High School Writing Volume - across all credits

[Chrysalis Academy]

Another big-picture high school planning question:  How much writing is your high school student doing, across all credits, on a weekly basis?

 

I usually take SWB's recommendations as a starting place for what is desirable, but I wanted to check with BTDT folks and I really am interested in the range of answers, I know if will vary a lot.  But, in her high school writing lecture, SWB suggests that a high school student should be producing 3 short papers a week: 2 persuasive essays across the curriculum, and one literary analysis paper.  In addition they should do a longer research paper, which gets longer as high school progresses.  3 papers a week seems like a lot to me.  Writing in 3 subjects, sure, but 3 polished essays each week? That would definitely be a big ramp-up in writing pace.  We could do it, but it would take a *lot* of time, (if we're talking about fully polished essays, as opposed to more informal responses/journal entries/essay questions) which would definitely reduce the rate at which we cover subjects and how much we get through over the course of the year.

 

So, I'm curious: how much are your students writing, per week, in high school? How long do they take to produce a finished essay? If they are taking online classes,  how much writing is assigned in the various classes?

 

TIA!

 

 

Edited February 16, 2016 by Chrysalis Academy

[freesia]

3 polished papers would be too much here--absolutely. Even when he was doing a writing course (for 6 weeks) it takes 5-6 hours for him to produce one polished rough draft. However, he can bang out a nice essay test 5 paragraph essay in 30-45 minutes. So, it would depend on the quality and depth and polish and research that you wanted, truly.

 

For English this year (10th) he is doing Ancient Literature through TOG.

 

For writing he does a 2-3 page paper every 2-3 (usually 3) weeks.

 

His lit class has a lit analysis oral presentation once a quarter.

 

So, what is that 3 papers and a lit analysis per quarter?

 

Then he writes a well organized paragraph weekly for history and one 2-3 page essay a quarter and 1--30 minute essay test per quarter.

 

He is not my most natural-strongest writer, but he applied for AP English Lang. for next year and had to submit a sample and the teacher said he looked like a "great student" so I feel we have been on the right track.

 

We floundered a bit for ninth, my writing expectations were too high, so I can't really reconstruct that for you, sorry.

 

ETA: I missed across all disciplies. He also does an essay test for Bible quarterly. No writing in science or Spanish.

Edited February 15, 2016 by freesia

[8filltheheart]

We only work on one paper per week.  For more involved papers, they might even have 2-3 weeks.  I have never assigned multiple papers in a single week unless that paper was replacing other work in that class.  (For example, they might have a history and lit paper at the same time, but typically that means the paper is what is being done for that course during that time.)

[8filltheheart]

I should add that I do not assign 5 paragraph essays that can be written quickly.  When my kids are writing essays, they are including supporting evidence and citations.  They typically have to spend time researching sources and gathering quotes, etc.

[Reefgazer]

As you know, DD will be in 9th grade next year and I too am in the midst of planning.  IMO, that amount of writing is a lot, and results in far more than the required 180 hours per subject needed for a legitimate credit hour.  My DD will not be doing this much writing per week because she has outside interests and we can meet the credit hour requirement with less writing than that.   DD's quality slips when she feels rushed, and that much writing would be a definite rush job here.

Another big-picture high school planning question:  How much writing is your high school student doing, across all credits, on a weekly basis?

 

I usually take SWB's recommendations as a starting place for what is desirable, but I wanted to check with BTDT folks and I really am interested in the range of answers, I know if will vary a lot.  But, in her high school writing lecture, SWB suggests that a high school student should be producing 3 short papers a week: 2 persuasive essays across the curriculum, and one literary analysis paper.  In addition they should do a longer research paper, which gets longer as high school progresses.  3 papers a week seems like a lot to me.  Writing in 3 subjects, sure, but 3 polished essays each week? That would definitely be a big ramp-up in writing pace.  We could do it, but it would take a *lot* of time, (if we're talking about fully polished essays, as opposed to more informal responses/journal entries/essay questions) which would definitely reduce the rate at which we cover subjects and how much we get through over the course of the year.

