IT’S FINALLY OVER–CO-OP

I’m planning material for next year’s class. I will be teaching American History and Literature to 9th graders–two hours per week. I think it will be fun. We’re using Notgrass American History, The Grammar of Poetry, and Short Stories in American Literature. The students will be reading the Notgrass literature selections as part of the History work. For literature, they’ll be studying the short stories and analyzing these. We’ll spend a 1/2 semester on poetry analysis. And we’ll finish up the year with something like The Red Badge of Courage, so that they can analyze a longer work.

The reason for this is many, but the greatest benefit is that I don’t have to read a whole bunch of material during the summer and during the school year to be able to teach them literature. I wish I had time to do more, but I don’t. I still have to keep up with my own children’s work at home. I try to read as much of their material as I can during the summer. I’m still writing my own material.

So we’ll be analyzing many of these short stories per the Teaching the Classics material. It’s a great program.

Overall, besides the benefit to me and my time, I think this will be much better for the students as well. They will cover more authors, more selections, and hopefully, will have a clearer view of the various literary periods.

I have to admit, I have not checked to see if the book is arranged by literary periods. This is my next task. I assume it is; but, if it isn’t, I’ll have to rearrange the order in which we tackle the stories.

And I don’t know about everyone else, but I think shorter works are easier to work with especially for 9th and 10th graders. They’ll learn the techniques of analysis much easier,. They shouldn’t be overwhelmed by the reading material itself. So the longer works of Notgrass are basically becoming readers for us in the vein of the Sonlight readers.

TEACHING CHILDREN TO READ

It’s so funny, but it’s taken me 3 children to really feel like I know how to teach a child to read. It’s really not that hard, but I didn’t quite do it right the first two times.

Child #1 I overtaught. I read to her for hours a day, since she was my first for a while. And when I taught her to read, I used a boxed program. Well, I overtaught her. I didn’t realize this until it was summertime and her 8 yo cousin showed her some books and her reading took off. At that point, I had only covered long vowel sounds with her. I was planning on doing blends next. We never did get to those blends.

Child #2 I undertaught. I made the assumption that all I had to do was teach him the same way I taught her. It didn’t work. I should have tried Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons with him, because the traditional route did not work well with him. So, eventually, his reading finally took off when he started reading the bible with his father at night.

Child #3 is doing great. I started with 100 Easy Lessons up to about lesson 70. At that we switched to The Original Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. That was okay, but way too detailed and broken down for me. So I went through my materials and found some beginning readers that I really liked. They were by Christian Liberty Press. We went through all 4 of those books, and his reading was great. We just read through them, one page at a time.

After that, I came across the Webster’s speller, and we began covering the syllables. From there his confidence has just grown leaps and bounds. He is now working on decoding 2 syllable words. And we are just simply reading through the tables. After 2 syllable words, then 3.

He is having so much fun reading. He feels like a big kid. He reads everyday for fun. And he is even reading to his 3 yo little brother.

It was so cute yesterday when I caught the two of them reading. The 5 year old (6 next week) reads the page and the 3 year old narrates it back to him. It was so encouraging to see them practicing, on their own, what I have been trying to do with them for the past few months.

I can’t say I am very consistent. In fact, I can only handle focusing on one subject intensely at a time. So since January, the intense focus for my 5 year old has been reading. Before that it was manuscript writing. This summer the whole family will be focusing on Spanish. But while we have one area of intense focus, we do keep plodding along in math and the other subjects, just not with the same intensity. They’re scheduled and we do it. And not every child has the same intense focus.

For my 10 yo daughter, it’s outlining. For my 9 yo son, it’s reading. And for my 5 yo it’s reading as well. Spanish for everyone during the summer and in the fall, it will all switch again. Probably Latin for the older two. Math for the younger tw

MORE ON GRADING–I DON’T KNOW HOW I FORGOT THIS INFO

Obviously, I was in a hurry. But a few posts earlier, I wrote up the grading rubric that I’m using with my students at co-op.

Before implementing this scale, all of the elements addressed were taught. And the students received grades for their work, but over time I noticed that there wasn’t much improvement on the part of half of my class of students.

Now, I am getting emails from some parents that want to thank me for the improvements they see in their children’s papers. I wish I could say that I was receiving this type of feedback from everyone, but that simply wouldn’t be true.

About half of my students aren’t progressing as much as I would have liked them too. They are improving, but they keep reverting to the same mistakes over and over.

So, I decided to purposely give lower grades to all of the students for rough drafts. The drafts are checked by me for the elements I listed in the previous post. After they receive their initial grade, I give them their papers back to revise and edit. After the edits are complete, they turn in both papers. (I have had a couple of papers turned in to me twice with no revisions. To eliminate this temptation, they have to turn in the first draft and the revised paper.)

