That worked! Thank you so much! I had lost the original thread and now I've found it again. Thanks again!

Thank you! I'll try that. I've been a little stumped here, even though I've tried to use a few well-chosen words in my searches. Thanks!

I have a question: How do we search old threads before 2011? It seems that this was when the forums changed their look. I was looking for an older (i.e., probably before 2011) thread on writing, and even though this is the General Forum, I'm pretty sure that it was here. Thank you!

I love this idea! I would be happy to be a supporter at both the Benedict Cumberbatch and David Tennant levels. I would like to toss out there the "Tom Hiddleston" level of support for $100. :)

I finally figured out how to crop one of my own photos and use it as my avatar. Susan, I too would like to thank you for all that you do for these forums. I remember the old forums that came out shortly after the first edition of The Well-Trained Mind was published. You've done so much for the homeschooling community. No one should question your reasons for posting this thread, and all of us who use these forums (for free, we should remember) should be happy to comply with your requests. Thank you. :)

Thank you, Susan. This is certainly something I will pay attention to in the future--for this forum and for others. I would also be happy to donate, should it come to that.

Susan, I'm sorry that you're having to deal with this. I've gone back through my posts to 2008 and have not found any pictures. This thread raises a question in my mind: why this forum? why now? Granted--I'm not privy to all the issues, nor do I pretend to understand all of the ramifications. However, on most of the social media websites, such as Twitter and Facebook, for example, posters frequently access images from all over the internet--for profile pictures, for jokes, and for random posts. Are these websites ever called into question?

It will take me a while to read through this entire thread. I'll just add my .02 worth here. I've been blessed to attend the annual CiRCE Conference for the past three summers--in Louisville, in Baltimore, and this summer in Houston. Each time I attend I come away both encouraged and challenged to the core. I have much to learn about classical education, even though that's how we attempted to homeschool our children. What I have appreciated the most about CiRCE Institute is the willingness of Andrew Kern (as well as the other speakers of the conference) to challenge deep-seated beliefs about education in general. The challenge in Boston was about assessment: why do we grade student? how did that practice originate? what constitutes assessment? how would the Lord have us assess our students? So, I may not be adding much yet, other than to say that through the CiRCE Institute I have learned so much. My advice would be to stick with it: listen to the various talks, ponder and meditate, and the practical implementation will become clearer.

I don't know how to thank all of you enough! You have all given me excellent suggestions! I have e-mailed a link to this thread to my daughter and urged her to read it. Somewhere I have just one teaching company lecture on Dante, but not the whole set. I need to take a look at buying that; there is a lot in Dante and it would make an excellent resource for our family in general. Thank you all!

Thank you, Lisa--this is a great idea! I have one set of English literature courses from TTC, and I think one of the lectures is on Dante's Inferno. I should see if there's a bibliography listed there! I'll also check with 8FilltheHeart. Excellent suggestion!

I've missed you too, Jane! Life has been busy on my end. I am now teaching and have had to put off my master's program until this summer. I think of you and your family often! I think dd's thesis is basically sound, but she's having difficulty finding scholarly research to back it up. I sent her my copy of Sayer's translation, which I believe has some notes that would back up her thesis. I think she's going to dig into that tonight. I'm not sure which translation she's reading, but it's not Sayers. BTW, I love the snowflakes on your signature line! The intrinsic beauty and precision of math is so apropos!

I haven't been here in quite a while and am writing on behalf of my oldest daughter. She is writing a term paper on Dante's Inferno, and her thesis, if I haven't mangled it too much, is that the different circles or degrees of hell represent an ever-increasing betrayal of the nature of love. Since God is love, that descent represents a betrayal of God and hence a greater degree of separation from Him. For example, Judas and Brutus are placed in the lowest circle of hell since both betrayed their masters and friends. She has searched through reputable databases, i.e., JSTOR and MLA Bibliography, but has been unsuccessful in finding scholarly articles that affirm her thesis. She's not a member of this community, so I told her I would go ahead and see if anyone could offer any help or feedback. Thank you all in advance for any help/advice you may be able to give!

