What makes up an English credit?

[Daria]

I am trying to piece together an English course for my son.

 

How much of a credit would you give for each of these pieces:

 

Coursera Course on Mythology:  https://www.coursera.org/learn/mythology

 

(includes 20 hours of lectures, 10 quizzes, reading the Odyssey, Aeneid, and other texts, but no writing assignments)

 

Khan Academy Grammar Course (90 skills)

 

Also, any other suggestions for some asynchronous, affordable options for high school English?

[regentrude]

For self designed courses, I found it helpful to count hours to get an idea whether my expectations for a credit are reasonable. Typically a credit runs between 120 and 160 hours. I used this as a rough guideline for my self designed courses.

[Daria]

Because of processing speed, memory, and attention issues, DS works more slowly than most students his age.  So, it's hard for me to judge what makes something 120 hours. 

 

For example, Coursera says that the videos and quizzes for the course take about 25 hours, but I imagine that he will need to stop and start, and go back and rewind, and watch again while reviewing his notes.  So, let's say it takes him 75 hours to get through the course materials, do I count that as 25 or 75 hours?

 

Similarly, he'll probably do a lot of the reading through audiobooks. Should I just add up all the time for the audiobooks, or try and estimate how much time it would take if he'd read them (longer) or if I'd read them (shorter)?  
 

Also, if he just did the two pieces -- the Khan grammar (maybe 30 hours? would probably be way less for someone without his issues), and the Coursera (25 hours of watching, maybe 80 hours of listening), can I call that a full credit, or would I need to include some kind of writing component?

[Ellie]

I am trying to piece together an English course for my son.

 

How much of a credit would you give for each of these pieces:

 

Coursera Course on Mythology:  https://www.coursera.org/learn/mythology

 

(includes 20 hours of lectures, 10 quizzes, reading the Odyssey, Aeneid, and other texts, but no writing assignments)

 

Khan Academy Grammar Course (90 skills)

 

Also, any other suggestions for some asynchronous, affordable options for high school English?

 

At the high school level, it is common for there to be equal-ish parts of literature and composition, for one English credit (or however many credits your state gives; e.g., California does 10 credits per subject per year, Indiana does two credits per subject, per year); some schools also include grammar, but to a much lesser extent than either lit or composition.

[freesia]

English is hard to gage and differs so much bc of reading and writing speed. A comfortable speed for my son In early high school ( if lit and comp we're going at the same time) was one two page writing per three weeks (including revision) and about three weeks per normal size book. The Aeneid and Odyssey were more like five weeks.

I tried to do the timing, but that did not work at all for my son.

[almondbutterandjelly]

To me, it looks like you have a solid semester of Literature.  Now you need a solid semester of writing (and grammar if you wish).  In my opinion, at least one long paper needs to happen every year, something which requires library research and citing sources and whatnot, plus several small writing assignments.  (However, I have a writing hater.  She's decent at it, just hates it.) What I did for 9th grade was use Seton's Composition book, which gave me a good spine and ideas for the papers.

 

This year, for 10th grade, I am using Abeka's Grammar and Composition, picking and choosing what we do, but using it for writing assignment ideas especially.

 

Best of luck!

[J-rap]

We usually worked on average an hour/day on English (some days more, some days less), which included writing, literature, and grammar.  Not necessarily everything every day though.  Some semesters, we concentrated more on literature.  Other semesters, we concentrated more on writing (as we neared SAT time, for example).  English also included films, plays, etc. we watched that went along with the literature we were reading.

 

ETA:  It also included vocabulary work that we did in preparation for SAT testing.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2016 by J-rap

[Lori D.]

A typical English credit is about 1/2 Lit. and 1/2 Writing, with a little optional Grammar and/or Vocab thrown in. However, that's just a very rough guideline. Some English credits are all Literature or all Composition. Some are "speciality" focus topics such as Creative Writing, Journalism, or Technical Writing (composition), or Shakespeare, the epic, Sci-Fi, or Latin American Literature (with an author, genre, time/place, or other focus).

Another option is to do a 1 quarter (9-weeks) or 1 semester unit of Public Speaking or Speech & Debate towards an English credit. So if you wanted to do a 1 quarter (9-weeks) or 1 semester unit of Public Speaking, or Creative Writing, or Journalism or some other less common English topic to help fill out the credit, that can work well, too.

As previous posters point out above, DIY courses can be a bit "mushy" to define. Sometimes hours spent on a credit can help from awarding too much/too little credit for too little/too much work:

. . . . . . . . . .minimum . .average . maximum
1.00 credit = 120 . . . 150 . . . 180  hours
0.75 credit =   90 . . . 110 . . . 135  hours
0.66 credit =   80 . . . 100 . . . 120  hours
0.50 credit =   60 . . . . 75 . . . . 90  hours
0.33 credit =   40 . . . . 50 . . . . 60  hours
0.25 credit =   30 . . . . 35 . . . . 45  hours

However, esp. with an English credit that requires reading of Lit., because students read at different paces, using just credit hours is not always the best way to award credit. You'd also want to look at the volume and rigor of reading, and the volume and rigor of output.

In looking at the link to the class it looks like you'll cover:
- The Odyssey, all (epic), Khan
- Theogeny (poem)
- Hymns to Apollo and Demeter (poems)
- Orestia: Agamemnon, Eumenides (plays)
- Oedipus Rex, Bacchae (plays)
- Aeneid, excerpt -- books 1-5 (epic)
- Metamorphoses, excerpt -- books 3, 12, 13 ("short stories")

That comes out to 1 full epic, 3 longer poems, 4 plays, and excerpts from 2 other works. That looks like about 1 semester of high school English course reading to me, esp. since these are works that are read in translation and are in a highly stylistic form -- that always slows reading down to absorb and think about the culture/times and the writing form (here, mostly poetic form), as well as content. While it's only 20 hours of lecture towards the 60-90 hours needed for a lite-to-rigorous 0.5 credit, my guess is that you'll pretty easily fill out the rest of those hours with reading, discussion, and quizzes. And the Khan Academy Grammar, at one lesson per day.

