Help me create a grammar program like CC Essentials

[profmom]

If we're not in a CC group, some of the pieces are available from CC, but not all, right?  How can I put together a grammar program that is very similar?

[gracesteacher]

Interest too

[mrs.m]

The only thing you can purchase is IEW. They do not have ownership of that component. They will not sell a guide to you without proof of enrollment. (maybe they will at a practicum?) You may be able to find a used guide though. You can purchase an English grammar trivium table which will give you some of the charts that they use for drill.

 

But the grammar itself is very much derived from Our Mother Tongue. The drills/charts are definitions of grammatical components. It would not be hard to create your own charts or flashcards using any grammar curriculum to help with memory drills. Much of the "question confirmation" comes from Our Mother Tongue.

 

 

[mmasc]

I can't compare because I've not seen the Essentials guide yet, but I know there's a lot of memorization. Memoria Press has a grammar recitation guide that is memorization, but not intended to be a full grammar curriculum on its own. So maybe combine the MP grammar recitation, with the IEW writing?

[angela in ohio]

You can buy a used Essentials guide online. There is really nothing like it, and re-creating it would be an enormous task.

 

If you are not looking for something specifically like it, but just something about as thorough, many classical schools use Shurley grammar. It also incorporates questions and recitation.

 

For the writing component, you can purchase the IEW, as others have said.

[gracesteacher]

I haven't been able to find it used

[mrs.m]

You can buy a used Essentials guide online. There is really nothing like it, and re-creating it would be an enormous task.

 

If you are not looking for something specifically like it, but just something about as thorough, many classical schools use Shurley grammar. It also incorporates questions and recitation.

 

For the writing component, you can purchase the IEW, as others have said.

 

No, you can't buy it online without putting in your director's name and then CC verifies that you are enrolled before shipping.

 

(oops, I'm sorry, I missed that important USED word. :s Yes, used can be found online!)

[mrs.m]

I haven't been able to find it used

 

You might find it this summer. Some communities are still in session and those moms haven't decluttered curriculum yet.

 

[profmom]

Writing is being considered separately, and I'm trying to learn about IEW now.  (Any comments comparing IEW to other classical programs like Classical Writing, Writing Tales, or the new Writing & Rhetoric by CAP are welcome!!  My thread with that question isn't getting responses.  :) )

 

I've heard that the grammar in Essentials is like a combination of Shurley and Rod & Staff.  Can anyone comment on that and what we'd need from each?  I've used R & S, but I've only read about Shurley.  Does Shurley include diagramming? 

 

Thanks for your help!

[gracesteacher]

how would this compare?  there is a pdf that gives table of counts and 1st chapter i can link to also

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Structures-English-Readers-Writers/dp/1581127472

[yvonne]

Do you not want to continue Rod & Staff?

 

I don't think there's any diagramming in Shurley.

[dauphin]

I'll second the others that trying to duplicate what is in the EEL guide would be an inordinately big task. I can't comment on R&S because I haven't used it, but I would say that the EEL guide is like a combination of Shurley and OMT. The memorization and the question confirmation (which annoyed me at first but I totally see the benefit now after a year) are in Shurley, but there is no diagramming. OMT introduces diagramming. And there are LOTS of practice sentences at several different levels, with all of the analysis laid out for you. I'm thinking of keeping the guide even though we won't be doing Essentials next year....For the record, for a $60/month fee, you can subscribe to their "Classical Conversations Connected" service and there are a TON of downloads. Subscribe for one month and download like crazy, then unsub.

 

Oh, and I'll also say that you can pick up a used EEL guide on eBay. 

[profmom]

I appreciate all your help!  

 

I do like Rod & Staff, and if I homeschool next year, that's the route I'd likely take -- unless a group of friends gets together for a little co-op and we figure out something for my former Essentials teacher friend to use legally with us!  However, I am mostly asking for a new university model school that I'm helping to advise.  Some of the families are former CC Essentials users and would like to use a similar program.  CC is adamant that the school can't use their program, and a school wouldn't be able to use an Essentials guide from eBay. 

 

Does it seem like the best substitute would be to use Shurley and have the teacher take it a step further and teach the kids to diagram the Shurley sentences (using the Rod & Staff English Handbook as needed)?  I haven't seen Our Mother Tongue, but I'll look into it!  Or, would it be better to use something like OMT or R&S and add the Shurley jingles??

[Forgiven]

Just my 2 cents...

 

I have somehow gotten myself into tutoring CC Essentials next year. I've been looking through the book that my director has let me borrow from her before I can buy my own. Anyway, I'm not impressed. I think what we currently use is a lot better than Essentials, and will be continuing with it in my own home. My kids will go to the Essentials class, but I only wish for them to learn diagraming through it. We will continue to use Michael Clay Thompson's curriculum at home. Both my older kids will be doing the Voyage level.

