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High school writing
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I’m trying to get a feel for what writing should look like at the high school level across all subjects on a weekly basis.
Hi Jessica! If you have been using CM methods for a while now and your children have been consistently reading great literature and doing copy work and dictation along with oral and written narration, they shouldn’t need too much writing instruction at this point. I just finished using a short, sweet and inexpensive curriculum called Hands On Essays for my daughter. The videos were a little corny and we skipped the ones we didn’t feel were necessary but it was a great, simple way to to cover how to write the various forms of essays.
Now, I am working that into our regular curriculum by having her write various types of essays on different topics she is studying for school. For instance, she recently finished a biography of Queen Elizabeth and is now reading a biography on Mary, Queen of Scots. After she finished, she is going to write a compare and contrast essay concerning their characters.
She is taking Biology this year, I may assign her a research paper on something that is just touched on in her textbook.
After she finished reading A Scarlett Pimpernel for literature, I will have her write a narrative essay telling the story in her own words.
Persuasive essays involve more creative writing so I just let her pick a topic to write on. She has written persuasive essays for and against different presidential candidates, for instance.
Those are just some of the ways we are covering writing in the highschool years.
Sometimes I have her write a paper every day. Other times, I may require 1-3 a week. It varies here. For example, I’ve had her writing essays every day for a couple of months so I am giving her a break and only requiring one a week for the next several weeks.
Thanks Melanie! My son is currently finishing 9th grade. He’s been doing 1 weekly narration per week that is between 3-5 paragraphs. And he’s been working through EIW 10 to learn the different essay types. So he writes a bit each day with that. I think next year we are going to have to increase the amount of writing. Does your daughter help you pick the topics or do you? And do you require a certain length essay?
I usually give my daughter choices. Often I’ll suggest something to see if she balks. If she balks, I’ll give her a different choice most of the time, but sometimes I insist if I think the assignment is a particularly good one.
I encourage my daughter to type at least a 5 paragraph/500 wordish essay for the most part. I will accept shorter ones occasionally as long as it doesn’t become a habit. Since my daughter is a girl, her papers are usually longer.
I handled my son’s highschool years quite differently when it comes to writing. I only required one paper a week and it had to be at least 5 paragraphs/500 words as well. He disliked writing and it took him much longer to write his papers so I gave him a little more room. He also preferred to use outlines and other methods that caused his writing assignments to take longer. He would usually write the outline on Monday, 1/2 the paper on Tuesday, the other 1/2 on Wednesday. We would correct it together on Thursday and the final copy would be due on Friday.
My daughter is a natural writer (as girls often are) and she will easily sit down and give me a 700 word essay in 25 minutes. She doesn’t use outlines and we check it together which takes about 10 minutes more. The process comes much more easily for her so I require more from her.
I also usually allowed my son to write narrative/descriptive type essays because those were his favorite. I only required the other types of essays here and there from him.
Every child is different!
I think I’m going to add coming up with several essay topics to my lesson planning. It’s hard to come up with them on the spot sometimes. This is how it went today at my house for instance.
My daughter, “Mom, what do I have to write about today?”
Me, “Um……….I don’t know. A character analysis from the Scarlett Pimpernel?”
My daughter, “No, I need to finish reading the book first.”
Me, “Um…….A persuasive essay? Is there something you want to persuade someone to do or something you think everyone should do or like?”
My daughter, “Cats! Everyone should like cats!”
Me, “Sounds good to me! Get started.”
Lol. It doesn’t sound very intellectual does it? 🙂 I let her write on silly topics sometimes too. I just want her to write something on a regular basis so that the process of getting her thoughts down on paper using a certain essay format becomes easy for her. Next week’s essay will be more academic as a result of letting her slide with a silly topic this week.
For some reason I had the 500 words per page stuck in my head but I read something that made me go and count my daughter’s average words per page again and they are more like 200-300. I am so sorry for the confusion.
I’m grateful for your help. I’m so glad you told me about your son too. I think letting my son work on a paper for several days may be a better starting place that requiring it all in one day. I’ve heard the ACT requires their essay to be done in 40 minutes so that will be are long term goal!
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