(Side note: the Khan Academy Grammar may not be necessary to your 0.5 semester credit -- I'd only use a Grammar program or resource in high school if the student is really lacking or lagging in that area and instruction in Grammar was not completed before 9th grade -- most of the time, in high school, Grammar is just put into practice as part of the Writing, and in learning a Foreign Language.)

Just me, but at the high school level, I'd rather skip the Grammar and get more writing in there, so if that is an option for your DS (not needing Grammar) and for you (time/ability to go over and grade the writing assignments), you could drop the Khan Academy and add some writing assignments to your semester. There are a lot of free online guides out there on the Ancient lit., so you can probably fairly easily come up with some short answer (1-3 paragraph) reader responses, and 1-2 longer (2-5 page) essay prompts on a few of the works covered in the course.

Since you have no writing for this semester of Mythology Lit., my suggestion would be to look for a writing course for the second semester, and let writing be the focus for the second half of the English credit.

Ideas:
- 2 of the 8-week Time4Writing classes (teacher instruction and feedback; $99/course)
- 1 semester Write At Home class (weekly lessons & assignments, tutor coaching & evaluation; $269/1-semester course)
- free EdX Writing course plus Write At Home pay-per-paper options:
   single draft evaluation = $18/$24/$30/$36 for 500/1000/1500/2000 words
   three-draft process (feedback on 3 drafts of same paper) = $42/$54/$68/$80 for 500/1000/1500/2000 words
- list of free open-source courses in Writing -- creative writing, technical writing, writing the essay, research writing, etc.

BEST of luck as you plan out your English credit! Warmest regards, Lori D.

ETA
Ug. I took too long composing an answer and the discussion continued, so much of my overly-long answer is repeat. ?

On 12/29/2016 at 8:05 AM, Daria said:

Because of processing speed, memory, and attention issues, DS works more slowly than most students his age.  So, it's hard for me to judge what makes something 120 hours. 

For example, Coursera says that the videos and quizzes for the course take about 25 hours, but I imagine that he will need to stop and start, and go back and rewind, and watch again while reviewing his notes.  So, let's say it takes him 75 hours to get through the course materials, do I count that as 25 or 75 hours?

Similarly, he'll probably do a lot of the reading through audiobooks. Should I just add up all the time for the audiobooks, or try and estimate how much time it would take if he'd read them (longer) or if I'd read them (shorter)?  

Also, if he just did the two pieces -- the Khan grammar (maybe 30 hours? would probably be way less for someone without his issues), and the Coursera (25 hours of watching, maybe 80 hours of listening), can I call that a full credit, or would I need to include some kind of writing component?

Totally JMO, but regardless of the student's working speed, to call this 1.0 full credit, you absolutely need to add a writing component.

And I say that having had a DS with LDs in Writing and Spelling, and in needing a more auditory format for Literature all through high school. So I couldn't just count hours, but had to make sure that enough of the right CONTENT components were part of our DIY English credits, and we spent extra time each week on the English, because that's just what it took for us to get through enough content to be able to count it as a true high school credit. For us, that was 75-90 minutes/day, so we had to put in about 6.5-7.0 hours a week on English, when 5.0 hours/week puts you at the maximum for a credit -- because, IMO, hours alone don't make a credit.

In the same way, getting through an Algebra textbook may take some students 50 minutes a day, and others 2 hours a day. The content all needs to be completed to count as 1.0 credit, even if it takes some students twice as long.

That's just my take on it, having had a slower-working special needs student.

Edited September 25, 2018 by Lori D.

[Daria]

Thank you Lori!  That was super helpful!

 

I really like that Write at Home resource. 

[Lori D.]

On 12/29/2016 at 4:44 PM, Daria said:

Thank you Lori!  That was super helpful!
I really like that Write at Home resource. 

Also, in case it helps for scheduling, it took us a LONG time to get through the 2 ancient epics we did as full translations (Illiad and Odyssey) -- as I recall, at least 6 weeks for each, because we were reading aloud, discussing, and wrote several short answer and 1 longer essay on each. And, we are slower at classical Lit. than others on these Boards. ? If that is approximately how you are planning on proceeding, then here's a possible schedule:

1 semester:
weeks 1-5 = The Odyssey
week 6 = Theogeny; Hymns to Apollo and Demeter
week 7-9 = Orestia: Agamemnon, Eumenides
weeks 10-12 = Oedipus Rex, Bacchae
weeks 13 = Aeneid, excerpt -- books 1-5
week 14 = Metamorphoses, excerpt -- books 3, 12, 13
weeks 15-18 = complete the Aeneid (even though there are no lectures to with it -- add an individual lit. guide)

or, if you need more time for adding in writing/discussing:

weeks 1-6 = The Odyssey
week 7 = Theogeny; Hymns to Apollo and Demeter
week 8-10 = Orestia: Agamemnon, Eumenides
weeks 11-13 = Oedipus Rex, Bacchae
weeks 14-15 = Aeneid, excerpt -- books 1-5
week 16 = Metamorphoses, excerpt -- books 3, 12, 13
weeks 17-18 = a few Greek myths

Have fun! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited September 25, 2018 by Lori D.