My son is in the WTMA Socratic Discussion class right now as well. My son is thoroughly enjoying the class so far. I would not say that it can stand alone as a 'literature' class. The selections are great - assignments include selections of short stories (Isaac Asimov, Boccaccio, Aesop, chapter of Tom Sawyer, Vonnegut, Saki, etc.) with an occasional audio story (Garrison Keillor), poem, Ted Talk, article and quotes (from Einstein this session). The kids will also read "The Little Prince", but I can't tell from the syllabus if this will be a selection or the whole thing. Ms. Swanson is teaching them how to annotate and to come up with critical thinking questions about each selection. Both extremely valuable skills, in my opinion. However, there is not much analysis of the works, which should be included in any 'literature' class. Also, the 'discussion' component is difficult in this format of a class. Some kids chatting(not always on topic, I might add), some using the microphone. The result is an exchanging of answers to the guiding discussion questions, but not much 'discussion' building off of each other's responses. This is the first time I have signed my son up for a live online class, so this may be typical, but I must say I was hoping for more on that front. That being said, I am pleased with the class in general and feel I am getting my dollars worth out of it. I like that my son is getting extra 'literature' to read & think about. I like that he is practicing annotating - reading the selections closely & paying attention to literary elements it was a struggle for me to get him to pay attention to on my own (metaphors, allusions, irony, etc.). I like that the kids are practicing coming up with their own questions about the work and that the questions must be of different levels of critical thinking, forcing them to make connections in their own minds between the story and the world in general. So, I think it is great for foundational "literature class" skills, but not a literature class on its own. It could, however, easily be supplemented at home with deeper analysis and a paper or two. I am not doing so, however, because my son really likes the class now and I don't want to ruin it and negate the positive, solid skills he is gaining from it as is. I hope that helps!

I am also a newbie. I started homeschooling last year(7th grade) and lurked in the shadows of this forum as you have said you do, cmmamma, ever since. It's funny to me, though, because I have the opposite impression of the posters here. I find most of their planning threads to indicate anything other than "relaxed," and in fact end up feeling my own ideas of an 'academic' homeschool are peanuts in comparison. They are doing Latin and Greek and French or Chinese, etc? Herodotus & King Lear in 6th grade? AP U.S. History in 8th grade? Yikes. There are also threads with parents struggling in one subject or the other needing 'catch up' or remedial help and those who don't believe in assessment of any kind. I think there are threads for all styles of education here, so with the right search terms, you can find PLENTY of posters who share your visions. For me, the most important thing is to make sure your kids love to learn. For some kids, this means NO Latin, for some kids, this means ALL Latin. What I have gleaned from this forum is that a complete, "serious" education can take many forms. Sometimes it does mean backing off a little bit to avoid a complete turn off towards anything academic. Anyone who posts on this forum and anything they post can be taken quite seriously. It just depends on what you need to be doing for your kids at different points in their career, even if it is not as originally envisioned. :001_smile:

OK, so I've never posted here before but have gotten such good ideas from you all I thought it was time I contributed what little I can... I'm close to finalizing my plans for 8th grade (2nd yr homeschooling). They are: Math: Saxon Alg 2 w/ Art Reed DVD's Statistics w/Dad (discussing Naked Statistics chapter by chapter) English: Grammar: Stewart English update: Switched to Holt Handbook Second Course Writing: WWS 2 (trying it out, if it doesn't go well, I'm thinking of the Lively Art of Writing or Cover Story) update: WWS 2 is not going particularly well, so I've signed up for WriteGuide to help with a literary analysis essay I had my son do at the beginning of the year on Lord of the Rings. WWS 2 is too laser focused on a particular skill for my son. He just can't see how each micro skill fits into the big picture and I'm finding it harder and harder to convince him that there is a big picture in mind. update2: WriteGuide was terrible. Switching to Lively Art of Writing and using Lightening Lit assignments. Literature: Lightening Lit 8 (minus A Christmas Carol b/c he's done it) Maybe a Movies as Literature unit (To Kill a Mockingbird & also read it to compare??) Hamlet w/Classics Club from Center for Lit Vocabulary: Vocabu Lit 8 Science: Time4Learning Physical Science (HS) Real Science 4 Kids Labs Maybe Conceptual Academy's Physical Science Explorations Independent Study if I don't like Time4Learning Coursera's Water in the Western U.S. (we live in CA, so...) update: Coursera's How Things Work for physics (love this!) History: Yikes, still shaky on this one, but we're doing U.S. History. I think I'm going to do Joy Hakim's History of US alongside the Freedom: A History of US webisodes & videos spending a lot of time on primary sources and touching on some DBQ's Videos, videos update: Switched to using Annenberg's A Biography of America for video lectures and added in Critical Thinking Press activities Spanish: Rosetta Stone Destinos course through Annenberg Learning (we'll see how that goes - I took French in school, so cannot help AT ALL in this area) update: This course is working really well for us. The background story keeps it interesting, the accompanying workbook chunks the concepts very well and there are tests in the workbook as well. I bought it directly from Annenberg media. Other: Logic - Fallacy Detective & perhaps a Coursera course: Think Again: How to Reason and Argue or Reason and Persuasion: Thinking through Three Dialogues By Plato Not sure on these yet The "How to Think Like Sherlock" posted by Jean looks enticing though, I have to investigate that one (no pun intended!!) update: I just can't find what I'm looking for here. I like Fallacy Detective, but I read an article saying that good arguments should be taught before fallacies and it really made sense to me. Teach a skill, not everything that is NOT that skill... But I can't find a good source for teaching arguments that is not too advanced. Still on the look-out... Intro to Socratic Discussion WTMAcademy? - Going to try 2nd semester PE - Club soccer, Tennis Raspberry Pi course in our area. It's a work in progress, which, thanks to you all, I don't feel at all bad about!

Thanks so much, Lexi! I will start researching these right away.

Hi- So where did you 'outsource'? I'm new to homeschooling and am having a terrible time finding a writing program!