Writing a biography for History Odyssey??

[Blossom'sGirl]

Oldest ds (7th) grade is trying History Odyssey Lev.2 Middle Ages and has reached his first lesson that requires a researched biography. He is writing phobic but I have made great strides with him. I am just wondering how others have done with these assignments? I have a feeling I will be doing a tremendous amount of hand-holding. How much time should we take to do this?

 

We are not on summer break anymore I just haven't had a chance to update our signature.

[coffeegal]

It really depends upon the writing skill. My oldest usually needs around a 3-5 days to do a biography, but he's a strong writer. My second son (7th grade) has reached his first biography, and I'm planning on it taking 1-2 weeks, maybe longer. We'll take our time and walk through taking notes, creating an outline, writing and editing the report, and creating the cover page and bibliography. (I'll be doing my share of handholding. ;) ) I'm considering having ds continue on and complete partial lessons in HO while we work on the biography. The biography will probably be 1-2 pages this time around. We'll work on length later. Last year, we skipped the extra writing assignments because I wanted to focus on summary paragraphs, not long formal papers.

 

HTH!

[Blossom'sGirl]

Thanks. I like the idea of working on the paper but continuing with the lessons. I am not sure how many of these formal papers I will make him do. I am trying to do writing a little more WTM style this year after doing IEW last year.

I like the idea of taking him through the process step by step. I wish someone would have walked me through it in middle school so it isn't so daunting in high school.

[LunaLee]

I like to typically give a week for assignments like that. 1 day for researching and pre-writing, 1-2 days for writing, 1 day for editing, and 1 day for revising/polishing.

 

That way you can take the time and do it together without stressing either one of you out.