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Would you like to help me with my high school writing plan for this year?
- This topic has 3 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 4 months ago by
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I’d like to stick closely to CM methods. I know that written narrations should take on different forms at this point. I’ve looked at a few writing programs, but nothing is calling to me. 🙂 So I’m hoping I can map it out myself, but I’m stuck. Here’s what I have so far.
1. We are using SCM for history which schedules 2 written narrations per week. At this point we are just doing retellings while working on grammar and style etc.
2. I was going to have my dd write a brief summary of each literature book she finishes, but that won’t happen every week.
3. We are using Master Books for science. Each lesson has short answer questions which I thought we’d use as paragraph type writing. We only do these lessons twice a week. There is also sketching involved in the assignments, so even though it’s a “worksheet”, it seems to follow creative narration type suggestions.
4. Each science lesson provides an optional essay topic, but no guidance. (“write a report about tornadoes”, etc.) I was trying to think how I could incorporate those into maybe a more technical essay format. But I haven’t figured out how often to assign them and how to break down the assignments. (I have a number of writing programs I could consult for essay formats)
5. I’m having her read through Elements of Structure and Style independently.
Does this feel high school level? Any suggestions for scheduling it throughout the week? Any other thoughts or tips?
Well, I don’t feel I am an expert, but I sort of did this last year with my son, so, for what it’s worth, I think your plan looks good. I required 2-3 written narrations per week, so if you have 2 from history plus another from either literature or science, that sounds good to me.
I required 3-5 paragraphs to start (about a page) and he naturally wrote more or less than that depending on the topic. Many of his narrations were essays (they naturally had an intro, a number of body paragraphs and a short conclusion; I also went over structure with him as he needed) and as we wrote across curriculum, his papers also naturally varied in style, depending on the topic: narrative, descriptive, expository and persuasive.
It felt more natural than what I was expecting it to.
Thank you Erin! I’m glad to hear from you. You and I tend to be on the same “page” often. 🙂
I’m pondering what you said about the narrations naturally taking on different forms. I hadn’t thought about that. I always worry about teaching the different forms. I wonder how much I’m over-thinking it.
Well, for example: if they read about a war and then write about it, it would naturally be either a narrative of events, or a description of a battle. Lots of topics from science are descriptive or expository. My son wrote one last year about the function of bones in the body. Or, after he read about evolution in biology, he wrote about the differences between micro and macro evolution, and that was a definition essay. The only type I really had to concentrate on doing was persuasive, but those were his favourite because we usually came up with those topics off the tops of our heads, like why summer is better than winter, or why geometry is more useful than algebra. He liked writing his opinions! So it felt kind of natural to go through the different types, because our subject matter kind of dictated it.
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