Help, I am stymied right now. I attempted to create a Chem course for my 10th grader and it has largely been a flop. Sigh. Mostly, I have good resources, but it wasn't organized enough and I think the magic of Chem was lost through my chaos. My son used to LOVE that type stuff, and wants to go into a STEM field, but I am falling short on the STEM classes. Next year, I will have an 11th, 9th, and 7th grader who I would like to do High School level Biology with. I have tossed around the idea of just enrolling them in Williamsburg next year- I love Williamsburg, but I really want to do a class with these 3 together. I have mentored many youth over the years in various projects and want to be able to have some discussions with these 3. They need it. So, I am looking for resource suggestions. I haven't been around these boards in a long time and all the new abbreviations are confusing me and it seems that a lot of people are turning to online courses for high school level work. I get it- I am doing the same for a few things! For Biology, I have been looking at Guest Hollow- I love that she has literature built into her courses, but I don't really need an overtly Christian Biology. I am also thoroughly confused by the website and have a hard time finding the list of to dos and which book to read etc. I am not interested in anything from Apologia. What other resources are out there? What have you done? I have been over the Biology list in the forum and still am at a loss.

If you created your own syllabus, how did you determine which essays/books needed to be covered for the exam? The English AP exams have always boggled me just a bit since there are so many possibilities. What resources do you use to teach the essay portion? I am not familiar with Lukeion.

My son will be 11th grade. Especially considering he has had little formal writing, he is an excellent writer. He enjoys writing, and has been working on articles and books. At a young age, he could write beautifully for his age, but he hated it (hence why he has had little formal writing). So, here we are looking at prep for tests and college, and while has written many essays over the past couple of years, and done some research projects, he has some gaps. For example, he usually uses implied theses rather than an explicit thesis statement. He sometimes makes paragraphs too short (1 or 2 sentences), and doesn't connect paragraphs very well. Occasionally his writing is a little too conversational for academic purposes. These are the skills I would help teach him. What writing programs are out there that won't be super stifling but will provide some structure instructions?