Help, we're going to homeschool again...

[~FireFly~]

Yes, we are going to homeschool our 16 yos, soon to be 17 yo Senior in HS.

 

Looks like he may or may not pass Alg 2, he's missed days in Spanish 1 - possibly too many for credit, lost his English ($60) book when he ditched school tossing it into bushes, thinking it would be there 3 days later... Enough about all that... he's coming home, it's final. He will get whatever credits he's earned this year from public school and we'll pick up from there in the fall for 12th grade.

 

What I need to know is what you've done for English as far as papers, literature, etc. for 12th grade. All of his other requirements are fulfilled - except Spanish/foreign language. I'm not sure what he learned in English this year. I can only guess that he'll need all the basic paper formats, etc. and a few good books to read.

 

Any suggestions?

 

I love you ladies and guys :O)

 

~Stephanie

[Veronica in VA]

Congrats on bringing your son home. I wish I had done that this year with my senior in ps. He went from being an honor student his first year in ps (10th grade) to barely graduating in 12th. He says he is just bored and hates the drama, but it is so frustrating. Anyway, my dd is just finishing up 11th so we haven't hit 12th yet. What lit has he studied so far? In many ps, children seem to study Brit Lit for 12th. You might want to look at Lightning Lit. Their early Brit lit has Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre in it, which a boy might hate. So for a boy I would look at British Medieval which includes Beowulf, Sir Gawain, Piers the Ploughman, Canterbury Tales, and some other things. Than you could do one of the Shakespeare courses for the second half of the year. Lightning Lit has writing assignments in it, but if you need a writing course you would have to add something in. IEW or Wordsmith Craftsman would be good choices.

If he has studied Brit Lit, or is not interested, you might try a science fiction/fantasy lit study. There have been some discussions on that in the past and it sounds interesting if he likes that genre.

 

Hope that helps some,

 

Veronica

[Pamela H in Texas]

Is he going to have enough credits to graduate? I mean, I KNOW that YOU determine that, but he's a young senior and now at least a few credits short. Maybe it would be better to have another year transition? Well, or maybe not as his behavior has been a bit off.

 

Anyway, I don't really have any great ideas. We piece things together based on each child. Are you thinking very involved or cover the basics? Is money a real issue? Are outside courses possible?

 

Anyway, we were kinda laid back with dd's English (her strong point but not one she enjoys) and my ds just isn't as capable. However, the last year of English was delegated out to the college for dd and I'm sure will be done similarly for ds.

[~FireFly~]

I'm double checking this with our registration group; I'm thinking he has all requirements - if he passes Alg 2 and Spanish 1 - to graduate on time. He had 28+ credits going into his junior year, so I don't think that'll be problematic. It's mostly English I'm concerned about. If he were more mature I'd sign him up at the local tech. college for English and another class for dual credits, but he's screwed up his GPA, I'm not sure if it's possible. Plus, as our 18 yos said, "Mom, "S" just needs to come home for his last year of school, and reboot." Tell me we don't live in a technical world. :O)

 

I'm looking at Seton's 12th grade literature using Poetry and Prose of England and Vocab for the college bound. We have numberous writing guides - I'll have to pull them all together. I'll get back with you on what we have. Also, I'll go through his file to regroup my head on what he has done thusly fro me in the past.

 

This year in English 3 they read bits and pieces of The Crucible and bits and pieces of The Great Gastby. Anything else? I'm not sure. I wasn't privy to most of it.

 

Wordsmith Craftsmen was mentioned, anyone have success with it? ups/downs? friend or foe - the layout of the materials, I mean?

 

Thanks again. Keep the thoughts flowing. I'll get on later with more details of past assignments. Heading off to the office.

 

~S

[Jean in Wisc]

Yes, we are going to homeschool our 16 yos, soon to be 17 yo Senior in HS.

 

Looks like he may or may not pass Alg 2, he's missed days in Spanish 1 - possibly too many for credit, lost his English ($60) book when he ditched school tossing it into bushes, thinking it would be there 3 days later... Enough about all that... he's coming home, it's final. He will get whatever credits he's earned this year from public school and we'll pick up from there in the fall for 12th grade.

 

What I need to know is what you've done for English as far as papers, literature, etc. for 12th grade. All of his other requirements are fulfilled - except Spanish/foreign language. I'm not sure what he learned in English this year. I can only guess that he'll need all the basic paper formats, etc. and a few good books to read.

 

Any suggestions?

 

I love you ladies and guys :O)

 

~Stephanie

 

If he has not covered the "basics" of writing, Format Writing is good--from the paragraph to the essay to the research paper and resume.

 

This year my senior did The Art of Lively Writing, a big research paper using the university library and The Curious Researcher, and several lessons on writing for the ACT.

