Question for those of you who have used TWTM ..

[Luanne]

pretty much all the way through. Do you feel that following the logic stage of TWTM helped prepare your student adequately for the rhetoric stage? What did you add to the program or change that may have helped or did you follow TWTM to a T?

[Kimber]

You might move this to the highschool board. I'd love to hear the responses.

[mcconnellboys]

Yes! I DO feel that it prepared us well! I think we pretty much followed WTM suggestions for how to do things, but maybe didn't use WTM suggested texts....

 

English, we continued Abeka after the A,B,C series into the Grammar and Comp I, II, III series; we completed SWO and moved into VfCR, completing all the books, rather than just the first 3 or 4 that were suggested, I think.... And we did lots of other things, as well. We were actually doing hs level work in 7/8th grade, so by the time he was actually ninth grade age, I allowed him to take a college level course for his lit credit for the year....

 

We moved from using Singapore and Saxon, into using Videotext for high level maths. Because they suggest doing Algebra I and II together, we followed that sequence. But we did begin with algebra when my son was eighth grade age so that he could have Alg I, II AND geometry under his belt by the time he takes the PSAT for real, next year. And I believe this was a WTM rec.

 

We followed pretty closely the WTM recs for reading, discussing, and writing for history/literature studies. But we did a very extensive amount of reading in both these areas, such that I felt well justified in giving my son separate hs level credits for both (in addition to his English credit). And by the time he was ninth grade age, again, I allowed him to take a college level history course for the year.

 

Now, in science, I deviated. I bought Conceptual Physics, but I just didn't feel he was ready to do that in the same year when he was doing Algebra I and Latin I. So I backed off and used a college text for non-majors in biology and let him just study biology again that year. I did not assign a hs level credit for it, as I did not try to include lab work (long story). I did not think the level of science work done during seventh grade, for chemistry, was such that it merited a hs level credit, either, so did not assign such for it. During his ninth grade year, we allowed him to take a college level earth science course that he chose on his own. He's returned to private school this year, received credit for that earth science course, and is taking biology this year and doing very well. He will take hs level chemistry next year, followed by physics. We'll have to wait and see how that plays out as it's been some time since he did his chemistry work at home and I'm not sure how much he'll remember or how well it will serve him. I do hope that it will make it easier for him. I did use the WTM recs for chemistry, but also added in some other work that involved more equation writing, etc.

 

Over the course of the several years of logic stage, he worked through Mindbenders Warm-up and all of level A and books 1-3 of level B. He did Introductory Logic cover to cover. He did Traditional Logic I cover to cover. He did Traditional Logic II about half-way through and got stuck, so I ordered the DVD's, which didn't help us much. He attended a coop class for 12 weeks which attempted to cover logic through the use of Fallacy Detective and some other things. He then attended another 12 week coop class (these are 1 hour per week) on political science which included a lot of rhetoric level debate. At the end of all this, I assigned him one hs level credit in logic. I don't think this was too much for all the work he did, even though we did not complete the Traditional Logic II book.... I do think that this preparation is good to help students learn to debate each other in a respectful manner and to learn how to frame their arguments in order to be most clear. I think that particularly in going back into high school, or college later, this training will lend itself well to group discussion which is so popular.

 

We completed the Latin Primer/Grammar series and did some other things, as well, related to Latin studies and I assigned hs level credit for Latin I and II following that. My son has elected not to continue with Latin, but I do think that it was helpful to him not only from a grammar/vocab sense, but also in his study of a modern, Romance language.

 

We studies Spanish throughout most of his elementary years, but stopped for two years during junior high so that he could concentrate on Latin more. We then picked up an official, hs level Spanish I program (BJU) when he was official freshman age and he did fine with it. He's in Spanish II at his school this year and doing fine, as well, so I think he was prepared. (He's very resistent to languages, too, maybe because of an auditory processing glitch I think he has, so I've been well-pleased that he's still been able to perform okay in this area.)

 

I tried to maintain art and music appreciation through about sixth grade, but in 7/8 we just had to give it up in order to concentrate on his other studies. There is always some included in his history studies and we still attended/participated in plays, and musical events, etc. He did take up guitar during his year 9 and we're working to find a way for him to continue that again.... He did also take an official "Humanities" course during year 9 as it's now a requirement for hs level graduation here. He did fine with it, so I think that all our years of exposing him to that info did make it simpler for him than if it had been something totally new and different.

 

I'm not sure what areas I'm skipping....

 

Regena

[Luanne]

I did post it over there as well and no one over there has even responded to it.