I'm not going to stress out over this...I'm not going to stress out over this...repeat after me :-)...Actually, I was thinking that when I was in 9th grade, I was in junior high school, not high school. My son will be in 9th grade next year; I'm sure that we'll do just fine with "regular" courses (no AP, no "honors"). I heard a woman speak at our convention--her son got a $100 scholarship (ok, so it would buy a book) to college for being first in his class (and she had him listed as "1 of 1"...we'll survive.

I use it; I love it. I schedule books "after" other books are read...so, for example, we'll read (aloud, together, because I want to) Jackie Robinson and the Year of the Boar after we finish All the Children were Sent Away...

Now. Ours is blossoming...we average 70 during the day and may drop to 30-40 at night...

Why not? We actually jumped a century <gasp> because I couldn't face the 1800s again...after just doing them last year...We've used TOG 2 and 3 before (not the new one), and I can't remember any problems...

If you can, RC, get the Teaching the Classics videos...I was a literature major in college (also more than 25 years ago!), and I am not confident (and my son is gifted with language and math...)

My cousin had to cope with that her last years of teaching highschool math--she hated it. She also had the longer periods, not every day...

No--my husband wasn't allowed to take him (insurance liability on the trucks). So...he's retiring from this job in 4 weeks. Blech.

Well, to play devil's advocate...the standards at the more competitive colleges should be higher, so professors should expect more quality work from students who wish to earn an A. Therefore, the bell curve would apply...and if the student were willing to settle for a less-rigorous academic environment, the standards would, presumably, be lower.

That would drive me out of my mind.

Me, too...sounds like we're on the same path!

I'll have to check into Alice--I want my son to get off YouTube this summer (actually, he alternates with Age of Empires, which I encourage...) I'm surprised that 1.25 credits = 5 hours/week, because that's what we were planning to do for English and History...I wonder if this is typical of other, more experienced highschool homeschoolers' experiences? (I'm going to get another cup of coffee after that sentence!)

Interesting corallery (can't spell!) the other day...my father-in-law was talking with my husband about the upcoming elections, and my husband mentioned that my son supports Candidate X (not my FIL's candidate). He said, "well, that's his mother speaking..." Actually, it's not. I support Candidate Y, and my son has cogent and logical arguments for supporting his candidate, including arguments that I did not know anything about (border issues, for example). When I asked him how he learned that, he said, "well, mom, I do watch the news..." Logical thinking, from analysis skills from studying logic and great books, as far as I can tell.

Sounds like grounds for appealing to a higher authority...if you have the 100% proof...that's what I'd do in that situation.

I've never had a student earn 100%, so I don't know...but I do know that my students who earn 97% earn their As...and those who earn 85% earn their Bs...

Right there with you, RC--my son will be using DAW next year. My plan, so far...<heh, heh, heh> is to use Carnegie Units (120 hours) more or less (up to about 150 hours, depending on the course): World History (1 CU) English (1 CU)--combo of Ancient Literature, IEW, some grammar/punctuation review (Cozy Punctuation, Cozy Grammar, Language Lessons for the Secondary Child, Word Roots software, Editor in Chief)* (may add Shakespeare from LL, but don't know if that would be overkill...we'll see how first semester goes...) Clutter <grin>: Music History and Performance (1 CU; since he practices classical viola daily) Art History (.5 CU) Geography (.5 CU; since we augment with additional activities) Other: Biology (1 CU) (Abeka, with microscope and labs and DVDs--no way am I watching the fetal pig) Latin I (1 CU; finish Latin Prep 1, halfway through LP2) Algebra II (1 CU; the last set of three modules from Videotext) (if he finishes early, we'll start Geometry...) German I (1 CU; Rosetta Stone) PE (.5 CU; cumulative through the years, as he focuses on travel hockey, personal training, tennis <for fun>, travel baseball) Summer courses: Computer Applications (.5 CU)--before 9th grade, MS Word (maybe PP); before 10th grade (web design, Excel)

I don't want to mislead you--IEW doesn't "teach" grammar, but I think that grammar is taught through exposure to living books (there's that CM thing again...) and practice...with IEW, if my son is missing something when he writes his draft, I remind him of the punctuation he needs to use (appositives, for example...or semi-colons for comma splices...)

Glug, glug...last night--and we'll be up again on Monday night--at the hockey rink. My son's been selected as the "#1 goalie his age in New Mexico" to go to the Rocky Mountain District Select camp in Utah next week, and we're doing as much hockey as we can...

Thanks--our vet has a sign in his office--Heaven is where all the dogs you've ever loved come to greet you...

Hmmm....me and 9% got Captain Wentworth. Gotta love that nobility of character...

Well, I'm not a big fan of diagramming (although I enjoy it myself), so I don't see the need for it...my son is on his second year of IEW (the program for writing that Trisms uses) and he has improved DRAMATICALLY. HUGE. (Of course, he's not good at apostrophes, but he'll get that--eventually...) We read a lot of the Trisms books--you could use something like Deconstructing Penguins or Teaching the Classics to do more literary analysis (Trisms is, I think, weak here)...I'd like to do Lightning Lit--maybe Shakespeare, but I don't think we'll start until second semester (we're going to use DAW for 9th, and some more stringent courses, like Biology and Algebra II...as well as some longer time periods for Latin and German).

I teach online at a couple of universities; we have to grade "down"--we have to have strict grading policies in place so that not all the students in the world get As...grade inflation. My students don't--others I know have to take special workshops. I clearly specify my expectations (what equals an A, etc.) If the student earns the A, he or she gets the A. I have no sympathy for those students who whine about ruining their GPAs, but don't do the work (not that any homeschool students would do that, I hope!)

Thank you, Sharon--and be careful--the coyotes attacked our poor old lady not 50 feet from our door (we live in a rural area; we were outside with the dogs, and they were roaming around a bit...)

Well, my son is ok--he's the one who picked her out when he was not quite two...so she's been around for a long time. We're taking an easy day (followed, of course, by hockey). Thanks for asking.

They've now killed three dogs over the last 13 years...and they were big dogs (two border collies and a chow cross). I HATE coyotes.

Thanks--I'm just grateful that we had the chance to not prolong her suffering...I watched my mother die of kidney failure last year (complications from diabetes), and it was not easy...thank God, too, for hospice for humans...