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Posted (edited)

I haven't decided if DS 13 will be in 8th or 9th grade in the Fall. I probably won't know until it is done what year it was! :-)

 

That being said, I want to make sure that his coursework for English 9/Lit and Comp is enough for a high school credit. 

 

-BraveWriter Expository Essay class

 

-Reading through The Elements of Style 

 

-The Elegant Essay 

 

-Killgallon Sentence Composing for High School or Paragraphs for High School

 

-One Shakespeare book along with the GC lectures pertaining to it.

 

-Speech class: Informative and Persuasive (20 hours for the year)

 

-Literature: His Dark Materials trilogy, Frankenstein, David Copperfield, Bullfinch's Mythology, Pride and Prejudice, House of the Scorpion, Martian Chronicles, Animal Farm, Code Name Verity, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Brave New World, Watershed Down, The Outsiders, Lord of the Flies, Boy in Striped Pajamas, The Foundation Series, 1 HG Wells book,  Warriors Don't Cry, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and I am Malala.

 

Is this enough writing for the year? It seems light to me.

 

Literature: Is this enough? Most of these books will be discussed in a book club. Do we need to go deeper? They cover a lot of the elements from Teaching the Classics in there. Should he have some written literary analysis at this stage? I also feel like my book list is all over the place. I don't know if I should organise his reading into themes.

 

Should I add more? I want this to be a rigorous course totalling around 150-180 hours.

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by moonlight
Posted

I haven't decided if DS 13 will be in 8th or 9th grade in the Fall. I probably won't know until it is done what year it was! :-)

 

That being said, I want to make sure that his coursework for English 9/Lit and Comp is enough for a high school credit. 

 

-BraveWriter Expository Essay class

 

-Reading through The Elements of Style 

 

-The Elegant Essay 

 

-Killgallon Sentence Composing for High School or Paragraphs for High School

 

-One Shakespeare book along with the GC lectures pertaining to it.

 

-Speech class: Informative and Persuasive (20 hours for the year)

 

-Literature: His Dark Materials trilogy, Frankenstein, David Copperfield, Bullfinch's Mythology, Pride and Prejudice, House of the Scorpion, Martian Chronicles, Animal Farm, Code Name Verity, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Brave New World, Watershed Down, The Outsiders, Lord of the Flies, Boy in Striped Pajamas, The Foundation Series, 1 HG Wells book,  Warriors Don't Cry, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and I am Malala.

 

Is this enough writing for the year? It seems light to me.

 

Literature: Is this enough? Most of these books will be discussed in a book club. Do we need to go deeper? They cover a lot of the elements from Teaching the Classics in there. Should he have some written literary analysis at this stage? I also feel like my book list is all over the place. I don't know if I should organise his reading into themes.

 

Should I add more? I want this to be a rigorous course totalling around 150-180 hours.

 

Thanks!

 

I teach writing professionally.

 

 I generally recommend three years of literature with writing mixed in, and one year that is devoted to writing and grammar. During the writing year, the student should still have a literature reading list, but only for reading, not for analyzing.

 

If the student is headed for a humanities focus in college (as opposed to STEM focus), then I would say four years of literature AND ALSO a year that includes a separate writing + speech class. That's what my daughter did, and that's what my son's private school requires for all students as well.

 

As an editor, I appreciate the Elements of Style. However, for a teenager I would recommend Eats Shoots and Leaves instead. Much more engaging text. 

 

I am not familiar with Elegant Essay or Kilgallon

 

If you are considering this to be a literature class where the focus is on reading and analyzing literature, then the writing and speech seems like a lot. However, my guess is that if the books are being discussed in a co-op group, then the book analysis will be light at best with minimal writing assignments. Often book groups are simply comprehension questions and opinions about what we liked or didn't like about the book--that is NOT analysis. 

 

Many of the students I teach have had a couple years of this type of co-op class. For the writing class I teach, I work them through basic expository essays, one literature analysis (5-6 pages), argumentation, and one research paper. That usually comes to 4-6 smaller papers + 1 literature analysis + 1 major research paper (10-15 pages). I then recommend that subsequent years of high school should include at least one literature analysis paper each year. 

