Trying to figure out co-op, high school history

[Kimber]

What do you think is a good number of readers per week to assign to highschool students--10,11, and 12 graders. Also, how many papers per week should they be writing?

 

We've been asked to co-ordinate history and literature writing assignments so that the kids aren't overloaded. But I don't really know what overloaded is. One parent hinted that they were being too lenient by saying only 1 written assignment per week. Is one 5 paragraph paper per week for literature and history combined too little?

 

Thanks,

 

Kimberly

[MountainViewMom]

I am wondering the same thing! Look forward to seeing the responses.

[gardenschooler]

Have you thought about having regular weekly assignments, and have them working on a longer paper or research project at the same time? Will they have any other homework (map work, etc.)?

 

I usually go by pages for the reading, even though not all books are equal. I guesstimate around 10-20 pages a day for history, and 30-50 per day for lit MAX - about 4 days a week.

 

We had a literature teacher at our co-op who assigned about 70 pages a day, and there was a good bit of complaining from some of the other moms. I thought it was the most fantastic class EVER, and I was so grateful she was expecting a lot out of the kids. I don't want to waste my time and money on a class that's not going to really challenge my kids.

[Miss Marple]

I've found that "overload" is different for each family. Much will depend on how rigorous the families school at home. From my co-oping experience I would say that there are families who strictly focus on the co-op classes and expect the kids to do an enormous amount of work for those classes. Others who are schooling rigorously at home in math, science, and foreign language sometimes get overloaded.

 

We have had teachers who don't assign much work at all and, frankly, I think it's because they don't put in a lot of time on the class themselves and don't want to grade papers.

 

IMO, one well-written paper once a week would work for me because we have some much more going on at home. And I wouldn't want to grade more than that because it would impact my home life too much. Perhaps you could give "advanced" assignments which the parent would grade. I think Gardenschooler has a good idea about assigning a year-end research project which they would be working on throughout the year.

[Brenda in MA]

IMO, one well-written paper once a week would work for me because we have some much more going on at home. And I wouldn't want to grade more than that because it would impact my home life too much. Perhaps you could give "advanced" assignments which the parent would grade. I think Gardenschooler has a good idea about assigning a year-end research project which they would be working on throughout the year.

 

I agree with Cynthia, here. When I scheduled my son's Core 300 papers, I made sure that he was only writing one paper per week. Some weeks, he was working on research for his history papers while writing English papers, though. Given the amount of reading that Core 300 requires, I think actually writing one paper per week is quite enough. If the students are also taking an upper level math course (Algebra +) and a high school level science course in addition to the history/english, they will be plenty busy. They will be doing many, many math problems every week, and they'll also probably be writing some lab reports.

 

JMHO,

Brenda

[Jane in NC]

The problem that I see here is that the nature of the material might determine how much can be read. For example, if you are reading Plato's Republic and some of the students in your co-op have never been exposed to the concept of the allegory, it would be a shame to assign 50 pages a day. But most high school students could easily manage 50 pages of a Dickens novel.

 

I found that my son needs targeted questions as opposed to open papers for history. He can easily reguritate the material, but I prefer to provide questions in context which require some "connecting of the dots". When my son read Machiavelli's The Prince, he provided written answers to questions on the book's historical context, but also its philosophical: How does Machiavelli define virtue? Do moral ends justify immoral means? Long papers could be written on these topics, but I was satisfied to have discussions and written answers that included references to arguments laid out in the book. Not everything we do is turned into a formal paper.

 

In addition to the aforementioned, my son writes shorter papers and longer--I vary things from book to book. He did a longer research paper on the technological changes to warfare during the Hundred Year's War. He submitted a longer creative writing project paralleling The Canterbury Tales. There is the occasional five paragraph essay. I have him write an outline or a draw a concept map on occasion. Variety works for us.

 

Jane

[Kimber]

Thanks to everyone! These responses are exactly what I needed. We have a meeting in 7 days and now I have the information that the parents will be looking for.

 

Thank you so much!

 

Kimberly