FOR THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS, I’VE BEEN WORKING ON CLASSICAL WRITING HOMER

I’m trying to make it work. I didn’t want to buy another writing curriculum, and I was very close to doing just that. I just couldn’t handle flipping three books with 4 kids. I know some people have 2 or 3 times the number of children that I do, but I think my last 2 are really the equivalent of about 5. So as far as work goes, I actually have 7.

Here is how CW Homer is structured. Level A has 20 weeks that cover the skills up through Skill Level 5. The curriculum is structured such that: Day 1 covers literary analysis, Day 2 covers words, Day 3 covers sentences, and day 4 covers paragraphs. Every 3 weeks or so, students progress from one skill level to the next. Within each skill level there are suggested lessons to teach the material for that skill level. I used these lesson suggestions to guide me (sometimes I changed them) as to what to cover for each day.

Basically, I used the core manual. Everything needed is in the core. On the TWTM message boards, I’ve read that to use Homer effectively, one must read the core manual in depth. For me that wasn’t enough. I had to outline each days level of work to see what the goals were for each skill level. Also, where Harvey’s Elementary Grammar was used, I used GWG. I didn’t match them exactly, but I used GWG where I could to teach the concept being introduced. After the initial introduction, I just relied on the word and sentence exercises (days 2 and 3–I skipped the paragraph lessons for day 4) to reinforce the concept.

The material in Homer is excellent. I think it has been well worth my time to work on it for my daughter. The end result was writing models taken from my copybooks, which means they’re history related, followed by all of the necessary tables, grammar lessons, and worksheets needed for diagramming and doing the six sentence shuffle ( a beautiful writing exercise). For the most part, my dd has a workbook that is more easily used independently. I know she’ll still need help, but now, at least, I don’t need help. And the greatest plus, me thinks, is that the material is just not that hard. I had to really study by outlining and taking notes what the educational goals were for each lesson. With that done, I could tailor the lesson for my easily frustrated daughter. I worked her in gradually to the 6 sentence shuffle. I have her doing less work, but in the end she’ll be covering the same material in a much more gentle method with much less frustration and more independence.

I finished up through skill level 4. This means that I have to add 4 or so more lessons to the end of the year. I’ll complete these at Spring Break. And over the summer, I’ll be going through the same process for CW Homer B to take us from Skill Level 6 to Skill Level 10. I’ve fallen in love with the curriculum. I just had to F O R C E it to work for us.