A FINAL realization on writing curriculums

I am once again having a difficult time with our writing curriculum and I feel that I am at the point of no return. KM is not complaining and does seem to be gaining a good deal of confidence, so those are pluses, but I just really feel like every single writing program out there is so unadaptable. They all teach the same sorts of writing, but in different orders and completly disconnected from any actual content areas. None of it truly makes sense to me, so how on earth am I suppose to help her understand it.

I had decided over the summer to pull back on any structured writing books, we would use the essay response questions in STOW and SOS, to do content directed writing work. However by the time the fall session rolled around I had caved in. KM had mentioned that she had taken a look at one of her friend's Spectrum Writing books and thought it might help her improve her skills. I went online, found it and ordered it. This was my first mistake. If I was going to not do a structured program, why on earth did I order another workbook? Well she had asked for it, it was inexpensive and I thought well she is thinking about it, so maybe I should be taking it more seriously. This then led me to the oh, I can supplement with this and maybe that will also help add to it, which in turn takes you down that slippery curriculum overload slope.

As I have been looking at the 6 different middle school program books that I still have in my house for writing ~ I say still because I don't even want to think about the number that I actually had last spring when I cleaned out the homeschooling book cupboard ~ I came to the aforementioned realization of: “They are all the same and NONE of them make sense.” I then really began to think about how I go about writing something, not that I am an expert in this area by any means, but I do feel that I can get my point across when I put my mind to it....I know, I know, there are some ramblings here and there, but let's just ignore those! I managed to achieve a perfect score on my essays for the GED, had two papers published and never got lower than a B+ on a research or term paper in college, despite NEVER having passed a high school English class.

When I have an idea for a blog entry, I just type. I don't systematically plan things out. When I was in college I did the same thing. When I had to answer an essay question or had to write a research paper, I would just start writing. I would get out as much as I possibly could and then I would edit, move things around, change things here and there, and make it better, clearer, and more concise. I didn't do venn diagrams, writing process trees, story webs, or anything of the like. I just researched and typed. As I sit here right now, I am just typing.....no preset direction, other than to get my point across.

So why do I feel the need to have my daughter do all of these ridiculous things that I DON'T GET?

It is another one of those tapes that blares in my head. You know the ones I mean. The ones that say things like - “all kids should be in school”, “Kids should be seen and not heard”, “What do you mean there is no oversight?”, “WHAT ABOUT SOCIALIZATION?” We all have them. They all say different things for various reasons, be it culture, background, religious beliefs, or some other random reason. While I have managed to destroy most of these wretched thought patterns, some still seem to creep back in and get their tape around the spindals causing a cacophony of negative statements and ideas flooding into my ears and causing anxiety to spread through my entire being!

I am done. I will not be doing any more writing curriculums. Though I will keep the few writing resource books that we have around the house, things that cover grammar and research paper guidelines, I will be getting rid of all the curriculum guides and workbooks. I will encourage my child to express herself on paper and assist her in improving answers to open ended and essay questions in a manner that is clear and concise, but that is IT!  

Write Guide Review

I was contacted at the beginning of the summer by Write Guide.com's founder to do a review of their site and was given a one month trial account for my daughter to try it out. As writing is the most stressful subject in our household and the program sounded intriguing, I thought we would give it a whirl ~ I also managed to get KM to agree to try it.

Here is some company info -

WriteGuide.com, also known as Ludwig Education Services, LLC, is a small, family-owned business that serves homeschool families and adult learners, providing them with their own private writing teachers. We also work with many independent-study charter schools in California and Alaska. Founded in 1998, we remain devoted to providing homeschoolers with daily, 100% individualized writing instruction. To learn more about our teaching approach and methodologies, please review our Homepage, and our company's philosophy and mission statement. All schools, businesses, and individuals are welcome to contact our main office via the information on our Contact Us page.

What to Expect During the Course

Every time a student or parent writes to his or her writing consultant, the writing consultant will always respond within 24 hours (unless it's a weekend or holiday), providing whatever lessons or feedback are necessary to help the student move forward with the project. Enough instruction will be provided to give the student about half an hour to 45 minutes of work per day, so that the student can then write back to his or her writing consultant to receive more instruction. Ideally, students should write to their writing consultants every day, Monday through Friday, so that they'll receive five sets of individualized lessons, feedback, and instruction per week. Students can take as much time as they need before responding to their writing consultant, but please be aware that the consultant won't write back until the student has responded to his or her last message! Upon hearing back from his writing consultant, a student should complete the assigned work, and should respond with a message and a draft of his paper. Parents can also send one message per day to their child's writing consultant, in addition to the message or paper that the student sends. We like to view our course as a partnership between two teachers (the parent and the writing consultant), and so frequent parent input is both anticipated and appreciated.