 

When I teach literature classes, I require one major analysis paper per semester in addition to numerous smaller essays that are not analytical but do still reflect on the text. The idea with the smaller essays is that comprehension questions are often busy-work for teenagers. Instead of answering a list of questions, they mark elements such as symbolism or major themes in the text, and they write a 1-2 page writing project. For example, I might assign a paper (1-2 pages) to be written in the same voice and style of the author or of a major character. 

 

Keep your student's goals in mind. A future STEM student does not need to write a million literary analysis papers. Rather, a STEM student should focus on research skills and being able to explain STEM topics clearly. A STEM student's writing meshes best with what they are learning in science, not on literature.

 

Hope this helps.

  • Like 1
Posted

Yes, it does help!

 

And, funny enough, I had Eats, Shoots and Leaves in my hands today trying to figure out what to do with it! They do follow Teaching the Classics while discussing the book, but it is not as heavy as it could be in terms of analysis.

 

If he is a STEM kid, does the following sound reasonable:

 

-2 literary analysis papers (one per semester) 5-6 pages each

-6-8 essays 1-3 pages in length 

  

He will have a heavier science/history year with Big History Project along with extra books. He will be doing around 4-5 essays and 2 longer writing heavy projects for that class. 

 

I am stuck on the idea of a research paper. I could add a research paper to go along with Big History Project in addition to what he is already set to do, but would that count for the lit class or more of the history/science credit?? 

 

Where can I find other ideas for research papers others than looking on the Internet? I would like something a bit more systematic. I was also considering Writing With a Thesis, but I doubt that would fit in a research paper of any kind.

Posted

Yes, it does help!

 

And, funny enough, I had Eats, Shoots and Leaves in my hands today trying to figure out what to do with it! They do follow Teaching the Classics while discussing the book, but it is not as heavy as it could be in terms of analysis.

 

If he is a STEM kid, does the following sound reasonable:

 

-2 literary analysis papers (one per semester) 5-6 pages each

-6-8 essays 1-3 pages in length 

  

He will have a heavier science/history year with Big History Project along with extra books. He will be doing around 4-5 essays and 2 longer writing heavy projects for that class. 

 

I am stuck on the idea of a research paper. I could add a research paper to go along with Big History Project in addition to what he is already set to do, but would that count for the lit class or more of the history/science credit?? 

 

Where can I find other ideas for research papers others than looking on the Internet? I would like something a bit more systematic. I was also considering Writing With a Thesis, but I doubt that would fit in a research paper of any kind.

 

This sounds a bit heavy to me.

 

Incorporate your lessons on writing into the writing he is already doing. His essays can reflect what he is learning in science or history, leaning towards science topics. Since you homeschool, it's totally okay to combine that way. 

 

(FWIW my son's private school combines also. They decided that it is disrespectful of a student's time to require a major biology project AND a sophomore research paper. Instead, they require one research paper on a science topic. The biology teacher grades the content for her class and the English teacher grades the writing and MLA for his class.)

 

What will his Big History Project be? Can it be a research paper? 

 

I would be hesitant to require both a Big History Project and a major research paper in one year. At the least, don't require them the same semester. I'd probably lean towards doing them separate years.

 

Since he is a STEM kid, I would be more likely to have him do just one literary analysis. For the classes I teach, in which I require two for the year, the first one is easier and shorter than the second one. For example, my older teens last year did a 4-page lit analysis first semester. For that paper, they had to show how the character matured or had a "coming of age" in the book. Second semester, they did a 5-6 page paper comparing two characters from two separate books. The second paper was much more complex (and I would not assign one that complex to someone who has never done lit analysis before). 

 

A great resource for writing research papers:

 

Schaum's Quick Guide to Writing Great Research Papers, by Laurie Rozakis

 

You should also purchase an MLA or APA style guide for reference, Since you have a STEM kid, I would recommend APA.

 

 

One other option is to sign up for the Brave Writer research paper class. I have heard good things about it. 

Posted

The Big History Project is not a "history project" ... it's a cross-curricular approach to history beginning with the Big Bang and exploring cosmology, astronomy, aspects of physics and chemistry, geology, as well as human history. See:

https://school.bighistoryproject.com/bhplive

 

Oh! I get it. I'm just not familiar with this curriculum. My dd did history using AP-approved books, and my son attends a brick-and-mortar school, so I haven't used this or researched it.

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