Four year plan for writing?

[Erica in PA]

I am trying to wrap my head around what high school writing should look like. I feel like I'm trying to do everything during 9th grade, instead of spreading the learning out progressively over the four years. Would anyone be willing to share what you have done (or what you are planning)for writing each year of high school-- the programs or books you used, the goals you set for each year, etc.? That would be so helpful!

[JennW in SoCal]

Have you listened to SWB's lecture "A Plan for Teaching Writing"? It is about $4 at Peace Hill Press -- you can purchase and download it. The reason I suggest listening to this lecture is that it makes high school writing seem very doable, not something to stress out over.

 

I used The Lively Art of Writing as a reference work for how to write an essay when my kids were in 9th grade. They wrote persuasive essays about history, science or literature, and did so monthly for all of high school. (No more than 2 essays a month.) They had to write smaller research papers then build up to an MLA style academic research paper. I like Michael Clay Thompson's books on Academic Writing as the examples and explanations are good and you can either one or all 4 of the large research assignments he gives.

 

That is all I did, asside from editing and discussing their papers with them. They'd fix grammar and spelling mistakes and if they didn't have a clear thesis or didn't have arguments related to the thesis we'd discuss that. Sometimes they rewrote and other times I let it drop so they could move on. There was nothing different each year except the steady improvement of their writing.

 

I personally prefer having writing integrated into their subjects as that is how life is going to be in college. I also prefer having them write essays in response to their readings because they have to think harder about what they've read, harder than they would for answering stock chapter comprehension questions.

[swimmermom3]

Have you listened to SWB's lecture "A Plan for Teaching Writing"? It is about $4 at Peace Hill Press -- you can purchase and download it. The reason I suggest listening to this lecture is that it makes high school writing seem very doable, not something to stress out over.

 

I used The Lively Art of Writing as a reference work for how to write an essay when my kids were in 9th grade. They wrote persuasive essays about history, science or literature, and did so monthly for all of high school. (No more than 2 essays a month.) They had to write smaller research papers then build up to an MLA style academic research paper. I like Michael Clay Thompson's books on Academic Writing as the examples and explanations are good and you can either one or all 4 of the large research assignments he gives.

 

That is all I did, asside from editing and discussing their papers with them. They'd fix grammar and spelling mistakes and if they didn't have a clear thesis or didn't have arguments related to the thesis we'd discuss that. Sometimes they rewrote and other times I let it drop so they could move on. There was nothing different each year except the steady improvement of their writing.

 

I personally prefer having writing integrated into their subjects as that is how life is going to be in college. I also prefer having them write essays in response to their readings because they have to think harder about what they've read, harder than they would for answering stock chapter comprehension questions.

 

Thanks for further elaborating on your highly complex writing program.;) I have a 3 hour layover in a couple of days so that will be a perfect time to listen to SWB's lecture. The lower level ones have been helpful.

[Erica in PA]

Have you listened to SWB's lecture "A Plan for Teaching Writing"? It is about $4 at Peace Hill Press -- you can purchase and download it. The reason I suggest listening to this lecture is that it makes high school writing seem very doable, not something to stress out over.

 

I used The Lively Art of Writing as a reference work for how to write an essay when my kids were in 9th grade. They wrote persuasive essays about history, science or literature, and did so monthly for all of high school. (No more than 2 essays a month.) They had to write smaller research papers then build up to an MLA style academic research paper. I like Michael Clay Thompson's books on Academic Writing as the examples and explanations are good and you can either one or all 4 of the large research assignments he gives.

 

That is all I did, asside from editing and discussing their papers with them. They'd fix grammar and spelling mistakes and if they didn't have a clear thesis or didn't have arguments related to the thesis we'd discuss that. Sometimes they rewrote and other times I let it drop so they could move on. There was nothing different each year except the steady improvement of their writing.

 

I personally prefer having writing integrated into their subjects as that is how life is going to be in college. I also prefer having them write essays in response to their readings because they have to think harder about what they've read, harder than they would for answering stock chapter comprehension questions.

 

I like this simple approach! I will look at The Lively Art of Writing soon, and see if that might work for us. I will also download Susan's talk-- it sounds very helpful! Thank you!

[cindylee]

Are you talking about plan for writing the high school years or the writing without fear? I wanted to download it and was just making sure. I have a 9th grader.

 

Cindy

[angela in ohio]

Here's my tentative plan:

 

Year 1: The Foundations of Effective Exposition, including 1 semester on variety in sentences and paragraphs and 1 semester using the The Elegant Essay by IEW, among other things.

 

Year 2: The Persuasive Essay Perfected, including SAT and college application writing

 

Year 3: Writing the Research Paper (probably two smaller and one larger)

 

Year 4: Advanced Rhetoric - Speaking and Writing to Influence Others (including a senior thesis)

 

In addition, we will be doing work in the progymnasmata with TOG and Omnibus. All of their writing topics come from history, literature, or science, though I sometimes let them have free choice if they have a topic they don't know about but would like to research.

 

We are using Strunk & White, The Lively Art of Writing, and The Art of Styling Sentences this year, along with Elegant Essay. We also have the Rod & Staff English handbook and the Little, Brown handbook on the shelf. We use MLA for all papers here, so we have the handbook for that, too.

 

I haven't decided what exactly I will use for future years, but I have started collecting materials to look through. :001_smile:

[mims]

I am using a mixture of these three at different times for different kids:

 

One Year Adventure Novel - It helps with creative writing and I think literature analysis

 

The Lost Tools of Writing - This really helps with the logic and laying out of essays, using good word choices and just quality writing. I love how it makes them think and write logically (okay we are just starting but that is what I see)

 

Meaningful Composition 9 and 12 - This covers the nuts and bolts of MLA research papers.

 

 

With my younger two I plan on starting this sequence in 8th grade. After finishing LTOW and MC than I will require around 3 full research papers a year along with shorter essays on other subjects.