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English/Language Arts Help
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I have two boys in 12th grade who need an English credit for High School. Any ideas of how we could accomplish this? Out of the box ideas, or any curriculum that doesn’t take a huge amount of time? The one boy is weak in grammar, & they both could use more writing & literature.
Thanks
I really liked Abeka for grammar. I used it from 5th-9?? or so and knew more grammar than most of the other students in my Greek class in college😀 You need grammar for Greek study…..
You could look at the descriptions on the courses. I would probably do like 8th or 9th or something. They review and review each year, but its quick and solid. It does have diagramming…It is not CM but it gets the job done. Their composition is lousy so just skip it and only do the grammar units.
What does your state require? How about Masters Books? They have a couple different Lit classes for high school.
Maybe a Queen’s Homeschool LangArts book? (Low stress and easy.)
How about a year of reading thru “classics?”
For grammar weakness, I would get an Easy Grammar Ultimate book and do a page a few times a week (doesn’t need to be every day).
English is generally half literature and half composition. For high school, I create my own English by giving my kids a book list (they are required to read one chapter a day but they often read more on their own) and we have discussions about the books once a week (very informal – I basically just try to see what they are getting out of the books. For an allegory, I sometimes dig up a study guide that I have or from online to make sure we understand it). Occasionally they write essays about the books.
For composition, you could use a writing program, or if your boys are pretty competent with writing, you could just require written narrations and different types of essays. Mine write an essay a week by 11th grade, usually something related to their science or history lessons.
I hope that gives you some ideas.
Erin, thanks for the ideas! That is something like what I was thinking… Do you have any thoughts that would convince my boys that reading books is perfectly enough? Would you have help for how I could implement a schedule to help them to know what they are to do each day to help keep them on task. My one boy needs that. He is currently working through the ACE English paces but he hates it & failed miserably with the grammar portion. The only reason he wanted to do this curriculum was because it was all in one, and he simply opens and does the next X amount of pages.
Do you have a writing program you could suggest? They’ve done written narrations but I worry that it isn’t enough to count for writing. They really haven’t done the different types of essays. I don’t really know how to help them with that. Is an essay the same thing as narrations?
They have both done the 11th grade easy grammar ultimate. The oldest boy still doesn’t have a good understanding of grammar. He was to review the 8 parts of speech in his english pace & got over half of them wrong. Would Easy Grammar plus be better or would it add too much time? Or Gr 8 ultimate?
I was also toying with the idea of doing Notgrass Economics curriculum and have them do the plans to earn the half credit in English.
Here are my State’s Graduation requirements for Language arts:
Four units of Language Arts- must include:
a. Writing – 1.5 credits
b. Literature – 1.5 credits (must include .5 credits of American Lit.)
c. Speech or Debate – .5 credits
d. Language Arts elective – .5 credits
Whichever grammar you use, have him use a reference chart or book. There is no shame in looking things up. We are using Christian Light Education English 9, with the reference book.
Thanks retrofam, that’s an idea.
At lunch today I asked if he could tell me the definition of each of the 8 parts of speech & he was able to do that much.
Here is just a portion of the paragraph he was to do. He was to identify how each italicized word functions and above it write the correct abbreviation.( i will put them in CAPS)
“You FEEL that you’ll have to look BETTER OR do BETTER BEFORE others will show you the KIND of LOVE that CAN fill that GNAWING aching FEELING of EMPTINESS that has SUCH a grip ON your …….
What you NEED to realize, HOWEVER, is that EVEN if you were a “perfect 10″ in EVERY way, you STILL couldn’t GET PEOPLE to fill THAT emptiness inside you.”
He got only 1 of these words right. I don’t know how to help him. It looks hard to me ‘blush’
Hmm, I am good at grammar, and without a reference book, I wouldn’t do well with that exercise, because I am rusty, and the content was so deep that it was distracting. Which direction you go depends on your son’s career plans, and your goals for highschool grammar.
For example if you son wants to be a writer, I would make mastering grammar important. If he is going straight into the workforce for construction, I would lean towards a basic understanding and exposure, vs. complete mastery.
I have used a lot over the years including Stevenson Learning’ s Grammar, Easy Grammar, Fix It Grammar, Character Quality Language Arts( just the grammar parts), Life of Fred Language Arts (which includes grammar), Winston Grammar, Rod &Staff, and Christian Light Education. I have grammar card games, but they are difficult because you really have to understand the parts of speech to play.
Christian Light is my current favorite because of the spiral and references. Each lesson tells you where you can find that topic in the reference guide.
Let me know if you want more information on any of the above programs.
Wordsmith Craftsman is one of my choices for essays.
I also feel like that was a tough sentence and I am in the middle of teaching grammar and parts of speech.
I agree with above post about talking to your son about his goals. Yes, you need to meet graduation requirements and while grammar is important, the goal is communication. How is his actual writing and communication skills, not just grammar? I know many people who write quite well but would not be able to identify parts of speech or diagram a sentence. I can identify parts of speech and diagram pretty well but only because I am actively teaching those skills, if you had asked me a few years ago I would have been pretty rusty trying to remember back to when I learned it many years ago.
We are liking Fix It, short concise lessons, but GetSmart Grammar was also really good! Its focus is on parts of speech and diagramming and right to the point with short videos to teach the topics. An investment but can be used again with younger students or to watch a video and refresh the topic. That might be a good option, not a lot of writing required and right to the point.
Agreeing with others that his ability to write correctly in terms of grammar is much more important than being able to identify parts of speech or which word functions as what in a sentence. I gave up on my oldest son’s grammar in 8th grade because he never remembered all the parts but his writing was really nice. I figured it wasn’t worth it.
I think doing the English portion of Notgrass Economics would be a good idea. It’s all scheduled out for you that way. I think if I did that, I would have them do a writing assignment for every project just so you get enough writing covered. There is no writing instruction, though, just prompts to write about.
If you need a writing program, look into Wordsmith Craftsman, The Power in Your Hands or Jensen’s Format Writing. All of those will cover every type of writing needed.
The way I schedule a book list is to have my boys read 1 chapter per day (unless the chapters are really short, then 2 per day) until they are finished. That averages out to 8-9 books per year (assuming about 20 chapters per book), but mine often get into the story and finish on their own time, so they usually read more.
I would say the difference between an essay and a narration is that an essay has an intro and a conclusion. It’s a bit more formal than a narration. The two can overlap quite a bit, though.
I think all the Easy Grammar Ultimate books are about the same level. I was told that the 12th grade one wasn’t any harder than the 9th grade one, they just had different exercises. So I’m not sure doing a lower level Ultimate book would make a difference. Easy Grammar Plus has all the instruction in it and I think it would be a page a day, so I’m not sure if that’s more or less than you’re doing, but that might be a good idea. It’s a very complete grammar program on its own.
I hope I answered all your questions. The other replies have very good advice, too.
Thank you everybody for all the advice. I’ve been reading & rereading thru your responses.
If we would choose to do lit by reading an X amount of books, how do you go about recording for transcript purposes? Do you have anything to show for having done the work if for some reason you’d be asked?
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