 

For literature, I just collected a number of things he had not read yet and put them together. This was the main core:

 

Canterbury Tales (Omnibus II)

Prologue

Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Knight’s Tale

Wife of Bath’s

Clerk’s Tale & Chaucer’s Retraction

Paper on Comedy

 

How To Read a Book & A Sand County Almanac

Smarr’s Introduction to Literature—The Short Story

The Lady or the Tiger?

Rip Van Winkle

The Black Cat (Poe)

The Tinder-Box

To Build a Fire

The Gift of the Magi

The Carriage-Lamps

God Sees the Truth, But Waits

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Paper

 

Rime of the Ancient Mariner & short paper

 

He's behind in English. I'll see how many books I have him read after that. He needs to start his summer job next week...so ???

 

Jean

[Veronica in VA]

I'm double checking this with our registration group; I'm thinking he has all requirements - if he passes Alg 2 and Spanish 1 - to graduate on time. He had 28+ credits going into his junior year, so I don't think that'll be problematic. It's mostly English I'm concerned about. If he were more mature I'd sign him up at the local tech. college for English and another class for dual credits, but he's screwed up his GPA, I'm not sure if it's possible. Plus, as our 18 yos said, "Mom, "S" just needs to come home for his last year of school, and reboot." Tell me we don't live in a technical world. :O)

 

I'm looking at Seton's 12th grade literature using Poetry and Prose of England and Vocab for the college bound. We have numberous writing guides - I'll have to pull them all together. I'll get back with you on what we have. Also, I'll go through his file to regroup my head on what he has done thusly fro me in the past.

 

This year in English 3 they read bits and pieces of The Crucible and bits and pieces of The Great Gastby. Anything else? I'm not sure. I wasn't privy to most of it.

 

Wordsmith Craftsmen was mentioned, anyone have success with it? ups/downs? friend or foe - the layout of the materials, I mean?

 

Thanks again. Keep the thoughts flowing. I'll get on later with more details of past assignments. Heading off to the office.

 

~S

 

We use a combination of Kolbe and Sonlight for English/Lit. I really like the look of their English for 12th grade, and we used some of their 12th grade lit selections this year for 11th.

 

Veronica

[Susan C.]

Yes, we are going to homeschool our 16 yos, soon to be 17 yo Senior in HS.

 

Looks like he may or may not pass Alg 2, he's missed days in Spanish 1 - possibly too many for credit, lost his English ($60) book when he ditched school tossing it into bushes, thinking it would be there 3 days later... Enough about all that... he's coming home, it's final. He will get whatever credits he's earned this year from public school and we'll pick up from there in the fall for 12th grade.

 

What I need to know is what you've done for English as far as papers, literature, etc. for 12th grade. All of his other requirements are fulfilled - except Spanish/foreign language. I'm not sure what he learned in English this year. I can only guess that he'll need all the basic paper formats, etc. and a few good books to read.

 

Any suggestions?

 

I love you ladies and guys :O)

 

~Stephanie

 

 

Stephanie,

I don't know how to do this when you add your email to the reply, sorry if it looks bad.... My son really liked BJUP 12th grade English/Grammar/British Lit. But, we ordered whole grade, and it would cost about $400 to get just one subject. He did the workbook for grammar without the dvds except for the dvds with paper instruction, and that helped us a lot. He really enjoyed the British Lit. teacher on dvd, she is one of their best teachers. The grammar teacher is great as well, but my son had already mastered most of it, so asked to just watch her for paper ideas. If your son is struggling with grammar, he will get it after watching her!

 

That being said, in our area, I think I was the only homeschooler that even did British Lit. (and we did it twice, A Beka's in 11th, BJUP in 12th) because my son likes that sort of thing. A lot of the homeschoolers in my area just read from a book list and do book reports and discussions for 12th grade lit. And a majority of them do English 101 at the technical college.

 

Hope this helps!

Susan

[~FireFly~]

Hi Jean,

 

It's been a long time. How's your DH?

I'm over whelmed at the idea he'll be home again, grateful for the 'answer', but a little leary of grasping it, kwim? I'm looking into Format Writer as well as some others. We have several guides here at the house, I just need to locate them...I know they're around here somewhere....

 

Thanks for the suggestions. As far as literature, we'll probably make a rounded list of classics he's not yet read. I forget what he read in the past compared to what 'B' read. I'm going through the files tonight with DH.

 

'S' seems okay with the idea of coming home. He told his friend last night as they were talking about him switching schools, that we wanted him home next year because he has one more year before college and he didn't put his best foot forward this year. (that's an understatement, but whatever)

 

~Stephanie