When we were homeschooling, we used Abeka for grammar--partly because I liked it, and partly because it was recommended in the first edition of TWTM. In the second edition of TWTM, SWB recommends R&S, and if I were to have the opportunity to homeschool all over again, I would use that. Nevertheless, Abeka's grammar program is still good and worth using. However, I never really liked their writing program--and for a long time it was hard to me to articulate why. First of all, the writing in the earlier grammar books is not good, in my opinion. Not to squash creativity, but I don't fully agree with their emphasis on creative writing in those years. I think children need models of good writing at first rather than on trying to write creativity. Not all children will be creative writers, but I believe most children can become competent writers. With my own girls, I began by following the recommendations in TWTM: first we did copywork and I wrote down their narrations, then we did dictation. Then I used a variety of books, but eventually settled on using Classical Writing and other forms of the progymnasmata. I'm not certain that I always knew what I was doing, but I believe that I do have the ability to distinguish between good writing and poor writing. So, I always corrected their papers and reviewed these with them carefully. If their grammar was incorrect, I corrected it; if their logic didn't flow, I pointed this out to them. When they got older (i.e., 7th through 10th grades), we started reading the Great Books and I assigned essay topics for them to write. I also used Cindy Marsch's Writing Assessment Services with them for about a year. I also bought a series of creative writing books for my oldest daughter, and she and my middle daughter just ate them up. (Now, I think that this book is a better choice.) We sent them to a couple of summer camps for creative writing, and they spent much of their spare time that summer reading and reviewing each other's short stories. I am pleased to say that my older two girls, in particular, are very good writers--but I think we kind of "stumbled" upon the right path rather than having a clear course to follow. We still edit one another's papers, offering suggestions and tips. My oldest is now a junior, majoring in English education with a creative writing minor. I'm not familiar with the newer programs, such as SWB's series--although I've read glowing reviews. My best advice would be to focus on teaching them how to write proficiently rather than creatively (which is one of the focal points of Abeka). Also, when it comes to research papers, my experience has been that the way Abeka's curriculum is set up doesn't really allow for enough serious research and reflection, and in some ways the focus on teaching them to write research papers is too soon. The ability to write a good thesis statement and write a research paper with a genuine thesis is linked to their brain growth. Kids in the logic stage are at the cusp of beginning to understand and know what they think, but they don't always know or understand why they believe what they think they believe. I found that lots of dialogue and discussion about topics and papers in general can really help a child sharpen their thinking skills, which I believe will translate (hopefully) into good writing. Discussions over the dinner table can aide them as they start the writing process. I'm not sure if I've been much help or have rambled on too long. But, I would choose a good quality program, such as WWE or Classical Writing or IEW and just keep honing those writing skills, working continually on grammar, challenging their logic and thinking as they write. Programs like CW and IEW can give you the form--and once you have the form, you can begin to deviate from that as they become better writers. I hope this makes sense. :)

Colleen, you and your family will be in my thoughts and prayers. :grouphug:

I've looked repeatedly at this teacher's syllabus: Mr. Gunnar. This would be for the 10th/11th grade levels. Also, someone recently introduced me to Janice Campbell's Excellence in Literature series. Level II would be her 9th grade curriculum. I don't agree with all of her literature selections, but I think she has the right idea in terms of making these AP courses. When our family was homeschooling, we did the following every day: Omnibus I and II Grammar (Abeka; I'd probably use R&S now) Vocabulary from the Classical Roots in the fall and Wordly Wise 3000 in the spring (thus, 2 vocab. books per year) Daily writing--essays and progymnasmata writing Altogether, we probably spent 2-1/2 hours on language arts per day.

Why not try Latin? Latin is extremely logical.

