Help with balancing rigorous work load, please

[swimmermom3]

By this time, I should know how to balance my son's workloads, but each new year for us is exactly that, a new year.

 

His public high school is on a block schedule: A day, B day.

 

This Monday will be an "A" day with me and we will cover history, literature and composition, and personal finance. This is the first day of the second semester.

 

Tuesday will is "B" day and a full schedule at the ps with STEM Physics, Geometry, Spanish I, and Health. He currently has an "A" in the first three classes and Health is new. He seldom has much homework outside of school, but he did have a study hall for eighth period last semester, which he took advantage of.

 

I plan to utilize the full time period from 7:45am to 2:30pm with a 45 minute lunch period. My goal is to try and keep my homework for him limited to those hours with the exception of some reading for literature. I tend to push hard and expect a fair amount in the history and lit and comp courses. Ds thinks his goal is a top tier college, so my goal would be to acclimate him to a heavier work load.

 

For those of you with a college-bound student who takes challenging subjects, what does the work load like? How much literature do they read? How much writing do they do? Our history and lit will encompass philosophy, religion, and fine arts. I am lumping them all together, but he won't get a credit for them until sophomore and senior years.

 

A side note: He reads at a fairly high comprehension level, but slowly. I need to encourage him to pick up the pace. Any ideas there would be appreciated. For example, if your 9th grader is reading The Iliad this year, how many books a week do you expect your student to read?

[Parrothead]

Last night I finished our tentative reading schedule for 9th grade. If all goes as planned (and it rarely does), in 9th grade dd will be reading;

 

The Bible Genesis-Job

Gilgamesh

The Iliad

The Odyssey

Agamemnon

The Birds

The Republic

On Poetics

On Rhetoric

The Bible – Book of Daniel

Aeneid

The Bible 1 and 2 Corinthians

The War of the Jews

On the Incarnation

 

That is over 34 weeks. I didn't want to fill up the entire 36 weeks so we have just a bit of wiggle room.

 

For the Iliad itself, I've scheduled 5 weeks for reading and one composition. With 4.5 hours a week dedicated to the reading and writing for this course.

[Karen in CO]

Lisa,

My dd's school is very challenging. They do a Humane Letters curriculum for high school that combines history and literature along with writing and classroom discussions. Here is their reading list for 9th grade to give you an idea of their reading workload when it is combined with history.

 

Ninth Grade

Documents in American history

The Federalist Papers (selections)

Selections from the writings of Thomas Jefferson

Selections from the Lincoln-Douglas debates

Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

Thoreau, Walden; Civil Disobedience

Twain, Huckleberry Finn

Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave

Cather, My Antonia

Sinclair, The Jungle

Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Short stories of Stephen Crane, Willa Cather, Flannery O'Connor

Wilder, Our Town

American poetry

[regentrude]

For those of you with a college-bound student who takes challenging subjects, what does the work load like?

 

In 9th and 10th grade, I required 5.5 hours of school work, i.e. actual time on task. This was sufficient for my DD to pursue rigorous math studies with AoPS, take college physics 1+2, and do French, English and history in self designed courses (plus have extra time left over for electives).

Now in 11th grade, she is taking 8 hours at the university, which require easily another 16 hours of outside work at home each work, and we fit all other subjects in the nooks and crannies. I no longer log her hours, because she works at night and on weekends as well.

 

How much literature do they read?

Our 9th grade reading list is here:

The Iliad Homer (translated by Fitzgerald)

The Odyssey Homer (translated by Fitzgerald)

Histories Herodotus

Antigone Sophocles

Oedipus Rex Sophocles

Oedipus on Colonos Sophocles

Electra Euripides

Poetry Sappho

The Aeneid Vergil

Metamorphoses Ovid

The Trial and Death of Socrates Plato

Supplementary reading:

 

A Day in Old Athens William S. Davis

A day in Old Rome William S. Davis

and a few more books about Ancient Greek/Roman things.

 

We also listened to 72 TC lectures by Elizabeth Vandiver.

 

How much writing do they do?

 

A total of 10 longer assignments for lit and history combined (we do an integrated study, so it is often impossible to say which paper is history and which is literature).

 

For example, if your 9th grader is reading The Iliad this year, how many books a week do you expect your student to read?

DD took about three weeks to read for the Iliad, but she also read Herodotus simultaneously, so I am not sure how much actual time she spent on which.

[G5052]

With online and local classes plus homework, mine are engaged pretty much from 8am - 5pm most days. Sometimes they also read in the car if we're going places, and I'll see them reading on the weekends. I don't set firm hours, but I do have them tell me if they are finishing up early so I know that they aren't goofing around on me.

[elegantlion]

We're going the long, lingering route with The Iliad and will take ten weeks to read, that includes time for the Vandiver lectures.

[swimmermom3]

Thank you all. The specific BTDT reading lists are helpful because I am familiar with most of the works mentioned and know roughly how long they should take.

 

Karen and Regentrude, I am looking at your lists and shaking my head over all of our lost time this first semester while ds was at school. Last year, the "boy who does not read" read some 20 books last year including the Inferno and 1984 while home with me. This year at school, he has read Night and some short stories for the whole first semester. :banghead: This is part of the reason, he chose to come home for lit and history.

 

So, this is the tentative plan for second semester for major works:

 

The Epic of Gilgamesh (George trans.)

The Iliad (Fagles translation)

The Odyssey (Lattimore trans.)