The second time around, I regrade the paper and when the edits are complete, they get at least a 10 point increase. I’m not sure how much I want to give them an increase, because I’m sure that some “thinking” child will throw together an awful paper over a one hour time period and let me edit to my heart’s content, with the hope that I will point out all of his or her mistakes for him or her and thereby eliminate the need to self-edit.

So I’m thinking a ten point increase for edits, with an option for extra credit for the extremely hard worker.

I came across a blog somewhere with a pretty profound thought. He said, and I paraphrase,

–Children will learn what is needed for testing–

Yes, I think that all of us do this in areas that aren’t our passion. So I’m trying to teach to the reluctant writer, the student that doesn’t want to put pen to paper. And I’ve got to think of all the ways he is going to try and get out of it.

See, this is one of those issues that is different between co-op and home. At home, there is no easy way out. My kids do it my way, because I’m involved with every step of the process. At co-op, I’m having to learn how to be involved in as many steps as possible, without being there.

It’s tough, but it’s worth it.

HOW I DECIDE WHEN MY CHILDREN CAN WRITE THEIR NARRATIONS

Honestly, for my daughter, I can’t remember. But for my son, I’ve learned a few things.

A couple of years ago, his sentences were structured all crazy. He also narrated in such a way that he’d miss out on some important details. Sometimes he narrated in everyday common, informal words. I knew he wasn’t ready.

Now, he narrates in a such a way that the structure of his sentences sound just right. In fact they sound very, very good. He has varied sentence beginnings and he uses words properly and formally.

Now, he has to learn to condense the story down more. I’m trying to have him summarize the beginning, the middle, and the end. Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And every child can tell you what those are. And my 9 year old can tell me what those are too, but to identify what those are and to word those three parts with transitions so that they flow together, even though the details aren’t there, does take another level of skill. That’s what I’m working on with him.

My daughter is already there.

She has moved on to creating an outline from her summation. I’ll probably talk about that tomorrow.

THE PROBLEM WITH ADHERING TO SET SCOPES AND SEQUENCES

Okay, I realize it’s not entirely problematic to adhere to a set lay out in any subject area. It’s absolutely beneficial to do it in math, for instance. But, from my personal experience, more often than not, a curriculum that is so laid out where it is planned to T in a skill subject can be detrimental and not beneficial to some children. The reason? Well, not all children are learning at the same rate as the schedule.

There is no strict rule that says that all first graders have to be able to read x number of words or at x level by the end of the school year. Those reading levels and such are just guides, and not everybody follows them.

After having 4 kids, I’ve finally come to understand this. My kids are so different. Why would I judge my 9 yo son’s reading ability compared to where his sister was when she was 9? He is a different person, he has different interest, and he has different eyes. He even has an eye tracking problem with one eye that can give him headaches and make reading in the car almost impossible.

And my daughter? She reads a book a day. She loves to read. But should every child read as much as she does? Absolutely not. She is not a super active child and has some problems with her feet. That slowed her down with walking and all other physical milestones. By being behind in some areas, she has gravitated toward what she loves.

When I use a curriculum, I try to tailor it to meet my child’s needs. For instance, if the math lessons are too redundant, we speed it up and skip some problems. If the math is too hard, I pull out a workbook that has more practice problems in the trouble area, and we park there for a while. I let each of my children dictate their pace of learning.

The only areas where I see there may not be a need to do this are in content areas. There is a lot of history and science information that can be learned. And I’ve learned to adjust what we’re doing for my daughter by giving her 5 books to read to my son’s 2 books to read. (My daughter is almost 11, son 9 1/2)

I like curricula that I call open-ended. Those that present my children with as much information as possible, and then allows them to spew out what they can. That is why I like narrations so much, no child fails at narrations.

For us this is really working. My daughter told me this weekend that the Trojans eventually got their revenge. When Aeneas escaped, his grand children eventually founded Rome. And Rome eventually defeated the Greeks.

She also came next to me yesterday, sat by me, and said, “You know, Hitler and Haman were a lot alike. They both wanted to destroy the Jews.” She had just finished reading about Persia in Ancient History and last year we studied modern history. Evidently, it’s all starting to come together for her.

Now if she were a few years older, I’d have her write a comparison contrast paper on Haman and Hitler. Shucks, I’d do it today if she knew how to outline well enough, do the research, and then write it. Problem is, she can probably write it, but she is still learning to outline, and she hasn’t done much research other just reading.

(Sorry for the grammar, the country in me started coming out)

IEW IN A CO-OP SETTING

I’ve been teaching IEW for a couple of years now, specifically SWIC. And I’ve come to realize that the stylistic elements are really a great part of the program. Without them, my students tend to make all of their sentences sound the same.