 

So, I'm curious: how much are your students writing, per week, in high school? How long do they take to produce a finished essay? If they are taking online classes,  how much writing is assigned in the various classes?

 

TIA!

 

Edited February 15, 2016 by reefgazer

[Luckymama]

Dd definitely does a lot more writing this year than last but most of it is informal or unpolished, like a page or two in response to a government or environmental science question. She doesn't do any journaling.

 

We operate like 8:

 

We only work on one paper per week. For more involved papers, they might even have 2-3 weeks. I have never assigned multiple papers in a single week unless that paper was replacing other work in that class. (For example, they might have a history and lit paper at the same time, but typically that means the paper is what is being done for that course during that time.)

If dd has a paper to work on for her outsourced English class I do not assign one for another class.

[theelfqueen]

We're not writing anywhere near that much... admittedly, my kid is resistant to expository writing.

 

He's doing several written response (a paragraph or two) answers per week in various classes (usually one in English, one in Bio or Econ, one in Religious studies) . Plus one larger paper or research project every couple of weeks in English, one in Social Studies, one in Science... but these rotate. He's not usually doing several at once. He's also doing creative writing of his own bent and the occasional assignment in that vein (a narrative description of a character from a book he's reading in Lit, a follow up to a short story -- ie he wrote a daydream story after reading Walter Mitty, and a character profile of Moriarty after reading Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes)

 

I do agree that writing breeds better writing but for this kid I have to be careful to balance it into the curriculum.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I appreciate the responses, this makes me feel like what I'm thinking is reasonable meshes with what others are doing. Currently (in 8th grade) dd writes one polished essay about every two weeks, and does some additional writing (answering study questions, etc.) in other classes. I was thinking that a reasonable expectation for next year would be to ramp that up a bit - one polished essay per week, unless it's particularly involved or requires research - and additional essay-test style questions, one or two per week.  I think it's as important to be able to bust out a response to an essay question as it is to write a nice polished essay, and we haven't really worked on that skill much yet.  

 

I know that at some point she will need to be able to juggle producing papers in more than one class at a time. So it's a goal to work toward. But I feel like for 9th just working on one paper at a time will be better for her.  At least to start.

 

ETA: reading more responses and thinking about it more: is one paper a week even a reasonable goal? That might end up being 36 essays a year. I can't imagine anybody anywhere, high school or college, is actually writing that much!   Maybe a better idea is 1 polished essay every two weeks, rotating through different classes - so that would be ~3 papers in each of 3 content classes each semester.  In addition to that, weekly essay questions or shorter responses, not polished but practicing the skill of "thinking on your feet" (or fingers).  Does that sound irresponsibly lax?

Edited February 15, 2016 by Chrysalis Academy

[LisaKinVA]

Nope. Not that much each week.

 

LEGOManiac

9th -- English: a total of six 3-5 page essays. History: 1 essay a week (class assignment, 1 page), plus four 3-5 page polished essays.

 

10th -- English he's doing two 2-4 page essays a week in an online course, with citations, his mid-term was 8 pages, I don't know what his final project will be. This class easily takes him 8-10 hours a week. He also owes me four 3-5 page literary essays. History...same as last year. One major Science presentation/paper.

 

11th -- He's taking AP English Comp at the school. History: no change. Science, he's taking at the school. AP Art History, one weekly in class essay on a piece of artwork, field trip, artist, or movement studied, plus four 3-5 page papers. Robotics 2: 13 project or lecture write ups (every other week).

 

PonyGirl next year:

 

9th -- English: Writing with Skill 3, plus six literary essays 2-4 pages. History: same as her brother's. Marine Biology -- One 8-10 page presentation/paper. Other writing assignments/projects in Health, and probably at school in her other science class and in drama.