I started out by describing KM and the issues that she has had with various writing programs as well as the situations that had occurred in PS. Then they assign a teacher based on this information. When we first were contacted by the teacher I was unaware that they hadn't passed the information on, but expected me to reiterate it. This made no sense to me because I had put a lot of time and thought into the description of my daughter because I thought the teacher would be seeing it and using it to set up a plan of action for her. Instead once the teacher was chosen she contacts both the child and parent through the mywriteguide portal not knowing anything about the child(ren).

There are a lot of really great options available - see four approaches, about midway down the page - and I choose for the teacher to decide what she thought would be a good place for KM to start, given her reluctance to write and it was decided that she should work on a simple report. The teacher did a great job of getting KM to pick a topic, ready to research and explained how to collect bibliography information thoroughly. She then gave her an extremely well thought out outline to use to organize her information. KM decided to research Neptune and then, after researching and with the help of the teacher, decided to focus specifically on the Voyager 2's missions and info collected on Neptune.

We lost a day of the program because KM and I were unaware that she had to respond to the teacher after her first initial "Hi there" email in order for the teacher to email her back. While I understand the want and need to ensure the anonymity and security of our children on the Internet, as well as keeping a record for the program and teachers' safety, but this portal thing is a bit of overkill in my opinion. The teachers "can't" send a message to the student unless the student replies to the previous message. I really think it would be beneficial if the system emailed you when you had new messages, there were 3 days that she had to keep checking back in throughout the day in order to see if she had gotten a message yet and didn't get responses until very late in the day.

The parents have to log into there own portal in order to see what is going on as well, which while easy enough to do, is just another thing to check on. The other drawback to this is that they can only respond back and forth once in a 24 hour period. KM is very much a seize the moment type of learner and when she has a question she wants the answer fairly quickly. This lapse in time caused a lot of momentum to be lost. I felt like I had to hold back from stepping in in order to see what was going to happen and I have to say it was agonizing for me as she was putting a lot of effort in, but then had to wait for so long to get the responses or feedback that she needed to move on to the next step.

Things get hectic in the summer and in case you haven't been to my blog lately, they were totally kooky here for a bit. So there was a Monday to Thursday stretch that KM didn't log into her account and I was surprised when I logged into mine that the teacher hadn't sent me a note asking anything about whether she was okay or if she was having trouble and afraid to ask or anything. The program runs on a month to month payment basis and if your child is missing a good junk of days, I would kinda expect some sort of acknowledgement to the lack of participation.

KM worked very hard on this report and she really seemed to be understanding what the teacher was saying. I helped her stay on task as I was hopeful that she would complete the entire paper before the month was up. Even with some of the previous hurdles, she did manage to keep progressing. On the day that the program was to expire, the teacher sent a message asking her to send her final draft and any last questions in her final email. KM was excited to have it completed, get final feedback and wanted to know how to complete the bibliography, however the program email interface did not allow us to do so. If I had know that this was how the program worked I would have had her email the full draft the day before with her question about the bibliography, instead of just the tweaks she had made to her conclusion paragraph. I emailed the office in regards to this and they gave a very timely response of "Thanks for writing! Your course was scheduled to end today, but we're going to extend it by a day so that Mrs. xxx can review the final draft. " which I was happy with. I do not however know if this is something that would have been done for everyone or just something that was done for me because they knew I was reviewing the site ~ I try to not be cynical, but the person that responded was the person that initially contacted me to do the review.

The teacher was very encouraging and really gave some great feedback, formats and suggestions in a very positive way. I think that in theory this program is a good idea and although it was a great learning experience for KM, she picked up some good tips, and the final paper that she produced was far better than she or I expected, it just isn't for us. I am super picky about where I spend my money and with my homeschooling dollars even more so. It might be a good fit for more advanced and/or independent writers, but from the stand point of the parent of a reluctant writer it just doesn't seem to be what we need. It must have some sort of staying power that I am missing as they have been around since 1998. I think that the biggest issue is that I feel if I am going to be paying $75 a month for a writing tutor I don't want to have to teach writing at all. With this method and the lack of instant information, guidance and direction I think I would have to step in far more than I would be willing to.

