Has anyone here enrolled their child in Seton English 9?

[always cookin']

How did it go? How was the feedback on writing? Were you generally happy with it? I would appreciate any feedback. I am open to other options for writing instruction as well.

[Teachin'Mine]

My dd is taking the class now. We've been very happy with this and the feedback from the writing assignments has been very helpful. I can easily recommend it. :)

[always cookin']

It would take a great stress off me, and the price seems really reasonable especially compared to other options.

[Murphy101]

This is a repost from another board I am on where I vented some huge frustrations last year after we fully enrolled for 9th grade for my oldest. Their high school support and their lesson plans are no where near as well done as in prior grades much to our great disappointment.

 

For some reason the copied version adds asterisks.

 

---------copied post below-------

 

I have loved Seton for many years.* Very hard, but very good quality as well, kwim?* Tough, but worth it?

 

Not now.* Now we hate it.* We love the reading materials.* Unfortunately he hates the assignments so much he dreads the materials.* And it is wordy and bounces about.* Read this, then this, then go here and do that, and go there and do this, and call and leave a message if you don’t understand or need help and we’ll get back to you (admitedly usually within 24 hours).* ARGHHHHHH!

 

We started with such grand enthusiasm and plans.* Now we just want to ditch it all.* In a bonfire.

 

He needed more math help – fine.* But then we can’t continue in the science we purchased bc it needs solid algebra 1.* Fine.* Disappointed, but fine.* We’ll get to that after math is built up.

 

The spanish is horrid because*we couldn’t get our computer to make the little punctuation things for the tests and they counted off big time for it.* Even though I told them we couldn’t make that feature work.

 

And nothing is sticking in grammar or math.* We keep going over and over and over the lessons and it. just. doesn’t. stick.* I print stuff off online to help, pull things off my shelves to suppliment – a lot more work for me, and something I was hoping not to have to do by enrolling.* They say have him call.* Uh-huh. Fine.* And?* So every other day he is just reading or sitting waiting for a call to clue him in?* I don’t think so.

 

He was making great progress, slowly but steady, kwim?

 

But 1/4 into the year, we didn’t start until October,*we are thinking full enrollment was a huge mistake for this son.

[always cookin']

First, I am sorry you are having such a disappointing year with Seton. I had read some of your old posts that really encouraged me to try it out. How is English 9, specifically? Are your problems across the board or are they subject specific?

[Murphy101]

First' date=' I am sorry you are having such a disappointing year with Seton. I had read some of your old posts that really encouraged me to try it out. How is English 9, specifically? Are your problems across the board or are they subject specific?[/quote']

 

It was last year and we did finish. (ds completed both the 9th grade English courses with I believe an 86% and an 89%)

 

I was thoroughly blind-sided by how different their high school was from the many years I had used them to various degrees for K-8. Previously, their lesson plans had always been clear and well organized. Previously the support was very helpful and quick.

 

9th grade was not so. Firstly, I was not prepared for spending large amounts of time online as I did not want an online program. Yet quite a bit of NECESSARY information was only available on the seton website and most of the time nothing in the lesson plan said to go look at it. So we would be confused or he would need additional help and we would call and be told to print off whatever online or go to whatever website. Really annoying to say the least since it was my understanding that everything needed for the course would actually arrive in the mail. Also, the grading took FOREVER. The feedback might have been helpful, if it didn't take a month or more to get it. And that was submitting it online. If i sent something by snail mail, it would take at least 2 months or longer to get a response. Getting feedback a month later is a complete waste of time. And most of the feedback was useless and read as vague canned responses. I hated the online tests. It was terribly apparent mo one spent much time actually reading them. This was the BIGGEST disappointment for us personally bc the main reason I wanted Seton English was to reduce the friction on writing assignments. To have an arbiter between us for his feedback. We sure didn't get that.

 

My son did like the literature selections, but they drained the life out of those four books. For example, Lilies of the Field was a great and very short read. But after spending nearly an entire quarter writing about it and analyzing it to death, ds just never wanted to see it again. I LOVE English and literature and that book and I felt the same way. We were just thoroughly sick of it by the time Seton finally moved on to the next selection. His writing continued to improve, tho we were both frustrated with the lesson plans layout of assignments and lack of feedback. If I were less strong in English, he might have suffered if i had insisted on sticking to our plan of him just using the lessons plans himself and counting on Seton to help him out or give feedback. They really need to bullet point and breakup their lesson plans. It was a long winded mess just to find out what the assignment was and how he was expected to do it.