 

In class essays aren't meant to be polished. They are meant to give practice writing in a timed environment, similar to standardized testing. They act like a quiz for grade purposes. The assignment will be a choice of two or three topics covered that week, field trip, or current events. Formal essays/papers will include citations, research, and bibliographies.

 

I know I didn't write anywhere near this much in high school. Using my son's online course as a guide, he'd never have time for anything but polished essays.

[regentrude]

3 papers per week? I consider that excessive.

My DD's college courses at a very demanding school require 2-3 papers per quarter for any class where writing is the output.

 

I never made her write a ton in high school. A handful of papers for English and history, really the only subjects with writing as output. That was entirely sufficient to learn to produce college level essays lauded by her instructors.

Edited February 15, 2016 by regentrude

[Lori D.]

… SWB suggests that a high school student should be producing

- 3 short papers a week: 2 persuasive essays across the curriculum, and one literary analysis paper

- in addition… a longer research paper, which gets longer as high school progresses...

 

...(if we're talking about fully polished essays, as opposed to more informal responses/journal entries/essay questions) which would definitely reduce the rate at which we cover subjects and how much we get through over the course of the year...

 

Well, that seems… excessive. Not to mention that it doesn't take into account what a student can do in 12th grade for output is much greater and much easier for the student than what the student can do in 9th grade. And, not all students are created equal -- very much like how at the beginning of the schooling journey children learn to read at widely varying ages (anywhere from age 3 to 9), some tweens/teens have the writing process "down" by 7th grade; others are still struggling in 10th grade to get a solid paragraph figured out.

 

So, JMO, but you REALLY have to gauge writing output in high school to the individual student. That volume of weekly writing, esp. if we'd tried to force that in 9th grade, would have killed any desire to ever write again for DS#1 (average writer, but did not care for writing) and would have destroyed DS#2 (mild LDs esp. with writing) to the point of complete rebellion against all schooling. I do NOT exaggerate.

 

For both DSs in 9th grade, writing output looked like this:

 

- daily (4x/week, about 30 min.):

Work through a writing program. If that required a multi-paragraph assignment (say, 3-5 paragraphs), it usually look most of the week to complete the writing process:

- day 1 = brainstorm/organize thoughts into key word outline

- day 2-3 = rough draft

- day 4 = revision

- day 5 = proof-editing/final copy

 

- once a week:

1. History = short sentence answers to History questions; timeline entries

2. Writing = ONE persuasive essay (timed essay from a past SAT essay prompt) -- AND, we slowly worked our way up, with 9th grade starting with 5 min and 1 paragraph (5-6 sentences), slowly over TWO years working on different parts of the essay, so by 11th & 12th grade it was 25 minutes, a 3-5 paragraph fully-formed essay AND having left about 3-4 minutes at the end to double check for errors/proofing -- NOT polished, this was practice for thinking quickly and supporting your thoughts in prep for timed essay writing; I do have to say that this exercise was one of the MOST helpful things we ever did for writing; we all 3 did the timed essays together, and (gently) critiqued one another -- starting small and slow with very limited goals, and practicing those goals until they were fluent, and then adding another goal and a bit more time REALLY helped DSs with the process of writing

 

- once a month:

1. Science = short lab report or two

2. Literature = short paragraph (sometimes a few paragraphs) "reader response" type written answer to a prompt from a Literature guide on the work being read/discussed for Literature.

 

- once in the year:

ONE longer research paper (from History) with citations -- 3-4 pages -- which took DS#1 about 5-6 weeks, and DS#2 about 8-9 weeks.

 

As DSs progressed into high school, volume of writing increased overall, and began to also include things like note-taking, speech-writing for their involvement with bill debate in Youth & Gov't, and other types of writing for other subjects. Total volume of writing never came anywhere near what you listed from SWB's suggestions.

 

No online classes here, so can't help you with amount of output about that.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Lori D.