help brainstorm high school writing sequence? (anyone bored?)

[Lucy the Valiant]

I don't know why I'm stuck on this: likely over-thinking + distraction due to world events. 

Can you describe your kid's actual high school English / literature / writing sequence and / or your kid's "dream" sequence? I'm pretty sure our "dream" sequence would include some AP from PA Homeschoolers, but that's not in the budget right now, so I'm brainstorming for next year. I'm not opposed to making something up, but I work part time and would love to not re-invent the wheel.

Three teens, 1 will be in 9th, and 2 will be in 11th, who have enjoyed in the past: 

Windows to the World (is there a "next" WtW? We *all* loved that so much! Invited friends to join us for the lessons, and 6 kids learned how to write a literary analysis and actually enjoyed the procedure.)

Omnibus Self-Paced (heavy lit style - but we didn't do any writing with this in middle school, which I would want to incorporate in high school. maybe the "secondary" lit list? would like more lit / history and not quite as much theology)

CC English Comp (2 older kids took it)

 

Considering: 

a year of American lit (?)

a year of British lit (?)

a year of novels + papers - 1 each month? 

can we invite friends to come over, as long as virus is in a manageable state / friends are willing / not in the middle of an outbreak? and if this didn't work, we could go to Plan B / stay home? 

I've toyed with the idea of teaching AP, but I feel intimidated by it - maybe it's worth a shot? [Edited to add: I'm a certified high school English teacher, but have never taught AP. And my entire educational philosophy has shifted since my classroom days; I don't know how to transfer that to my own kids' education. Hmmm. Maybe I should just take the plunge. Is there a place kids can practice AP essays?]

I probably should drag back out my WTM, huh?

Edited April 14, 2020 by Lucy the Valiant

[Momto6inIN]

Oldest DS did several EiL units each year - some correlated with his history studies and some didn't. He did WttW in 9th and in 11th he also self-studied for the AP Lang with a prep book from IEW. In 12th I gave him credit for a semester of speech for speech and debate club. I think his courses were called English I, English II, Honors English Lang & Comp + AP exam, and 20th C Lit/Speech Comm

2nd DS was not a very naturally organized writer and was not ready for WttW in 9th as he was still struggling with a well organized basic essay. We did LLftLotR along with some very targeted writing instruction using IEW's 9 units and the extra modules of LLftLotR to get him up to speed. So that year he read LotR and excerpts from Beowulf and Sir Gawain and King Arthur and other epics. In 10th he did EE and then by mid year he was ready for WttW. After that he did EiL units and speech like his brother did. I called his courses English I, English II, English III, and 20th C Lit/Speech Comm

DD is finishing up her sophomore year and is almost done with WttW. Next year I plan just to have her read several lit selections and write a research paper on a topic of her choice. Senior year will be similar to her brothers'.

We had a discussion for every book they read that was assigned, which was my favorite part 🙂

We loved WttW too, and found it was easy to apply the principles they learned from it to any work of lit we studied afterwards.

When we first started hs'ing I tried to correlate their studies into American Lit, English Lit, etc. But it was more fun to just let them pick what they wanted to read and what they were interested in at the time and to separate out the writing instruction from the lit based on their skill level. I do have some lit selections I like to save for their senior year because of the high level of maturity needed to read and digest them, and I loosely call those "20th C Lit" on their transcripts because most of them happened to be written about then and I thought that made more sense than calling it English IV for a semester course.

[Lori D.]

I don't know as though my "ideal" would have been much different than our "actual". By the time we hit high school, I had become much more of a realist -- teach the child before me (writing struggler and a writing hater), and be sure to get in the lit. works that were most important to ME to share with them/discuss with them. I think that actually made for overall strong, interesting, and fun English credits throughout high school.

 In retrospect, the only thing I wish I would have done a bit differently was to have been able to try out a few of the writing programs that were not yet published when we were doing high school. And maybe outsource writing for 1 semester or 1 year during high school. And to magically have back then the knowledge I have now about teaching writing from my years of teaching Lit. & Writing to the homeschool co-op. LOL. But, I didn't start teaching at the co-op until after DSs had graduated....

At any rate, here's what we actually did, with 2 DSs who where 1 year apart, so 5 years of high school English:

Literature = DIY each year
- Ancients (+ elective credit of Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings)
- Worldviews in Classic Sci-Fi Lit
- American Lit
- British Lit
- "Kitchen Sink" Lit (LOL) -- which was some world lit. + anything else I wanted us to do but we hadn't gotten around to it yet, lol

Writing = all 4 years, excerpts from many things; 1-on-1 mentored through a variety of types of writing I thought were important to understand how to do:
- weekly timed essay using past SAT essay prompts (we all did this together, and then critiqued one another -- the best thing we did for writing all through high school)
- research paper with citations
- short reader response essay, in response to a discuss question
- literary analysis essay
- personal essay for applying for scholarships
- science lab reports
- public speaking presentations
- Youth & Gov't bill debate (persuasive argument with support)
- real life writing = resume; cover letter; formal business letters

Resources we used:
- Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings
- Windows to the World
- individual lit guides from: Garlic Press, Progeny Press, Portals to Lit, Glencoe Literature Library
- Parallel Shakespeare materials; Brightest Heaven of Invention (Leithart) lit. guide
- Jump In middle school writing program (done in 9th with DS with writing struggles)
** excerpts from Put That in Writing I (hated this program, but they covered a few types of essays I didn't see anywhere else)
** excerpts from Jensen's Format Writing (dry as dust, but it covered 

** = I would now use Power in Your Hand, which covers the topics that were the excerpts for which we used these other programs -- but PiYH wasn't out then.