 

This year, we moved on to doing Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings with Jensen's format writing and things are going fairly well.

 

I wish I could have a glowing report for high school. :(

 

I still have nothing but great things to say for Seton English up through 8th grade. In fact, the previous year, the same son was enrolled with Seton for English 8 and we were both so happy I was very excited to find be able to fully enroll him for 9th grade. Neither of us expected the difficulties and frustration of 9th grade based on our prior experience with Seton. :(

[always cookin']

Maybe I will continue my search for other options, either on-line or local. I really need help teaching him to write and evaluating his writing. Thank you so much for your feedback.

[Teachin'Mine]

Martha's experience is perfectly valid, just very different from ours. I'm wondering if they revised things from last year to now. Dd says that the lesson plans for 8th and 9th are very similar in ease of following - she does this entirely on her own. She does look up some things online, but it's not a lot. The grading can take some time when it's end of quarter and everyone is submitting a lot at once. But during the off times, it's usually a week or so to get feedback - busy times 2 to 3 weeks at most. We do mail in some things, but mostly dd uploads her assignments.

 

Overall, we've found their program to be rigorous and dd is getting a good education. I hope you get other opinions, but I don't think there are many on here using Seton. As you said, you can't beat it for the cost. You can always give it a go, and if it's not what you wanted, you can switch.

 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or send me a PM. :)

[Murphy101]

Overall' date=' we've found their program to be rigorous and dd is getting a good education. I hope you get other opinions, but I don't think there are many on here using Seton. As you said, you can't beat it for the cost. You can always give it a go, and if it's not what you wanted, you can switch.

 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or send me a PM. :)[/quote']

 

And it might be a difference in learning style, but overall I felt the lesson plan layout was horridly disjointed and longwinded.

 

The OP might have better finances than me, seems like everyone does.:001_huh:

 

But no, it is not an option for everyone to give it a go and then just switch if it doesn't work out. That is one of the reasons we finished the program last year. Not only would it have been a waste of several hundred dollars if we didn't finish, it would have necessitated spending additional funds on whatever we would switch to. The OP might have better finances than me, but for the most part, if we buy it, we must suck it up and use it as best we can bc there isn't a curriculum money tree to shake later.;)

 

And of course, I'll answer questions too. In fact, I think I still have the science, Spanish, and religion plans around here... Somewhere. Might have the English ones too, not sure. I think we celebrated completing those by shredding.:tongue_smilie:

[Teachin'Mine]

It would take a great stress off me' date=' and the price seems really reasonable especially compared to other options.[/quote']

 

Martha, it was because of the OP's above post that I said the cost is reasonable enough to give it a try.

 

FWIW it's expensive for us too, but when you hear about so many other programs on here where the text for one course alone cost as much as being enrolled for a single course, it's not so bad. Current cost is $165 or so for a single course.

 

About the lesson plans being disjointed, I wouldn't know as dd follows them on her own - but she hasn't had any complaints. It could well be a difference in learning styles. The same reason Saxon works for some, and not for others. :)

[Tiramisu]

Dd did English 9 last year, never having done Seton previously. She was able to do it independently and did very well. I would have had her do English 10 but the-best-literature-teacher-in-the-world offered to teach a class at our coop and required dd to read more books than English 10 so I decided to try that instead.

 

As far as Seton 9 goes, I found the papers on the novels and book analyses to be manageable. The tests were challenging, but the guides in the back of the lesson plans were extremely helpful in preparing for them. I really felt everything was provided for dd to be successful, even if finding what you needed in the course plans really could be a struggle. The only time dd had to spend online was when she took the tests. And, like Martha said, the grading was slow.

 

I've often heard of families getting overwhelmed with Seton's high school program, but we only did one course. To me, the work was very incremental, so, if you stay on top of it, you'll be okay. You may not have to do every assignment in the lesson plans either.

 

Depending on what our coop offers next year, I am considering using Seton English 11. I think the writing that Seton requires in the English courses, more than the actual literature study, and the challenging tests will be good preparation for college.

 

Hope this helps. Everyone is different, so you just have to find what works. Seton does have a return policy if it you get the plans and see they're not for you.;)