VB 9th Grade Lit compared to MA

[Esther]

Since you tagged me- can you elaborate on what you are saying would be good to do during Sodalitas? Meet together and come up with what? Just brainstorm ideas we have used with our own kids?

Well, like if they wanted to stand up an Essay class, but didn't have the bandwidth to do it with MA teachers they already have, they could use moms who have done it, except go over a few things to make sure people were using the same terminology and tools. We could brainstorm, for sure, but maybe also HLS teachers could superintend the process if it was to be official. Just spitballing.

[Teach05]

I vote for the 5-6 week summer intensive like is often done with real feedback and writing prompts open to middle school and up. I guarantee it will be waitlisted!

Jen_NH Can you PM me the MA teacher you had that good experience with?


FWIW, Rod & Staff English 8 Preparing for Usefulness (the grammar book) has a lot of what you're looking for when it comes to writing mechanics, paragraph development, editing. Here's a list from the table of contents:

Paragraph Unity and Topic Sentences
Achieving Paragraph Coherence
Methods of Paragraph Development (More...)
Proofreading Your Composition
Gathering Info About a Topic
Organizing Your Notes
Theme of a Story
Effective Style in a Story
Writing Effective Sentences: Unity and Coherence, Conciseness & Parallelism, Action, Emphasis, Variety (syntax)
Writing a Persuasive Argument
Writing a Descriptive Composition
Writing a Summary

The Core Skills Language Arts books also have a lot of untapped resources at the back when it comes to teaching the organization of writing (see Unit 5: Writing in grades 5-8).

As an aside- is Rod and Staff English ever formally scheduled? How did you decide what levels to use if not?

[Jen_NH]

R&S used to be used years ago but was replaced with Core Skills since Latin + R&S was overkill. They did still use it in 8th until a few years ago.

I agree with everyone that our students need to be formally taught how to write modern-day essays. They also need to be taught how to write research papers and do proper citations. Senior year is too late! My son is in HS Comp 2, on the Encomium level, and he’s losing points left and right over citations. No where in the MP curriculum has this been taught. I’m a bit incensed over it, to be honest. Even with all my experience writing essays and doing the citations, When I finished college and grad school, the Internet wasn’t a thing. I don’t know how to properly cite its use. Even with the website given in class to generate the citations, not every website fits neatly into that box. We are very frustrated here.

[Esther]

I took a spin through the IEW website- I see a "Coming 2023" course called University Ready Writing. They also have a little essay course for $49, which could be good. Our students who have come up in Classical Comp will always still need transition instruction, but it could be helpful. That would be a good one to check out next time someone sees their table at a conference!

[HartFamily06]

I came across this curriculum on the Well Trained Mind board:

https://www.lanternenglish.com

They offer essay writing and research paper instruction starting in middle school. They offer 8 week classes. It looks like it could be a good option to fill this gap.

[Kristi B]

A couple of other thoughts about writing instruction:

First, I confess to not making the most of the "enrichment" activities in the literature guides with my kids - until now, because I've realized that all of the writing enrichment activities that I often skipped with my daughter for lack of time in our schedule would have been SO helpful in teaching her how to write narrative or descriptive paragraphs. I am NOT skipping those with my son (currently in fifth grade), and I am reordering some of the assignments in the Core Curriculum Guide to make sure we have a full day to spend on enrichment activities.

Second, although we chose not to use the Core Language Arts books this year, I have saved the ones we used last year in part because there are some good writing exercises toward the end of each workbook, which we may use in the future (and we may go back to using them in the future just for this purpose).

Third, a non-MP source that I have heard good things about is this one: https://www.7sistershomeschool.com/p...glish-writing/

They include several affordable lesson sets specifically about how to write a research paper or a high school essay.

[Jen_NH]

We nned help with research papers. Fortunately, I have been able to teach the descriptive/narrative/compare, contrast essays. We need help with the mechanics of research papers. I suppose I should just order a paper copy of an MLA guide. I know the info is available online, but it's so easy to end up with the wrong "style." In Classical Comp, the teacher wants MLA. I was trying to help my son find the guide online to properly cite his works. We ended up in the Chicago Manual, which wasn't the right style, so points off...From the sound of things in class, none of these students have learned how to do this. Maybe it has been taught somewhere, but we've missed it...

I was thinking of getting R&S 8, but that probably doesn't have the online Internet info we need - how to cite a website - what to do when all the info required in a citation isn't there. For example, my son cited a museum website for Dante. It wasn't an article. We couldn't figure out who authored the museum website, so points off... We're beyond frustrated. His grades just keep going down because of things like this.

[Heather K]

You could check out Schaum's Quick Guide to Writing Great Research Papers. It's not so much a curriculum as a reference/resource, but it's easy to follow and has a lot of useful information. For citation help I always use Purdue OWL. I used both extensively while finishing by BA.

[Jen_NH]

You could check out Schaum's Quick Guide to Writing Great Research Papers. It's not so much a curriculum as a reference/resource, but it's easy to follow and has a lot of useful information. For citation help I always use Purdue OWL. I used both extensively while finishing by BA.

Thanks! Things have changed a lot in the last 30+ years! As I mentioned before, when I was in college and grad school, the Internet did not yet exist. All my research was in books, journals, microfilm, and microphiche. 😂 I was still typing papers on a typewriter. 😂