High school level English class - recommendations

[Anu R]

Hi all,

My daughter, who just turned 15, has been homeschooled through middle school.  She's attended classes at her local homeschool coop in NYC.  While we love the coop, they don't grade and since she's entering the critical high school years, we need pesky things like grades to demonstrate that she has done quality work.  My daughter is twice exceptional and reading/writing have been the areas of struggle because she struggles with severe visual processing problems.  These are resolving with intense therapy and I'm looking for a curriculum for 9th grade English that will be honors level and challenging, but something that she can do with her tutors who are happy to grade her if necessary but we would prefer external graders.  We're doing a biology class with WTM, AOPS for Math (Intermediate Algebra), maybe Derek Owens for Geometry (she's a math lover).  I'd greatly appreciate any recommendations for English and Writing.  Blue Tent's first class looks perfect but they are overbooked.  Any recommendations are greatly appreciated.  And I'm sorry if I have posted this in the wrong forum. 

[cintinative]

@Anu R can you answer a few clarifying questions?

Are you looking for a combined lit and composition class?  Does she have a particular interest for lit and/or do you have a particular area of study for her, or is it open-ended? 

Are you looking for a secular class, or is a class from a Christian provider okay? 

Can she handle more difficult literature if allowed to use audiobooks? Or does she need something slower paced?

How does she do with asynchronous classes? Would she be okay with a writing class that was self-paced with a personal writing tutor?

[Anu R]

Hi @cintinative!  Thank you so much for all the detailed questions. 

1.  I don't mind if the classes are not combined, that might actually make things slightly easier, but combined is ok as well -- I'll support her differently.  Her current class combines reading and composition so that's been kind of intense.

2. She greatly enjoys reading about world cultures, especially through a contemporary lens because we travel a lot and she's visited many countries; she loves Asian and Eurpoean countries the most. 

3. I suspect that a slower paced class might be better, but I realize that I might be defensive given everything she's struggled with.  Her tutor says that she can handle harder literature.  I've never tried audiobooks, but that is an excellent idea, so thank you for that.

4. Asynchronous for writing might work just fine because we will augment that with a live tutor or mom. 

Thank you so much for writing back so promptly.  I truly appreciate the support.

[cintinative]

Have you looked at @Farrar's classes? She covers Asian and European lit I think.  https://simplify4you.com/gps/

For asynchronous writing, there are a couple options;  Lantern Writing (they have 8 week courses and you can mix and match) or Write at Home

Both have lessons where you read the lesson, work on it on your own, and then dialogue with the tutor about the writing

Edited June 21, 2021 by cintinative

[Anu R]

@cintinative Thank you! These are wonderful recommendations.  Thank you again!  I will research them.  We live in NYC with its weird rules and regulations on what home schooled kids can do.  It is surprisingly hard to pull together a challenging but developmentally appropriate curriculum for my kiddo.  I really appreciate your help.

[cintinative]

@Not_a_Number since you also live in her area, do you know of programs that are accepted? 

[kiwik]

I quite like Lantern English.  It seems solid and has grading.  I am looking at at Farrar's stuff after Lantern English 3 though. It has the advantage the writing service is for 18 months so you can go slower if needed plus the content sounds l a perfect match.  If you want more writing instruction she could do a couple of 8 week focussed courses with Lantern or time4writing (the essay one my eldest did was very good).

Edited June 23, 2021 by kiwik

[Anu R]

Thank you all for your help.  I've signed her up to Write At Home's first high school writing class and to Lantern's 8 week courses.  Also, a couple more questions - has anyone tried Blue Tent Online?  How would they compare and contrast to Well Trained Mind's classes? Especially for science classes?  My kiddo wants to do either Biology or Chemistry as her first high school science class.  Any recommendations on which class she should take first?  As always, thank you. 

 

And how does a homeschooled child meet her high school visual arts requirement? I was thinking that maybe an art history class would be good. 