But after working up to the 5 paragraph essay for these students (mostly 8th graders), I have decided to grade their papers based on the dress-ups, without requiring a specific number of the dress-ups. If all of their sentences begin the same, they’ll loose points.

Also, to help with getting the students to edit their papers, I’ve come up with the idea of giving purposefully low grades. In order for them to receive a better grade, one they feel they truly deserve, they have to make the edits I suggest, which often involve adding more details to their writing.

This seems to be working. Teaching in a co-op is difficult because I only see the students once a week. Not only that, but some parents are intimately involved whereas others aren’t involved at all.

It’s a cross between a classroom and a home school setting. But I think I’m finally developing a method of getting the students to rework their papers, without me or their parents having to constantly remind them. The low grade is the reminder.

LOST TOOLS OF WRITING

I heard Mr. Kern speak and it was fantastic! He is an awesome presenter and, from what I saw of him, an excellent teacher. He really understands children and he understands writing. His program is not only classical in nature, what most of us want for our children, but it is easy to understand, easy to implement, and easy to apply across the curriculum.

His program focuses on invention, something most programs don’t teach. The Lost Tools of Writing actually teaches students how to write from their own ideas. Shucks (this is the country in me coming out), it actually teaches students how to think. If I had to compare it to another program on the market, it is the writing version of Teaching the Classics. Teaching students to study history in the context of ideas.

Further below you will see a middle school writing sequence that I recommended for our co-op. But in addition to that I have my children doing writing assignments at home. We will continue to use my preference at home in addition to my other preference at coop. (I believe in using two multiple resources for school, whenever possible. I may post about this later.)

For my own children at home, we’re doing the following sequence for history, in addition to the co-op work. Some of this is redundant. And this works because we don’t do history at co-op. I like our rotation and don’t want to change it.

Elementary level (1-4)
Write from History (1st through 4th)
Writing Tales (my 4th grader will be doing this at co-op, so he will be getting both programs)

Middle school or Logic stage (5-8)
Write from History(5th and 6th only, my daughter is occasionally rewriting the narratives into 3 paragraph papers–we’re continuing to do copywork and dictation and studying grammar)
Lost Tools of Writing (7th and 8th, for use with history rather than literature which she will cover at co-op)
Institute for Excellence in Writing will be used by co-op for Language Arts at Co-op

High School (not sure)
For High School I’m not sure because we will have to look at College requirements and state requirements for graduation.

MIDDLE SCHOOL WRITING SEQUENCE

I edited this today for typos. I had previously written this post in an email and then cut out the portions I wanted to put on my blog and pasted them here. Sorry that I did such a poor job of slicing it together. Hopefully it reads a little better now.

Here is a recommendation I came up with for my co-op on middle school writing. I reviewed a lot of writing programs and for various reasons narrowed the list down to what is here.

Our co-op may use Writing Tales 2 for grade 4 next year, but I had to make recommendations for the students assuming that most of them have not had any formal writing during elementary. My coop might go with something other than WT, though. I’m not really in the elementary dept., so I don’t know which direction they’re leaning. (They did decide on Writing Tales)

Also, I tried to introduce Classical Writing and it was too intimidating. I don’t know enough about the Lost Tools of Writing to recommend it. I may buy it next year and try it at home.

So I was left mainly with IEW. Many of our teachers own the program already, so the cost isn’t much of a factor nor is the learning curve. The big thing is that I recommended that writing paragraphs be taught in grade 5 but not required across the curriculum until grade 6. In grade 6, they’ll be expected to know how to write one-paragraph papers for history and science, but in their literature class they’ll be writing 3-paragraph papers. In grade 7, 3-paragraph papers will be required across the curriculum, but they’ll be learning the 5-paragraph essay format in literature.

High school is set because our co-op is matching state requirements.

Again, elementary is completely out my area. For elementary, I hope we use FLL for grades 1 and 2 and then Writing Tales for 3 and 4. I would have preferred that we use Write from History, but I don’t have the level our co-op needs available for sale yet. This is also why we’re doing history at home rather than at co-op. We’re on a different rotation than the co-op and I don’t want to mess up our rotation. But co-op is so much more than history, we love it.

But here is my recommendation,

Grade 4
Goal: Introduce grammar and have students able to write in complete sentences.
Writing: Need to know the fundamentals of writing a complete sentence. Copywork, narration, and dictation as in Write from History works well.
Grammar: Begin Growing with Grammar 4 or teach grammar from copywork. I’ve done both and they both work well.