Thanks to Write Guide for allowing us the opportunity to review your product!

Write Guide - Official Review ~~~ RECYCLED POST

I have decided to recycle some of my reviews in order to help out those that are looking for resources and information for the upcoming "academic year".
This review was originally posted on 9/18/10.

I was contacted at the beginning of the summer by Write Guide.com's founder to do a review of their site and was given a one month trial account for my daughter to try it out. As writing is the most stressful subject in our household and the program sounded intriguing, I thought we would give it a whirl ~ I also managed to get KM to agree to try it.
Here is some company info -

WriteGuide.com, also known as Ludwig Education Services, LLC, is a small, family-owned business that serves homeschool families and adult learners, providing them with their own private writing teachers. We also work with many independent-study charter schools in California and Alaska. Founded in 1998, we remain devoted to providing homeschoolers with daily, 100% individualized writing instruction. To learn more about our teaching approach and methodologies, please review our Homepage, and our company's philosophy and mission statement. All schools, businesses, and individuals are welcome to contact our main office via the information on our Contact Us page.

What to Expect During the Course

Every time a student or parent writes to his or her writing consultant, the writing consultant will always respond within 24 hours (unless it's a weekend or holiday), providing whatever lessons or feedback are necessary to help the student move forward with the project. Enough instruction will be provided to give the student about half an hour to 45 minutes of work per day, so that the student can then write back to his or her writing consultant to receive more instruction. Ideally, students should write to their writing consultants every day, Monday through Friday, so that they'll receive five sets of individualized lessons, feedback, and instruction per week. Students can take as much time as they need before responding to their writing consultant, but please be aware that the consultant won't write back until the student has responded to his or her last message! Upon hearing back from his writing consultant, a student should complete the assigned work, and should respond with a message and a draft of his paper. Parents can also send one message per day to their child's writing consultant, in addition to the message or paper that the student sends. We like to view our course as a partnership between two teachers (the parent and the writing consultant), and so frequent parent input is both anticipated and appreciated.

I started out by describing KM and the issues that she has had with various writing programs as well as the situations that had occurred in PS. Then they assign a teacher based on this information. When we first were contacted by the teacher I was unaware that they hadn't passed the information on, but expected me to reiterate it. This made no sense to me because I had put a lot of time and thought into the description of my daughter because I thought the teacher would be seeing it and using it to set up a plan of action for her. Instead once the teacher was chosen she contacts both the child and parent through the mywriteguide portal not knowing anything about the child(ren).

There are a lot of really great options available - see four approaches, about midway down the page - and I choose for the teacher to decide what she thought would be a good place for KM to start, given her reluctance to write and it was decided that she should work on a simple report. The teacher did a great job of getting KM to pick a topic, ready to research and explained how to collect bibliography information thoroughly. She then gave her an extremely well thought out outline to use to organize her information. KM decided to research Neptune and then, after researching and with the help of the teacher, decided to focus specifically on the Voyager 2's missions and info collected on Neptune.

We lost a day of the program because KM and I were unaware that she had to respond to the teacher after her first initial "Hi there" email in order for the teacher to email her back. While I understand the want and need to ensure the anonymity and security of our children on the Internet, as well as keeping a record for the program and teachers' safety, but this portal thing is a bit of overkill in my opinion. The teachers "can't" send a message to the student unless the student replies to the previous message. I really think it would be beneficial if the system emailed you when you had new messages, there were 3 days that she had to keep checking back in throughout the day in order to see if she had gotten a message yet and didn't get responses until very late in the day.

The parents have to log into there own portal in order to see what is going on as well, which while easy enough to do, is just another thing to check on. The other drawback to this is that they can only respond back and forth once in a 24 hour period. KM is very much a seize the moment type of learner and when she has a question she wants the answer fairly quickly. This lapse in time caused a lot of momentum to be lost. I felt like I had to hold back from stepping in in order to see what was going to happen and I have to say it was agonizing for me as she was putting a lot of effort in, but then had to wait for so long to get the responses or feedback that she needed to move on to the next step.