 

 

[Pink and Green Mom]

Just my 2 cents...

 

I have somehow gotten myself into tutoring CC Essentials next year. I've been looking through the book that my director has let me borrow from her before I can buy my own. Anyway, I'm not impressed. I think what we currently use is a lot better than Essentials, and will be continuing with it in my own home. My kids will go to the Essentials class, but I only wish for them to learn diagraming through it. We will continue to use Michael Clay Thompson's curriculum at home. Both my older kids will be doing the Voyage level.

 

We were CC dropouts - only lasted 8 weeks with my older in Essentials and my younger just in Foundations.  My plan too was to just do the Essentials grammar portion during Essentials and continue on with our regular grammar program at home.  It didn't work for us.  I felt like in order to get "points" to earn "tickets" like all the other kids in Essentials my son really had to be down with the specific lingo and memorization that CC used.  I didn't particularly care for the Essentials grammar program and it became a real struggle between how much to do of each and it got to the point where the applications/scope and sequence were just so different that it wasn't worth the hassle.  We ended up dropping our (what I felt was superior) grammar program in order for my son not to look like he was unprepared in Essentials.  

 

Just wanted to let you know our experience...

[profmom]

We ended up dropping our (what I felt was superior) grammar program in order for my son not to look like he was unprepared in Essentials.  

 

Just wanted to let you know our experience...

 

Which program did you use that you felt was superior?

[mrs.m]

Just my 2 cents...

 

I have somehow gotten myself into tutoring CC Essentials next year. I've been looking through the book that my director has let me borrow from her before I can buy my own. Anyway, I'm not impressed. I think what we currently use is a lot better than Essentials, and will be continuing with it in my own home. My kids will go to the Essentials class, but I only wish for them to learn diagraming through it. We will continue to use Michael Clay Thompson's curriculum at home. Both my older kids will be doing the Voyage level.

 

I don't think it's a good idea to tutor if you aren't impressed with the material. Tutoring that class is a lot of effort if you only want your children to learn diagraming.

[Pink and Green Mom]

Which program did you use that you felt was superior?

 

This is just my opinion...

 

we had used FLL 1-4 and were into Saxon Grade 5 (this was for my 5th grader).  I thought that the grammar, the way it was taught in Essentials, was more regurgitation than understanding.  While we were told to buy Our Mother Tongue, it was never referenced or used in our Essentials Class.  The kids strictly learned off the sentence classification chart.  It is sort of hard to explain what I mean.  But here goes:

 

I felt that Essentials stressed and you memorized that there are 7 sentence patterns.  You looked at a particular sentence and picked which of the 7 patterns it looked like.  So you were basically memorizing the patterns (what happens if you get a more complex sentence that doesn't match one of the patterns?  our CC tutor could not answer this - she seemed one lesson ahead of the kids).

 

I feel that FLL really explained what the actual parts of speech were and how you went about ascertaining how a particular word was functioning in a particular sentence.  So you knew "how" to pick out a particular part of speech no matter what pattern the sentence followed. 

 

Example:  Find the direct object in the sentence "Mom cracked peanuts."

 

In CC, the kids would look to see how many of their 7 sentence patterns contained only 3 words (and there are 3 of them).  Two of the three have a linking verb, one has a transitive verb.  Assuming you knew cracked wasn't a linking verb (which was a big assumption in our Essentials class), you could throw out 2 of the patterns so you know you had a subject-verb (transitive)-direct object sentence.  Peanut must then be a direct object based on the pattern.  There was no teaching what a direct object was (at least in our group).

 

In FLL I felt there was a better explanation of what a direct object is.  I thought it was better to find the verb, then find the subject (who cracked?), and then ask who or what after the verb (cracked what?) to find the direct object since it was receiving the action of the verb.  I just felt that this method was a better way of teaching.

 

I hope that makes sense.  I just felt that Essentials (or at least our specific Essentials) really didn't do a great job explaining grammar outside of the memorization piece.  You got participation points and were eligible for prizes based on how quickly you could write out the 4 sentence structures, 4 sentence purposes, 7 sentence patterns, and 8 parts of speech as opposed to any real understanding of any of those things.

 

It became difficult to merge that style of program with the program we were using at home, which is what my post was trying to warn the previous poster about.

[mrs.m]

This is just my opinion...

 

we had used FLL 1-4 and were into Saxon Grade 5 (this was for my 5th grader).  I thought that the grammar, the way it was taught in Essentials, was more regurgitation than understanding.  While we were told to buy Our Mother Tongue, it was never referenced or used in our Essentials Class.  The kids strictly learned off the sentence classification chart.  It is sort of hard to explain what I mean.  But here goes:

 

I felt that Essentials stressed and you memorized that there are 7 sentence patterns.  You looked at a particular sentence and picked which of the 7 patterns it looked like.  So you were basically memorizing the patterns (what happens if you get a more complex sentence that doesn't match one of the patterns?  our CC tutor could not answer this - she seemed one lesson ahead of the kids).