I have since discovered a stack of useful books that I am pulling excerpts from to use to help teach Writing for my co-op classes:
- The Writing Strategies Book (Heineman)
- Engaging Ideas (Bean)
- The Writing Revolution (Hocheman & Wexler)
- Mastering Short Response Writing: Claim it Cite It Cement It (Sitomer)
- Mastering the 5-Paragraph Essay (Van Zile)
- Twisting Arms (DiPrince)
- and another half-dozen Scholastic and other books I can pull ideas from for in-class exercises/practice of aspects of writing

Also, these are interesting, but have not been as helpful to me for a classroom:
- Writing with a Thesis (Skwire)
- Thinking in Threes (Backman)
- They Say/I Say (Graff & Birkenstein)

Edited April 14, 2020 by Lori D.

[MamaSprout]

What we did. I'm not sure how I would have changed it. I copied this from another post. Most of this was part of a multi-grade coop.

ETA3- What we did starting with WttW (We also liked it). I had a somewhat younger group. I would say the Year 4 and 5 below would probably be good ones for you to look at for inspiration.

Then we did the Jill Pike Syllabus for Windows to the World and Lightning Lit American Lit along with the rest of Warriner's 3rd Composition and Grammar.

The next year we did 3/4ths of WWS3 (which was perfect for us) and one last year of spelling and grammar (Warriner's 5th-just the grammar parts) at home. We went through Reading Literature Like a Professor at home. We did some Glencoe/ MP Literature guides that year.

Year 4 was They Say, I Say along with the British Literature "America Reads" (links to older version) and MP guides for a couple of books- Beowulf and pieces and parts of year 4 of OWC. We finished up the composition portion of Warriner's 5th (linked above- I really like that series. It's "composition and grammar" not the other way, and I think the writing instruction is better in the 1980s books with the stained-glass lamp on the front. They still contained some sentence diagramming, too. At the time I think I only paid $15 for the TE, which is why I went with the 11th grade book rather than the "complete" 12th grade book).

Year 5 was Rhetoric Alive and another old (but excellent) anthology for World Literature. We squeezed in a couple of full length books- just talked about them- but I want to do Iliad and Odyssey with the GC lectures with dd this summer. ETA- links

Dd has always been about two-three years younger than anyone else, so most of my co-op kids are graduated. Those that are left will either do AP Language online or DE locally next year. Dd is a STEM kid, but has been testing high on the SAT/ ACT type tests in language. She's been able to earn various scholarships to camps and such with her essays. Dd is doing Blue Tent AP next year, but was ready for DE composition. She's our last one at home, so I'm willing to spend the money because she's been cheap to education otherwise.

ETA- we did read Rulebook for Arguments in there somewhere, but not in any formal sort of way. Dd can be a sponge for books sometimes.

ETA2- I liked and used the EIL mentioned in the threads above for another class. It just never seemed to fit with Dd's group.

Edited April 14, 2020 by MamaSprout

[Lori D.]

2 hours ago, Lucy the Valiant said:

.... Three teens, 1 will be in 9th, and 2 will be in 11th, who have enjoyed in the past: 

Considering:
   American lit (?)
   British lit (?)
   a year of novels + papers - 1 each month? 

 

Because of grade levels, and that you would have a total of 4 people for discussion (3 high schoolers + you), my "vote" (lol) would be to do your own lit -- books that would be meaningful, inspiring, fun, challenging, etc. to discuss as a family. That would also give you another year to decide whether or not AP is worth it (or needed), or is really "your thing".
 

2 hours ago, Lucy the Valiant said:

.... an we invite friends to come over, as long as virus is in a manageable state / friends are willing / not in the middle of an outbreak? and if this didn't work, we could go to Plan B / stay home? 

Sure! Have fun doing it with friends. Switch to Zoom online discussions with friends if there is another virus outbreak next year. I am currently finishing up my Lit. & Writing co-op classes this semester via Zoom. Not as wonderful as in-person/live, but it is working pretty well.

[Lucy the Valiant]

Aaaahhhh, I LOVE YOU PEOPLE! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[ByGrace3]

I am considering this as well...

My 9th grader this year is doing self paced Omnibus I and I have added in quite a few of the writing assignments from the book. Not as many as I would have liked but they are great thought provoking assignments. 

For 10th My dd will do the writing assignments that are a part of her American Literature course (Schole) and US History (Dave Raymonds). I will also have her do several mini sessions of Lantern English to firm up the quality of her composition. 

11th and 12th are looking as though they will be DE. So she will likely take composition and lit at the local university.