The Aeneid (Fitzgerald)

 

The Analects

Bhagavad Gita

 

As much as I dislike doing so, I will probably need to pull readings from Herodotus, Plutarch, Greek Lyrics and maybe two Greek plays. Does this look reasonable?

Regentrude, I have 17 weeks, 41 days of actual class. The entire Herodotus? The Trial and Death of Socrates? Then there is always Aristotle.

 

I might as well confess to using an AP World text for history in order to work on analysis of historical events and to experience working with a more complex text. I just wish it were a little less dry. We will be covering world history up to 600 CE and looking at major themes.

 

Regentrude, if you used 72 lectures, then I should be able to reasonably use all 36 Vandiver for Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid, or do a bit of cutting and pull some of her lectures from Greek Tragedy and Herodotus.

 

The only writing he has done this year is a narrative, so he has asked to focus on his essay skills and argumentation.

[regentrude]

Regentrude, I have 17 weeks, 41 days of actual class. The entire Herodotus? The Trial and Death of Socrates? Then there is always Aristotle.

 

 

I do not think it is necessary to read the entire Herodotus - unless the student enjoys it. reading parts gives a pretty good idea of his style and of the wonderful "digressions".

I started out with a longer list, and we read just a part of the list. It is futile to attempt to be comprehensive. I do not think it matters that much WHAT one selects. For example, we ditched Thucydides, because DD hated it. There is so much good stuff. Can't do it all.

 

I might as well confess to using an AP World text for history in order to work on analysis of historical events and to experience working with a more complex text. I just wish it were a little less dry. We will be covering world history up to 600 CE and looking at major themes.

 

 

We have used a history text as a spine for our studies as well. DD just read the chapters that correspond to the periods studied. The text serves as a spine, red thread, big picture overview - the details and lively fun things we fill in via literature and lectures

 

Regentrude, if you used 72 lectures, then I should be able to reasonably use all 36 Vandiver for Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid, or do a bit of cutting and pull some of her lectures from Greek Tragedy and Herodotus.

 

 

We used her courses on Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Classical Mythology in their entirety, and half of Greek Tragedy ( I did not know that she had a Herodotus course as well). If I were limited in time, I would do the entire Iliad and Odyssey course and selected lectures for the tragedies you plan to study (or just the intro lectures for general background). I feel that one can omit the Aeneid lectures. For the Herodotus, I would find it very difficult to select individual lectures (we just listened to the course over Christmas). If the student has background in mythology, the mythology lectures are not that necessary - just very enjoyable.

 

Btw, we did listen to all those lectures in the car, and part of them over summer vacation. No way we could sit at home and listen.

[elegantlion]

Lisa, there are also youtube readings of Herodotus.

[Kate in Arabia]

A side note: He reads at a fairly high comprehension level, but slowly. I need to encourage him to pick up the pace. Any ideas there would be appreciated. For example, if your 9th grader is reading The Iliad this year, how many books a week do you expect your student to read?

I've been thinking about this myself recently regarding my ds. I remember when I was in high school we had a "reading lab" that was focused on increasing reading speed.. I ony have a vague memory (it has been quite a while) but I know it involved a program where you read passages, clocked your time, and answered comprehension questions. I've been thinking about it because ds has specifically asked how he can increase his reading speed.

[swellmomma]

My kids are not high school yet but they did study the Iliad last term in their great books lit class, they covered it in 3 weeks.

 

Last semester this is what my 13 & 14 year old (grade 7 &8) did for lit over the course of 14 weeks (this was reading at home and then once a week they had a 1.5 hour socratic discussion class, no composition for this):

 

The Hobbit -Tolkien

The Iliad - Homer

Antigone - Sophocles

Euthyphro - Plato

Ion - Plato

Apology - Plato

The Inferno - Dante

Macbeth - Shakespeare

As you like it - Shakespeare

"The Blue Cross", "The Queer Feet" and "The Hammer of God" from The Innocence of Father Brown - G.K. Chesterson.

 

During last term they also did a 14 week course on classical poetry, I do not have my list handy of what they studied. Again they did their readings and then had a once a week 90 minute class to analyze the poems etc.

 

This semester which like you starts on Monday they are take 2 lit classes and 1 history class. Each once a week 90 minute classes.

 

They are taking a Before Tolkein class (which required they had read the LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit, they are not yet done LOTR and will be reading all this week-which is primiarily orientation classes- to be ready) and a C.S. Lewis course. They are doing an intensive WWII history class.

 

In Before Tolkien they will be reading:

The Golden Fleece- Padric Colum

The Odyssey - Homer

a small portion of Everlasting Man - G.K. Chesterson

The Children of Odin - Padric Colum

Beowulf

The Nibelungenlied

Phantastes - MacDonald

The last battle - C.S. Lewis

 

In their C.S. Lewis class they will be reading:

Mere Christianity

The Screwtape letters

The four loves

the great divorce

The problem of pain

Miracles

Surprised by Joy

 

History is just 1 book The second world war by John Keegan

 

So they are covering a ton of lit this year and if we keep taking the online classes we do they will have a similar load each year.

 

Composition we do not do integrated, we are using meaningful composition so that is not a big help to you.

 

My kids take their online classes, and then do everything else with me, plus oldest works, and add in extra currics and well they have a full schedule already before high school.

 

By the end of this school year they will have studied

 

25 books plus that little bit from the 26th book. Plus all the poetry they did. Based on how they do taking 2 lit classes this term I suspect that they will do 20-25 books per school year through high school for lit (that does not include the books we do for history or science at home nor for fun reading).