9th grade English

[gingersmom]

What do you use for 9th grade english?

 

I am trying to decide between something like Oak Meadow that has it all planned out or trying to do it on my own.

 

If I do it on my own this is what I was planning-

 

Tons of books to read (report on, etc)

Prentice Hall Literature

Wordly Wise

Weekly writing assignments

 

Do I need/do you use a grammar program? We are using BJU Press grammar which I like a lot but the 9th grade book seems identical to the 8th grade book.

[rwjx2khsmj]

My dd13 is currently using R&S Grammar 8. She came home this year from ps and had NO grammar background. It's been all new for her and if I had it to do over again, I would put her in R&S 6 or 7. Live and learn. She was adamant about being an 8th grader and I didn't want to fight another battle.

 

She hates R&S. Understandable considering it's the first time she's ever had to WORK at writing. She's begging not to continue with it, which had been my plan. So, we'll be checking out Analytical Grammar at the conference and seeing if it's a better fit.

 

We use Writing Strands and are planning to follow the TWTM recommendations for great books. We will be starting Middle Ages to Early Renaissance.

 

I would think that your decision about whether to include grammar would be answered by your child's mastery of the subject. If my daughter had a strong grammar background, I'd be looking to lighten up a bit next year. She doesn't. We will be doing as much grammar as possible to prepare her for writing well.

[Storm Bay]

My eldest is doing R&S 8 but finds it generally easy since she's been doing R&S since the gr 5 book. In addition she's doing Wordsmith (grades 7-9, so on the easy side) and literature. For lit I had hoped to combine WEM with other things, but at this point (3 weeks into the semester) she's doing questions from sheets I printed off the internet. Right now we're working on setting & she does one book per week. She is a very reluctant writer, so we're handling lit separately from writing. For writing, I'm having her do one paper per week for history, but not technically essays. She's also doing some Rhetoric to help her develop her arguing skills which will lead up to essay writing.

 

For lit, it's a mix of WEM, history & the high school summer reading program (for incoming sophomores, so I'm putting them as freshman reading.) She did the high school summer reading books in January and is writing on them now. She has read Romeo & Juliet (because the hs does this) and The Epic of Gilgamesh (WTM but probably also WEM.) She's also going to do 2 biography/memoir books, one for her required (by me) Canadian authors & one to tie in with Phys Ed, and I have yet to figure out what written assignment she'll do for those.

[mcconnellboys]

My older son finished up the Vocab from Classical Roots program that year, worked from Abeka grammar, and had a dual credit course in Greek Mythology that included a lot of writing.

[rose_king]

I had the same question yesterday.:001_smile: Someone recommended Analytical Grammar. I checked it out, and it looks great! I am going with that next year. Go to their site and give it a look.

[Tiramisu]

We use Seton English 9. It's a Catholic program so it may not work for everyone, but it's exactly what we need to keep dd on track with her writing. Without clear guidelines and having to hand something, dd would get confused and stretch out any longish piece of writing for weeks.

 

Seton English focuses on literary analysis and composition. In ninth grade, three books are studied with the course plans and then 3 are done independently but with clear assignments for essays that apply literary analysis. The lessons plans cover spelling (based on Warners), vocabulary (Wordly Wise but I substitute), and composition. There is also a research paper assigment which is incrementally stretched over three semesters. Grammar is also covered, but we use additionally grammar to catch up from all those years in public school. I like that it teaches careful reading and analysis, and has a good number of writing assignments without being completely overwhelming. I REALLY like that someone else is grading her writing, but that they allow her to revise and improve her grade so she can learn through that process.

[Carol in Cal.]

For instance, my DD, currently in 8th grade, is not as strong a speller as I would like, so if we did 9th grade I would have her do Phonetic Zoo or some other spelling program that is ungrade levelled.

 

For grammar, her functional grammar is more important to me right now than knowing all the labels--she is actually pretty good at the labels. So I would find a good proofreading program, and do a lot of writing and rewriting with her a la Bravewriter. But if she were weak in grammar, I would definitely do Analytical Grammar with her--again, that works for any grade above a certain level, and it's thorough and fast and practical. I have borrowed it from a friend and studied it intensively, and it's the best possible 'late but thorough' grammar program that I have seen. However, DD has done fine with Rod and Staff, and this year we are doing more practical grammar because that is what she needs.

 

For literature, I'm very confident in my ability to teach literature on my own, and I don't feel a need to use a program for it. So, for me, the reason to use a program would be for a really good outline, or for some structure or organization that I want, or for some content that I find particularly engaging. It's more like icing than meat, in other words. So, for instance, I'm still wistful about dropping Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings, because I just like it so much, but given that DD will probably cover a lot of the work in a brick and mortar high school I could not justify doing it to death right now. And so instead we have been reading some Shakespeare, and also some modern period literature, to talk about world view and values and such, which fits quite well with being on the edge of entering 'the real world' next year and also with the Contemporary Issues curriculum that I'm using for Bible right now.

 

In deciding what to do about literature for high school, I would also cross check with my own recollections, because I had a very strong literature path throughout high school, and make sure that we met or exceeded those items. So, for instance, during 9th grade we did not study grammar at all (I would exceed that one, for sure). We studied "Romeo and Juliet" and "Antigone" in great detail. (Check--DD did these in 7th grade.) We learned MLA footnoting (I believe that this is coming up in either DD's IEW TWSS class or in her Bravewriter Expository Essay class, both of which she is taking this semester. If not, I'll teach it this June. So, end of 8th grade.) We did a research paper about a topic in Romeo and Juliet for which we had to develop a thesis, research what other literary authors had published about the issue, evaluate their published work, and present and defend the thesis, including agreement or disagreement with the published work. (DD has done some literary thesis papers, but none of them include reference to other critical published work. I don't plan to teach that.) We also had to study books on our own to develop the 'book report' at a high school level--talking about message and theme as well as the usual plot, author background, characters, setting, etc. (We are doing this more in conversation, with only short papers. Generally I reserve analysis for opinion papers.) Throughout all this our writing was constantly honed and evaluated, and it was expected that all of our turned in work was at the final draft level--no rewrites or revisions for credit were allowed. (This is not the standard that I have been able to hold with DD, despite my best intentions to do so. We do a lot of honing and rewriting together. I really think that she is too old for that, but she seems to need it and benefit significantly from it.) I believe that we may have also read and discussed some other novels, but they did not stay with me.

 

I'm sorry to be so much less than specific here, but mainly my point is that tailoring this to your own child as well as to your own comfort level with this kind of work is the very best thing that you could do right now. Being able to do that is one of the key advantages to homeschooling, and so I offer this post as encouragement in how to do so.

[Cinder]

Here's what my 9th grade ds's school uses:

 

BJU English

Wordly Wise

Literature--about 5 or 6 titles

essays, freewrites, 2 research papers

 

Sounds a lot like your plan. We haven't used BJU before (we used R&S for grammar, TOG for lit) so I'm not familiar with the previous grades. At the school they don't do any grammar work in their English class. The school does a lot of grammar work up through 8th grade, and they feel that high school is when they should be applying what they've learned. Actually, during the admissions interview they asked about his grammar background because of this.

 

When ds has big papers due, the teacher will have them turn in a draft. She'll make notes on content but not grammar. However, when the final paper is turned in she does mark grammar errors.

 

HTH, Cinder