 

I feel that FLL really explained what the actual parts of speech were and how you went about ascertaining how a particular word was functioning in a particular sentence.  So you knew "how" to pick out a particular part of speech no matter what pattern the sentence followed. 

 

Example:  Find the direct object in the sentence "Mom cracked peanuts."

 

In CC, the kids would look to see how many of their 7 sentence patterns contained only 3 words (and there are 3 of them).  Two of the three have a linking verb, one has a transitive verb.  Assuming you knew cracked wasn't a linking verb (which was a big assumption in our Essentials class), you could throw out 2 of the patterns so you know you had a subject-verb (transitive)-direct object sentence.  Peanut must then be a direct object based on the pattern.  There was no teaching what a direct object was (at least in our group).

 

In FLL I felt there was a better explanation of what a direct object is.  I thought it was better to find the verb, then find the subject (who cracked?), and then ask who or what after the verb (cracked what?) to find the direct object since it was receiving the action of the verb.  I just felt that this method was a better way of teaching.

 

I hope that makes sense.  I just felt that Essentials (or at least our specific Essentials) really didn't do a great job explaining grammar outside of the memorization piece.  You got participation points and were eligible for prizes based on how quickly you could write out the 4 sentence structures, 4 sentence purposes, 7 sentence patterns, and 8 parts of speech as opposed to any real understanding of any of those things.

 

It became difficult to merge that style of program with the program we were using at home, which is what my post was trying to warn the previous poster about.

 

Did you read the guide? Much of what you mentioned is covered in the EEL guide. It uses the exact same question as you mention FLL uses. It is on page 104 and that is always in the question confirmation every week for every sentence that has a direct object.

 

And the EEL guide addresses how those 7 patterns apply for complex sentences.

 

I do feel this is a HUGE flaw with CC. They try to cram a lot of information into one week and it is so easy for a tutor to skim over something important. And the parents are relying too heavily on that short teaching period which isn't enough for the week.  But they do say that the parents need to read the guide and fill in the gaps at home. But my experience was that many of them don't go over it home and then say the curriculum is lacking. Again, it's a flaw with the program itself. We need more class time!

 

But I can also understand your impression coming from that you were only in the class for a short period of time and using a  different program. 

[fourisenough]

This is just my opinion...

 

we had used FLL 1-4 and were into Saxon Grade 5 (this was for my 5th grader). I thought that the grammar, the way it was taught in Essentials, was more regurgitation than understanding. While we were told to buy Our Mother Tongue, it was never referenced or used in our Essentials Class. The kids strictly learned off the sentence classification chart. It is sort of hard to explain what I mean. But here goes:

 

I felt that Essentials stressed and you memorized that there are 7 sentence patterns. You looked at a particular sentence and picked which of the 7 patterns it looked like. So you were basically memorizing the patterns (what happens if you get a more complex sentence that doesn't match one of the patterns? our CC tutor could not answer this - she seemed one lesson ahead of the kids).

 

I feel that FLL really explained what the actual parts of speech were and how you went about ascertaining how a particular word was functioning in a particular sentence. So you knew "how" to pick out a particular part of speech no matter what pattern the sentence followed.

 

Example: Find the direct object in the sentence "Mom cracked peanuts."

 

In CC, the kids would look to see how many of their 7 sentence patterns contained only 3 words (and there are 3 of them). Two of the three have a linking verb, one has a transitive verb. Assuming you knew cracked wasn't a linking verb (which was a big assumption in our Essentials class), you could throw out 2 of the patterns so you know you had a subject-verb (transitive)-direct object sentence. Peanut must then be a direct object based on the pattern. There was no teaching what a direct object was (at least in our group).

 

In FLL I felt there was a better explanation of what a direct object is. I thought it was better to find the verb, then find the subject (who cracked?), and then ask who or what after the verb (cracked what?) to find the direct object since it was receiving the action of the verb. I just felt that this method was a better way of teaching.

 

I hope that makes sense. I just felt that Essentials (or at least our specific Essentials) really didn't do a great job explaining grammar outside of the memorization piece. You got participation points and were eligible for prizes based on how quickly you could write out the 4 sentence structures, 4 sentence purposes, 7 sentence patterns, and 8 parts of speech as opposed to any real understanding of any of those things.

 

It became difficult to merge that style of program with the program we were using at home, which is what my post was trying to warn the previous poster about.

