I do this for homeschoolers. I taught college level writing and literature (early and modern American lit.) for 7 years and currently teach AP English to homeschool high schoolers. I use a virtual classroom for "live" tutoring also.

As someone who has come late to WTM, I have used WTM mainly to inspire my curriculum building and to find resources. I used to teach college writing and after having two homeschoolers in my freshman composition classes, I was convinced to homeschool my daughter. WTM is a great curriculum for preparing students for college, but there is no way we could follow it rigidly. My daughter's passion is also history and literature, so I've crafted a "History in the Round" curriculum that has her reading the history of Western Civilization, art, science and women. The literature selections match the history chapters (Old Testament, The Illiad, Canterbury Tales, etc.). She's also taking Latin, because she plans to learn other Romance languages and it will help her understand English grammar better and help increase her English vocabulary. Logic and critical thinking skills are important across the curriculum, so she'll be working on those from here on out. I would say it's okay to pick the aspects of WTM that are important to you and merge it with your daughter's passions. There are only so many hours in a day, and I've had to back off on some of the academics as well to actually give my daughter the freedom that homeschooling is supposed to give! Allowing time to stare at the clouds is equally important in developing a well-rounded student.

As a writer and someone who has taught college level writing (currently teaching homeschoolers both writing and grammar) I would say that unless your child wants to go on and study the English language at the college level, you don't really need to go that deep. I'm not altogether sure you need to go that deep to help you study a foreign language. The study of grammar is generally meant to help students become better writers. Granted, the fruits of this labor won't be fully realized until they are writing at a higher level, but the early grammar lessons are meant to be building blocks that lead up to sophisticated language use. The problem that I see with most grammar curriculum (and I'm teaching my dd grammar for the first time at a 7th grade level) is that most completely seperate the rules and the exercises from any real writing. The book I'm using (which we got from K12) will give a list of practice sentences and ask for a list of sentences from the student, but this sort of practice doesn't always translate when she gets to writing her own essays. And it needs to. The exercises tend to give the same kinds of sentences over and over again, but when faced with a sophisticated sentence written by an author and found in the middle of a paragraph, my dd struggles to make the connection to the rules or concepts just learned. Taking the time to find sentences in the real world and having the student identify whatever part of speech or clause or pronoun case or whatever would probably be a better use of the student's time than figuring out why the rule is important.

You might take a look at Rocky Mountain College. It's a very small private LAC in with an excellent reputation and a good environmental science program. I know a young woman who just graduated with this degree and who had two really wonderful fieldwork opportunities. It's in Billings and only 2 hours from Yellowstone. Michelle http://www.collegeprepenglish.com

I'm in Billings, but I have just moved here from Portland, OR and haven't gotten around to doing the paperwork... Michelle http://www.collegeprepenglish.com

Hi Amanda, I just stepped out of the shadows too and I'm in Montana as well. I'm in Billings and have a DD13. Where in MT are you? Michelle http://www.collegeprepenglish.com

I am now in Montana and found out that a full-time student is considered a student who is taking 4 classes. Or, at least that is the case in the Billings school district. Billings is the largest city in MT with about 100K population. The local homeschooling community has created their own sports association, but unfortunately they don't have cross country. I believe they do have football. Michelle http://www.collegeprepenglish.com

Just wanted to chime in that readers of the SAT, AP English and college app essays are getting very tired of the 5 paragraph essay with a conclusion that simply restates the thesis. As a former college English instructor, I spent a lot of time in my classes undoing the pat essay that got many students through high school English, only to get a real shock once their first Freshman English essay was returned. Learning to develop ideas organically and basing the number of body paragraphs on supporting the thesis (with as many paragraphs as needed) makes for a better essay. Conclusions should actually say something new, by suggesting the importance of the topic in the larger world of ideas or giving a final, concluding thought that helps nail the ideas down for the reader. I would suggest at some point finding a tutor to score the essays if you're not comfortable doing this yourself. Michelle www.collegeprepenglish.com

Hello, I'm new here and hsing my almost 12 yr old dd. She loves the Joy Hakim Story of US and I'm trying decide whether to continue with K12's curriculum for World History. Does anyone here know there Human Odyssey texts? I've briefly looked at SOTW but it seems too young for her. She has been reading college level material since she was nine and I would like to challenge her historical thinking more. She will be starting Hakim's Story of Science next year, and I would really like a good history companion for her to read along with it. Any insights are welcome! Michelle in Portland