I'm deeply appreciative of all the help I've gotten here, eternally grateful. I decided to home school out of necessity, my daughter's special-ed school in NYC had a weak curriculum and NYC is so competitive that she'd have a hard time getting into a decent private or public.  I wasn't willing to let her underachieve just because she has some disabilities. 

[Lori D.]

Welcome! I see by your post count you are new. 😄

2 hours ago, Anu R said:

...And how does a homeschooled child meet her high school visual arts requirement? I was thinking that maybe an art history class would be good... 

Sure, if you both would enjoy Art History, that would work great.

Quick question: Does your state's homeschooling regulations specifically require *visual arts*? If so I would guess that would limit the Fine Arts topics to either the doing/making OR the appreciation/history of: art, photography, filmmaking, animation, and printmaking.

Usually homeschoolers are free to fulfill the Fine Arts credit in any number of ways, so you can run with your student's interests! 😄 

Visual Arts
- Art - drawing, painting, collage, etc.
- Photography
- Filmmaking
- Printmaking - block printing, screening, etching, etc.
- Digital Arts - animation, Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, etc.

Studio Arts
- Jewelry Making
- Stained Glass
- Fused Glass
- Pottery/Ceramics
- Sculpture
- Woodworking
- Metalworking
- Textiles

Performing Arts
- Music - lessons, practice, performance (instrument or vocal)
- Music: composing
- Dance: performance
- Dance: choreography
- Theater: performance
- Theater: design & creation of costumes, sets/props
- Theater: lighting and backstage crew

History and/or Appreciation of Fine Arts
- Art 
- Music 
- Theater 
- Film
- Dance

General Fine Arts
- Intro to Art Design
- Intro to Color/Design
- Survey of Fine Arts (three 12-week, or four 9-week "units", each on a different Fine Arts "topic")

Examples of Fine Arts credits I have seen that were tailored to specific interests of the homeschooler:
- Blacksmithing
- Survey of Broadway Musicals
- Song Writing
- Cartooning
- Film Studies
- History of Dance

 

2 hours ago, Anu R said:

...I decided to home school out of necessity, my daughter's special-ed school in NYC had a weak curriculum and NYC is so competitive that she'd have a hard time getting into a decent private or public.  I wasn't willing to let her underachieve just because she has some disabilities. 

Have a fantastic journey together as you homeschool high school. It's going to be great! 😄 Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited July 7, 2021 by Lori D.

[NittanyJen]

You are already doing another WTM class. Have you looked to see if there is a rhetoric class available at the WTM academy? Their rhetoric I—III series is excellent. My oldest did that series followed by AP English, and has had a pretty easy time writing in college. My youngest did Clearwater Press’ “Byline” at home, and will finish the rhetoric series at TWTM Academy this year with Rhetoric III (I gave him his choice between rhetoric III and AP Comp, and he chose rhetoric III, because he is really enjoying the classes).

I never hesitate to recommend them.

 

[Roadrunner]

2 hours ago, NittanyJen said:

You are already doing another WTM class. Have you looked to see if there is a rhetoric class available at the WTM academy? Their rhetoric I—III series is excellent. My oldest did that series followed by AP English, and has had a pretty easy time writing in college. My youngest did Clearwater Press’ “Byline” at home, and will finish the rhetoric series at TWTM Academy this year with Rhetoric III (I gave him his choice between rhetoric III and AP Comp, and he chose rhetoric III, because he is really enjoying the classes).

I never hesitate to recommend them.

 

I was so tempted with that but didn’t know how to work in literature. It would have been overkill to do a lit class separately. May I ask how you resolved this issue? 

Edited July 12, 2021 by Roadrunner

[NittanyJen]

16 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

I was so tempted with that but didn’t know how to work in literature. It would have been overkill to do a lit class separately. May I ask how you resolved this issue? 