If she is truly interested in studying German, it's difficult for me to understand the objections you would have to the language or culture. I wouldn't think that German culture is any less moral than other cultures. :confused: Personally, I love the German language and culture. Their history is so much more than what happened there prior to and during WWII. Also, you never know what doors might open for your dd. German is very precise and is much closer in grammar and syntax to Latin than French. Also, I would agree with the poster who stated that French is not necessarily more difficult than Spanish. Also, if she has met the German teacher and likes him or her, she may be more likely to learn from that individual than from a teacher she doesn't care for. My middle daughter has had a fantastic history teacher throughout high school; he is so knowledgeable and so engaging. She has learned more from him about history and writing than any other teacher in her school. I think that's valuable. I think it's important to let high school students have some discretionary input into their educational futures. I'd be thrilled if our local high schools offered another foreign language besides Spanish.

Great article, Jane! Talk about perseverance. And translating the classics into Albanian? Wow. Great, great story.

I'm not allowed to state what I'm studying; it has to do with a student project and I am required to maintain student confidentiality. I was able to figure out last night what I was doing wrong. I'm not too familiar with Excel, so I had the correct data, but wasn't entering the data in correctly into the Excel spreadsheet. Once I did so, I was able to insert a pie chart into my report that correctly displayed my data. Hope that makes sense! Thanks again for your offer to help, but I think I'm in good shape now. :)

Thank you both! I think the problem was the way I was entering the data into the Excel spreadsheet; I wasn't putting the data into the correct places, so both my bar chart and pie chart weren't working out. I think I have the problem solved now! Thank you both for taking time to respond!

What would be the best type of chart or graph to represent one number out of another number? There are seven items in this series. Example: A completed 2 out of 3 B completed 1 out of 3 C completed 0 out of 3 D completed 1 out of 3 E completed 0 out of 3 F completed 0 out of 3 G completed 0 out of 3 I'm typing a document in MS Word, and when I select one of the charts it offers, it automatically opens an Excel file where I fill in the data. I've tried using both a pie chart and a bar chart but the results don't look correct. This is for one of my final projects this semester. I feel like I'm being pretty dumb about this! I can see the results from a bar chart in my mind, for example, but can't get it to translate properly from the data I'm entering into the Excel spreadsheet. So--what's the best type of chart? Should I show cumulative results, i.e., out of a series of 21 total--7 X 3--only 4 were completed with proficiency?

I agree with you; I felt like their move to being owned by Sears was a poor decision--although perhaps it was financially necessary at the time. I don't know. I also wonder if they have been hit hard by the economy, just like everyone else.

Very much so. Mr. Colson made remarkable changes after those years. May he indeed rest in peace.

Susan, this sounds excellent! I won't be able to attend, either, but I would definitely be interested in buying the DVD once it becomes available. Thanks for doing this, and Godspeed!

For some years now, I have been fascinated by the ill-fated Endurance expedition to the Antarctic, led by Sir Ernest Shackleton. I'm in the midst of trying to incorporate this briefly into my unit study plan about the role of the heroic in literature. My main text is The Odyssey. However, I'm using a number of other genres of literature. While searching for ways to teach about this fascinating subject, I found these great resources and thought I'd pass them along: Nova: Shackleton's Expedition Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure: A Giant-Screen Film This particular website has wonderful resources for teachers and for businesses. I'd heard for some time now that Shackleton's adventure has been used as a model for teaching in business, but had never yet found resources along those lines. Here is some information about Shackleton's leadership role (be sure to check out the links to the right of this section). Finally, there is a book out called Leading at the Edge, which is advertised on this web page called the Syncretics Group. I am not a business type, so I cannot vouch for its efficacy. However, perhaps budding business majors might glean some wisdom from this website and from that book. At the end of the page entitled, "Shackleton's Leadership Role," it states: "In addition to presenting Shackleton's leadership as the context for these 10 strategies, Perkins uses modern case studies to support each." Very interesting, I think! Hope this information helps someone out there!