This is not consistent with how our Essentials tutor presented EEL in our class. And, I read the weekly lesson (in the guide) every Sunday evening before our class on Monday, so I had the full benefit of understanding the 'big picture' of each lesson, in case we ran out if time, which happened frequently. I'll concur that a huge emphasis was placed on memorization- perhaps too much, but I'm using our spring/summer off to go through the Grammar & Diagramming book CC sells to help solidify our knowledge and practice on sentences that aren't "canned" to be the exact pattern we studied that week. Essentials isn't a perfect situation, but for us, it was a good way to memorize a whole LOTTA grammar that we now need practice applying in other contexts and in our writing.

[Pink and Green Mom]

I'm glad it worked for you. Trust me, I am not here to bash CC in any way.

 

For our particular class, Essentials Grammar was all about how fast you could re-write (from memory) each and every chart in the book.  That was it.  That was what was taught, that was what you were expected to know.  That is what you were expected to do when you came to class.  Most of the kids had no clue whatsoever what a noun was, or a verb, or anything, they could just copy the charts.  My son wanted to be able to do that when he went to class just like everyone else (he already knew and could identify in practice the different sentence types, purposes, parts of speech, etc).   I had to shelve the grammar program I liked better, and that *in my opinion* taught the concepts better, in order for him to memorize the charts.  We didn't have enough time in the day to devote to both.

 

I was only trying to tell the poster above me that, while I too intended to keep on with my preferred method (and therefore the one I thought superior) while doing the CC work, it was not easy to do.

 

I wish our Essentials program had been better.

[profmom]

In CC, so much depends on the tutor!

 

 

[G5052]

I appreciate all your help!  

 

I do like Rod & Staff, and if I homeschool next year, that's the route I'd likely take -- unless a group of friends gets together for a little co-op and we figure out something for my former Essentials teacher friend to use legally with us!  However, I am mostly asking for a new university model school that I'm helping to advise.  Some of the families are former CC Essentials users and would like to use a similar program.  CC is adamant that the school can't use their program, and a school wouldn't be able to use an Essentials guide from eBay. 

 

Does it seem like the best substitute would be to use Shurley and have the teacher take it a step further and teach the kids to diagram the Shurley sentences (using the Rod & Staff English Handbook as needed)?  I haven't seen Our Mother Tongue, but I'll look into it!  Or, would it be better to use something like OMT or R&S and add the Shurley jingles??

 

Given those parameters, I would indeed remove the Essentials program from consideration. Even if you can buy one used, it is designed for a once-a-week class of mixed abilities with the parents in attendance.  That is different than a university model school, which I'm assuming meets twice a week without parents.

 

Shurley would be a good start.  The jingles give you memory work that matches the material being taught.  There are used copies easily available.  If you want diagramming, their sentences can certainly be diagrammed after labelling them.  I personally wouldn't mix programs, when you do that, sometimes the definitions of parts of speech and such can get very confusing.  Adding diagramming to Shurley won't conflict with it and is easy enough to add.  And you can use the jingles for memory work.  I was never a fan of the copying part of Essentials unless a student really learned best that way, and IMHO most that age learn better from a select set of memory work and focused practice.  There needs to be balance.

 

I'm only familiar with IEW, but you certainly could do a theme-based book or use the IEW units and put together your own assignments.  One university model school that I know of picked writing assignments that fit closely with their history and literature studies.

 

HTH!

[profmom]

Shurley would be a good start.  The jingles give you memory work that matches the material being taught.  There are used copies easily available.  If you want diagramming, their sentences can certainly be diagrammed after labelling them.  I personally wouldn't mix programs, when you do that, sometimes the definitions of parts of speech and such can get very confusing.  Adding diagramming to Shurley won't conflict with it and is easy enough to add.  And you can use the jingles for memory work.  I was never a fan of the copying part of Essentials unless a student really learned best that way, and IMHO most that age learn better from a select set of memory work and focused practice.  There needs to be balance.

 

 

Thanks for your thoughts!  I've never used Shurley, but it seems like it could work well to do just as you say.  I don't like to mix programs for the same reason -- differences in definitions and labeling methods and abbreviations.  The school has already decided to use Latin for Children, which, I've read, uses Shurley labeling and definitions.

[G5052]

Thanks for your thoughts!  I've never used Shurley, but it seems like it could work well to do just as you say.  I don't like to mix programs for the same reason -- differences in definitions and labeling methods and abbreviations.  The school has already decided to use Latin for Children, which, I've read, uses Shurley labeling and definitions.

 

Yes, that sounds good.  When I was an Essentials tutor, I actually gave my parents a list of suggested levels of memory work.  I felt like mastering the lower levels of memory work within the context of their abilities with the sentences was more important than mastery of all of the memory work while they were barely getting labeling and diagramming.  I never emphasized complete mastery of all the charts unless it was a very advanced student who was doing everything with every sentence.

 

Shurley handles this very well, matching the memory work with the level where they are functioning in labeling.