Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

This topic has 6 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 13 years ago by missingtheshire.

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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April 25, 2012 at 4:10 am
pinkchopsticks
Participant
We recently switched to more of a CM approach for our homeschool. My oldest (8th grade) has been doing written narration and writes fairly well. One of her assignments this year has been to write a research paper, but the program really doesn’t give any instruction on how to accomplish this. I am looking for a program that teaches research paper writing in a step by step fashion, but I don’t really want a full-blown, whole year language arts program. I don’t really like the set-up of the AG research paper. Are there any other options that you would recommend? Some sort of research paper how-to guide?
Thanks,
Pink
April 25, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Bookworm
Participant
Sorry, all I’ve used is the AG packet. I found it very helpful.
April 25, 2012 at 1:11 pm
missingtheshire
Member
Have a look at the EpiKardia research paper course…it is a semester long and we loved it…very easy to implement and explained thoroughly. My daughers found it extremely good and have enjoyed all the EpiKardia materials including the Essay course. Here is a link
http://epikardia.com/the_steps_to_writing_a_research_paper.html
Hope this helps, Linda
April 25, 2012 at 2:31 pm
pinkchopsticks
Participant
Thanks Linda…I will look into EpiKardia. Bookworm…I took another look at the videos on AG essay and research courses. It does sound very interesting and looks like it may fit our needs. I guess I passed over the curriculum the first time around when I couldn’t find any written samples. The price is definitely right.
So I have a few more questions since this will be my first year stepping away from a packaged curriculum. With my oldest starting hs it makes me a bit nervous. All those pre-packaged curriculums have such organized plans! I want to make sure that I am covering everything that she needs to know. Writing and language arts are a bit intimidating for me (not my strength). So, I guess I am looking for advice on how you plan the 4 years of Language arts? We plan to do grammar and spelling wisdom. I know she needs essay writing, research paper writing and we will continue narration. At some point I want to do speech. Am I missing anything? How have you planned out the highschool years?
Thanks,
Pink
April 25, 2012 at 3:00 pm
missingtheshire
Member
We used EpiKardia for Essay, Public Speaking and Research Paper, we also did a literary analysis course from Adam Andrews in 8th grade so they could utilize those skills during high school. We read a lot of literature, covering British, American, World and did narrations on those and essays. We also continued with copywork – in high school we did not do spelling as the girls are very good at spelling but I did have them keep a vocabulary notebook so that when words showed up in their reading that they were not familiar with, they would write it down and look it up later and write the definitions etc. We also studied Shakespeare, his life, times and plays etc as an elective course. That was about it…and it worked well.
April 25, 2012 at 4:33 pm
pinkchopsticks
Participant
Thanks Missingtheshire! It helps to see what others have done. I am having fun planning resources for next year. 🙂
April 25, 2012 at 4:35 pm
missingtheshire
Member
Pink, it is fun planning and getting things sorted, and don’t worry if something doesn’t work too well, you can adjust as you go, I did that – better to have something work than to be a total struggle…good luck and enjoy.