Grade 5
Goal: Outlining a paragraph is the most important goal for this age.
Recommendation:
Writing: Wordsmith Apprentice or Writing Strands 4 (* Note)
Grammar: Growing with Grammar 5
Cross Curriculum: Assign students homework to write in complete sentences in
history and science, not short answers or fill in the blank. Assign simple outlining exercises
alternating weeks in these two classes.
Grade 6
Goal: Practice writing 1-paragraph papers in each class and learn to write 3 paragraph papers in their writing class.
Recommendations:
Writing: SWI B teaches up through the 3 Paragraph paper
Grammar: Taught with Growing with Grammar 6
Cross Curriculum: Assign paragraphs in history and science that don’t have to be graded by the teachers. EX: A paragraph of interesting facts about the culture of Russia or the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly. Continue outlining sections of their assigned reading as method to note taking, as well as writing skills.
Grade 7
Goal: Practice writing 3paragraph papers in history and science and learn to write 5 paragraph papers in writing class.
Recommendation:
Writing: SWI C, or SICC which continues where SWI B left off. Teach up through the super
essay. Assign The Lively Art of Writing as mandatory reading.
Grammar: Taught with Growing with Grammar 7
Cross Curriculum: Assign outlining in science and history to help with studying. Assign
3 paragraph papers in history and science.

Grade 8
Goals: Begin writing small research papers, writing thesis states, quoting, and citations.
Recommendation:
Writing: Student’s should begin working on research. SWI C taught the super essay for
research, now it’s time to write term papers which are simply 2 or more 5 paragraph essays linked
together. Also need, Jensen’s Format Writing, only the unit on teaching the research paper and
citations and all that stuff. IEW doesn’t teach that in SWI C, I don’t think.
Grammar: Growing with Grammar 8 (last year of grammar instruction)
Cross Curriculum: Research or Term papers, one in science, one in history, and one in Starting
Points. Include citations and quoting. Assign 6 smaller papers, like 1-3 pages each.
No citations needed during grade 8, except in class teaching the material. Use Starting Points to teach the citation aspect.

In Grade 9 begin requiring formal research papers with references and citations. Maybe 1 in each class.

I tried to recommend the least expensive material to acquire the skills needed. IEW’s strength is in how it teaches students to structure their ideas.

For students interested in creative writing, a creative writing elective should be taught for 5 and 6th combined and for 7th and 8th combined and then one for highschool students, or whatever would meet the student body needs.

*Note: Wordsmith Apprentice seems easier than Writing Strands 4. If students are coming from a program like Writing Tales 2, then they would be better served by using Writing Strands or Classical Writing Homer if they want to stick with the progymnasmata. But for students who haven’t used a rigorous program like Writing Tales 2, then Wordsmith Apprentice is the better choice to help them bridge the gap and get them writing in well constructed sentences and paragraphs by the end of the year.

KISS GRAMMAR–FREE AND FANTASTIC!

KISS Grammar It recommends teaching grammar as I suggested in Write from History. This actually comes as a surprise to me because I just found this website. The exercises are from real sentences and they are cumulative. I love this!

But he goes much further than I did or even most curricula does on the subject. He teaches children real grammar. He’s a college professor and loves the subject. This is a fantastic–FREE!–curriculum. Check it out.

OLD COPYBOOKS VS. WRITE FROM HISTORY

The old books–Classical Reading and Writing Copybooks–are still for sale, most of them, but I hate to link to them because they haven’t been upgraded like the new books–Write from History.

Here are the differences–

1. Write from History has a page for written summations, the copybooks don’t.
2. Write from History has 3 areas for writing the models per story, the copybooks have 4
3. Write from History has two separate models per reading selection rather than only 1. (This is because Charlotte Mason used different models for copywork and dictation. So I’m providing extra models in the appendix for those moms that follow Ms. Mason to a “T”.
4. Eventually, I will have student pages available for Write from History with different font options. (The ancients books actually are available in different fonts, right now.)
5. Write from History is cheaper because I always lower the prices during this time of year, and because it has fewer pages. The print cost at LULU increased about $4.00 per book last month.
6. The old copybooks for the beginning grammar students are still available for year 3 and year 4 in the old format. I am reworking the ancients book for the beginning grammar students right now. I’m removing the primary source documents and replacing that chapter with Aesop’s fables. More appropriate for grades 1 and 2.

The old copybooks for the upper grades are still available for year 3 in all of the fonts at the first link below. Year 4 and Year 1 for the upper grammar stage are now retitled Write from History, Level 2. The stories are all the same, but the organization, the instruction, and the grammar guide in the back are different. And those differences really make a difference. The books are more flexible and cheaper.

If anyone can’t wait for the updates and is willing to pay the 3 or 4 extra dollars for the old books, here is the link to all of my books at LULU–about 3 pages. And here is the link to the old Classical Reading and Writing site that, I believe, will still get you where you want to go.