving me crazy. Because it was really affecting our relationship, I had him take a few Bravewriter classes and was extremely pleased with the results. I made him take this class because I didn't feel like working with him and teaching him to write a research paper, MLA citation, etc. I did this with my daughters before they went to college without any fuss but he is way more of a drama queen than they are lol and I didn't want the struggle. Also. Bravewriter has a class like this but it is shorter and more expensive...and I thought it would be good for my son to try a different approach. He told me this about the class (I'm paraphrasing this as he wouldn't actually write something for me about the class!): Because I don't like writing I didn't enjoy the writing. But the class was good and I really enjoyed it. I learned stuff. It was not that focused on grammar and editing and it could have been. It was more about the process. They met once a week for 90 minutes and the class ran from September through January. Excluding holidays, it met for 17 weeks. I am not very techy but I will do my best to explain the set-up - there was a camera so you could see as well as hear the teacher and he used slides during the class. The students communicated through a chat box but could use the mic for a complicated question. The assignments were done in Word and were uploaded to Memoria's site - simple. There is an online Forum where they can ask the teacher a question and all of the assignments/grades/etc are online and easy to access. The 17 weeks were set up this way - 3 weeks on initial research and choosing a topic, 4 weeks on choosing sources, drafting a thesis statement, and writing an outline, 2 weeks for the rough draft and final draft (but this included Thanksgiving week so they really had 3 weeks), and 6 weeks for Student Presentations and short analyses of each paper. Each student read their paper out loud and then the following week they each wrote about each paper. There were 2 texts used - Research Papers for Dummies and an MLA Handbook. Since I got them used from Amazon, they were very inexpensive. There were weekly reading assignments and my son said they were helpful. The paper itself had to be about 15 pages, double-spaced, and the student had to use a minimum of 8 sources. My son wrote on the colonization of Mars but he could have chosen any topic. Some of the other students wrote on topics like why fathers are necessary to families, genetic engineering, even the history of gingerbread! It was a small class of 8 students and I think my son received plenty of personal attention. Here are a few examples of the comments my son received on his work: On his adjusted Thesis Statement: This should work. You've dialed it back a bit, but you are still clearly intending to argue for a definite position. Good work! Later, in his rough draft, my son wanted to change the wording of his thesis and wrote this: For this section, I'm finding that the thesis statement feels pretty clunky. Would you be okay with me changing this section to "...or some combination of the two. The best way to do it is to combine the resources of both public programs and private industries." or at least something along those lines. It doesn't really change the meaning, but really helps the paragraph flow. And this was the teacher's response: I agree with the need to rephrase it. I think what you’ve proposed, or something like it, should work just fine. On this sentence (George H. W. Bush tried and failed to bring greater life back to NASA.) from his rough draft : Maybe elaborate on this sentence and the following ones. How did these presidents seek to enhance NASA, and why didn’t they have more support? On his final draft: Mechanics-19/20pts Content-70/70pts Presentation-10/10pts 99/100 This is a well-sourced and thoughtfully planned paper. You deal with the necessary issues and argue appropriately and consistently for your thesis throughout the paper. The few errors that cropped up dealt more with citation placement (inside the period on short quotes, outside on block), and really do not seriously detract from the overall effectiveness of the paper. Considering this topic’s rather offhand or seemingly random beginnings, I think the project turned out very well. Great work! I put his entire grade on that last one so you can see how the paper was graded. The teacher was Dr. Kevin Dray. My son thinks he was marvelous. Like, even slightly better than "Mrs. Jetta" of Clover Creek Physics (sorry Jetta/morningglory lol!! He did say that he loved you!) Personally, I disagree - my son learned to love Physics and did not learn to love writing, kwim? But my son said that Dr. Dray was hilarious in both his personality and his comments, he taught well, was likable and fun, had a dry sense of humor. That's all I can think of. Let me know if you have any questions! Oh. Obviously - yes, I would definitely recommend this class if you want your child to learn to write a research paper with MLA citation and don't want to teach it yourself. Thank you for taking the time to put all of this down for us. The details are very helpful. Cool topic, too! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liza Q Posted February 13, 2018 Author Share Posted February 13, 2018 Thanks for posting this. Could you cut and paste the text into a post in the Master Online Class list pinned on the General Board? It is easier to find reviews all in one place and sometimes links break. . . I posted it with 2 small additions in that thread - thanks for telling me about it! Here are the additions: Also from the website: Students should expect to spend 3-6 hours a week on this class. This seems about right, though I think my son spent more like 10 hours during the week before the rough draft was due and maybe 8 hours before the final draft. But - he is a slow writer. I do have one sort-of negative comment. From the website: This class is worth 1/2 a high school credit in Language Arts, Composition, or Writing. Imo, this is not enough for a semester credit, especially for the upper grades (11th/12th). I paired it with a homegrown Lit program that included a lot of reading and discussion. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teachermom2834 Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 Thank you! My ds is trying a writing class with Dr. Dray next year and I am pleased to read your review :) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3andme Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 Thanks for posting the review! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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