History Odyssey Level 2 Ancients

[hands-on-mama]

is the writing and lit in this course enough for a 7th grader? I'm just wondering others' opinions. It claims to be a full history, writing and lit program. I can definitely see the lit but is the writing enough??

[Reefgazer]

I used this for my 5th grader this past year and it was not extremely difficult, but the workload was a bit high for him.  IMO, it is enough for history for a 7th grader, but not enough for writing and literature; you'll need to add in a bit more for a full year of writing and lit.

[happypamama]

We did an additional writing program. I don't feel that HO is quite enough for a full year of writing.

[PeachyDoodle]

We did Ancients last year for 5th. Agreeing with the others -- you'll need to add some writing, especially for a 7th grader. There is a lot of writing in HO, but at the Ancients level, it is almost exclusively outlining and very short summaries. Gearing up for Middle Ages, it looks like there are a few more long assignments. My understanding is that the levels get more intensive as you move through the history cycle.

 

HOW you add the writing might depend on your student's abilities. HO provides NO writing instruction at all. If s/he already has a good foundation in the various forms of expository writing, or if you feel qualified to help give him/her that foundation, you might be able to get by just adding a few longer assignments in history, science, etc. and writing across the curriculum. Or you might need something more structured. Either way, you'll need to beef it up. I kind of feel like with writing, HO goes for quantity over quality. For us, it has worked better to trim down the gazillions of two-sentence summaries of people, places, and events and concentrate on really learning to write about history, IYKWIM.

 

We also supplemented HO on the lit side, partly because we had already covered several of the assigned books in our first go-round through the history cycle, and partly because my dd is not a fan of historical fiction. It has worked best for us to separate history reading from literature. In history, we focus on nonfiction, biographies, and pieces written during that time period (for Ancients, that included Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, selections from the Bible, and part of Caesar's Gallic Wars -- but even my plow-through-any-assignment-without-complaint advanced reader couldn't choke down that one!). Literature is completely separate and focuses on high-quality children's lit and classics. That worked well for us, and we will follow the same plan for Middle Ages this year.

[hands-on-mama]

Thank you all for the responses! She needs some writing remediation for sure. I'm thinking we might start from level 3 in writing strands. Her dyslexia seems to have a nice little road block there for us. I have a plan in place. We'll also add some Bravewriter/progeny press guides throughout the year as needed. Thank you all!