Planning ahead for 7th grade - too much English? Or not enough?

[sagira]

I always plan ahead. I've had my sixth grade plans up since the beginning of the year, a rough skeleton already in place last year. Since I got that done, of course, I'm eyeing 7th. Not as easy as the elementary years, as I know ds is going to need more. He's 10 now, will be 11 in 6th, and 12 in 7th. Here is my plan for English (LA) thus far. Am I on the right track? 

 

Trying out WWS samples to see if this would work for us and maybe using it as a springboard for writing across the curriculum

Paragraphs for Middle School

The Paragraph Book 3: Writing Expo Paragraphs (thanks, CrimsonWife)

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation (have him work through the whole book and quizzes)

 

It is implied that we are writing across the curriculum as well. It will probably look like similar to my plan in sixth, which is this:

 

Write 1-2 solid paragraph narrations daily from history or science books, alternating between the two

Mind in the Light Book Notes by Kfamily for Dorothy Mills' Middle Ages and Renaissance books

Outline once a week from history, science texts

One paragraph weekly from literature RA prompt 

Take notes from high school science text once a week

Summary paragraph weekly or biweekly from current biography

 

 

 

 

[EndOfOrdinary]

This does seem a bit heavy, but I do not know what your Ds' plans are for his education. Are you shooting for college, trade school, military, have no idea?

 

My husband is an English teacher at the high school level, and his main issue is the inability of kids to lay out their thoughts. He doesn't even care about the complexity of sentences or anything else, just being able to lay out A, then B, then C, then D, there are my points for my thought. He says everything else can easily be added to once the ideas are present. It seems that this level of prep would combat that nicely.

 

I would slowly pull away from just outlining to beginning to flesh out the outline by the end of the 7th grade year. Something along the lines of provide two or three sentences for each level of the outline. It will give him an even stronger foundation in forming the essay/research paper/speech from an outline. For some reason that seems to be the largest glitch I've seen with my high school students. It is like the outline is incredibly intimidating or something. They do not even need to be pretty sentences, just "throwing up on the page" sentences to get the ball rolling.

 

But it looks good to me.

[sagira]

Our family always shoots for college, as we believe that is the minimum nowadays to keep all his options open, like a passport to life of sorts. He is a possibilities kind of kid. He has an aunt who's studying for her master's at Stanford and an uncle who is graduating next week from UM with a Bachelor's in Economics and a Minor in Philosophy. When he was younger this uncle didn't have a clue what he wanted to do except baseball, but after an injury in high school he's glad he had a good enough (ps) education to keep his options open.

 

Right now ds10 thinks he wants to become a zoologist/builder. But he still has his Physics kit sitting there, and my middle dd is much more interested in real animals than he is. I can see him making movies, being a theoretical physicist, or writing, as he's a wildly imaginative boy, full of ideas, most not grounded in reality. I feel like I'm spending much time trying to bring him back to earth. Funny for a dreamer herself to do. But I digress.

 

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. Based on your recs, I may trim down ds' sixth grade goals to a one- paragraph narration per history and science instead of daily.

 

Any more comments?

[sagira]

:)

[Reefgazer]

That seems a bit heavy, even for my independent and English-minded daughter.  But it depends what else you have as expectations for him.  What else will you be doing (non-English-wise)?

[sagira]

That seems a bit heavy, even for my independent and English-minded daughter. But it depends what else you have as expectations for him. What else will you be doing (non-English-wise)?

This is very helpful! I suspected I may have planned more than he can chew! He has a full curriculum already with some writing in science as well, so I am scaling way back for next year. I honestly do not have a clear idea what "the right amount of writing" is for his age. He needs quite a bit of work in this area, so I need him to practice, practice, practice. Yet I don't want to burn him out either.

[TarynB]

If I attempted everything you have listed in your initial post, it would be too much here.  I've found with my DS that churning out more writing doesn't equate to better writing.  

 

I like to refer to SWB's guidelines, summarized in this handout:  http://www.welltrainedmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/writing-overview-expanded1.pdf

 

I can't point to a source for this, but in my collection of HSing notes, I noted that SWB wrote somewhere that if you're using WWS, you should only add one outline (history or science), one narration (history or science), and one literary analysis per week, for a younger student.  For an older student, follow step 4 in the guideline quoted below.

 

On page 32 of the above-linked document, SWB details this for middle grades writing across the curriculum (assuming you're not using WWS):

1. Begin by writing narrative summaries as learned in elementary

grades, 1-2x per week (choose from history, literature, or science), not more

than 1/2 page.

2. Work towards doing a two- to three-level outline of 1-3 pages

(depending on density) of nonfiction reading, 2x per week (outline itself

should be 1/2-3/4 page)

3. Write one “literary†essay, 1x per week.

4. When outlining skills are in place, drop narrative summaries and

rewrite from outlines/on model of outlines in history or science, 2x per

week.

[Reefgazer]

OK, that's helpful in clarifying things.  In which case, my daughter would be buried with that and a full-on curriculum with other subjects.  I do agree with the poster above that a lot of writing doesn't equal excellent writing.  Perhaps think about what you are trying to accomplish during these middle years, what your son's weaknesses are, and then try to spend middle school remediating those weaknesses.  Once you have a handle on that, prioritize your curriculum to attack those weaknesses (and maybe teach a few new skills he'll need, like 2-3 level outlining, researching for an academic paper, etc..).  I way overshot on curriculum this past year, and way over-estimated what was realistically possible during the day, and had to ditch lots of my plans and re-group.

This is very helpful! I suspected I may have planned more than he can chew! He has a full curriculum already with some writing in science as well, so I am scaling way back for next year. I honestly do not have a clear idea what "the right amount of writing" is for his age. He needs quite a bit of work in this area, so I need him to practice, practice, practice. Yet I don't want to burn him out either.

 

[sagira]

Thanks to you, I've realigned our focus and after reading the handout (thank you, TarynB!) we are leaning towards more grammar and more explicit paragraph construction. Less writing, more quality. I'm happy about it too, because asking any more of him would have been difficult day to day.