We read a lot of lit to support history; we didn’t analyze book to death to do literary analysis, though we did talk about the books he was reading (he did Build Your Library, and they also furnish discussion prompts, which is helpful when I don’t have time to read everything he’s reading). He is, as a rising senior, holding his own in a reading discussion club this summer in TWM, so it doesn’t seem to have hurt him any. And he did the occasional one-off book discussion class from Outschool when something interesting and short-term popped up. Context: He plans to major in English in college. We really read a LOT of literature (and poetry, and plays) to support history.

They do also read in the rhetoric courses, and of course, if you do three years of rhetoric followed by a year of AP English, there will be a lot of reading in AP English, whether you do literature or comp.

But our history reading provided buckets of literature, so there was no need for a separate lit course. 

Edited July 12, 2021 by NittanyJen

[Roadrunner]

2 hours ago, NittanyJen said:

We read a lot of lit to support history; we didn’t analyze book to death to do literary analysis, though we did talk about the books he was reading (he did Build Your Library, and they also furnish discussion prompts, which is helpful when I don’t have time to read everything he’s reading). He is, as a rising senior, holding his own in a reading discussion club this summer in TWM, so it doesn’t seem to have hurt him any. And he did the occasional one-off book discussion class from Outschool when something interesting and short-term popped up. Context: He plans to major in English in college. We really read a LOT of literature (and poetry, and plays) to support history.

They do also read in the rhetoric courses, and of course, if you do three years of rhetoric followed by a year of AP English, there will be a lot of reading in AP English, whether you do literature or comp.

But our history reading provided buckets of literature, so there was no need for a separate lit course. 

I went back and forth on the WTM recommendations. Ideally I wanted a rhetoric sequence and a Great Books study as outlined in the WTM. At the end we just couldn’t figure out how to do both in a given time, so we opted for the latter. 
Sometimes I wish WTMA would offer a GB class with strong writing component (basically somehow incorporate rhetoric into it) for SETM kids who don’t have more than 2 hours to devote to English. 

[RubyPenn]

On 7/11/2021 at 7:46 PM, NittanyJen said:

You are already doing another WTM class. Have you looked to see if there is a rhetoric class available at the WTM academy? Their rhetoric I—III series is excellent. My oldest did that series followed by AP English, and has had a pretty easy time writing in college. My youngest did Clearwater Press’ “Byline” at home, and will finish the rhetoric series at TWTM Academy this year with Rhetoric III (I gave him his choice between rhetoric III and AP Comp, and he chose rhetoric III, because he is really enjoying the classes).

I never hesitate to recommend them.

 

I just discovered Byline.  My son will be a junior and this course looks quite interesting.  Do you think it does a good job teaching writing?  We need something to fine tune essays.

[NittanyJen]

On 7/21/2021 at 9:36 AM, RubyPenn said:

I just discovered Byline.  My son will be a junior and this course looks quite interesting.  Do you think it does a good job teaching writing?  We need something to fine tune essays.

Byline teaches journalistic writing, which has a specific set of skills, but many of them generalize well to academic writing— sorting out opinion from facts, evaluating and citing sources, organizing information logically, paragraph structure and flow from one paragraph to the next, word choice, forming a thesis, writing conclusions, and how to focus on a more specific thesis from a more general topic. The parent manual provides some tips on how to guide the grading to be helpful and informative to the student.

 

 

[Lori D.]

On 7/21/2021 at 6:36 AM, RubyPenn said:

I just discovered Byline.  My son will be a junior and this course looks quite interesting.  Do you think it does a good job teaching writing?  We need something to fine tune essays.

No personal experience with Byline, but it certainly looks cool and fun, and the author has also done the 1-year programs of Cover Story (gr. 6-8) and The One-Year Adventure Novel (gr. 9-12), which have been given good reviews here.

However, Byline looks like it is focused around journalism which would extend into research paper writing, rather than essay writing. If wanting to fine-tune essay writing specifically, you might look at the Lantern English series of advanced high school (gr. 10-12) Essay-Writing classes -- $60 for each 8-week course.