Things get hectic in the summer and in case you haven't been to my blog lately, they were totally kooky here for a bit. So there was a Monday to Thursday stretch that KM didn't log into her account and I was surprised when I logged into mine that the teacher hadn't sent me a note asking anything about whether she was okay or if she was having trouble and afraid to ask or anything. The program runs on a month to month payment basis and if your child is missing a good junk of days, I would kinda expect some sort of acknowledgement to the lack of participation.

KM worked very hard on this report and she really seemed to be understanding what the teacher was saying. I helped her stay on task as I was hopeful that she would complete the entire paper before the month was up. Even with some of the previous hurdles, she did manage to keep progressing. On the day that the program was to expire, the teacher sent a message asking her to send her final draft and any last questions in her final email. KM was excited to have it completed, get final feedback and wanted to know how to complete the bibliography, however the program email interface did not allow us to do so. If I had know that this was how the program worked I would have had her email the full draft the day before with her question about the bibliography, instead of just the tweaks she had made to her conclusion paragraph. I emailed the office in regards to this and they gave a very timely response of "Thanks for writing! Your course was scheduled to end today, but we're going to extend it by a day so that Mrs. xxx can review the final draft. " which I was happy with. I do not however know if this is something that would have been done for everyone or just something that was done for me because they knew I was reviewing the site ~ I try to not be cynical, but the person that responded was the person that initially contacted me to do the review.

The teacher was very encouraging and really gave some great feedback, formats and suggestions in a very positive way. I think that in theory this program is a good idea and although it was a great learning experience for KM, she picked up some good tips, and the final paper that she produced was far better than she or I expected, it just isn't for us. I am super picky about where I spend my money and with my homeschooling dollars even more so. It might be a good fit for more advanced and/or independent writers, but from the stand point of the parent of a reluctant writer it just doesn't seem to be what we need. It must have some sort of staying power that I am missing as they have been around since 1998. I think that the biggest issue is that I feel if I am going to be paying $75 a month for a writing tutor I don't want to have to teach writing at all. With this method and the lack of instant information, guidance and direction I think I would have to step in far more than I would be willing to.

Thanks to Write Guide for allowing us the opportunity to review your product!

IEW - Student Intensive Writing Course - Official Review

I recently borrowed the IEW - Student Intensive Writing Course Level C, from a very dear friend of mine to try to help KM prepare for the writing portion of the GED. My friend's children, whom KM is very close with, enjoyed the program and highly recommended it. I also have heard many rave reviews on several of the larger home ed lists that I am, but was always hesitant because of the price and some potential negative outcomes that I had heard of. So when my friend eliminated the cost issue by lending it to me, I figured we would give it a try.

Here is the description of the program from the website - Recorded live with Mr. Andrew Pudewa, this four-DVD writing course for students lays a solid foundation of writing skills, based on our Teaching Writing: Structure & Style syllabus. Over the course of 15–30 weeks, students will learn how to effectively use a wide range of structural models and stylistic techniques in their compositions, as they write on a variety of enjoyable fiction and non-fiction topics. Included with the student handouts are complete teacher's notes, source texts, assignments, and checklists.

As I mentioned previously, we decided to take some time to focus specifically on KMs writing skills this month, so I thought this would be the perfect thing to start with. We decided to do about a lesson a day, but that we would keep it open ended in case KM needed more time on something. The videos were recorded over four days, but that is more than a little TOO intensive for us.

The program starts out by explaining an outlining technique that helps you jot down a two or three words to remind you of the content in the sentence so that when you go to summarize you don't look at the actual paragraph, article or whatever source you are using. This worked out very well for KM. It allowed her to have something to write about without the stress of having to "think" of something on the spot. Here is what she came up with -

How Music Shaped our Nation

The committee in charge of writing the Declaration of Independence consisted of John Adams, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, who all agreed on the main points of the first draft, but decided that the final draft should be more artistic and precise. Jefferson received this task because Adams was too rough, Franklin too sick, and Paine was too controversial. Jefferson’s landlady recorded his struggle in her journal, which was him pacing and seemingly accomplishing very little. He sent home for his violin which he would play for a while and then quietly work on the Declaration. After a few days it was completed and ready. Music helped him unlock his linguistic genius and helped him find the words of destiny which few people know about today.

The next lesson covers structure and explains the "story sequence". The kids were given a story to outline and they could either rewrite it or create a similar one with the same sequence. Again KM liked this outlining format and found it very helpful. Here is the story she came up with -

Le Chef Foo

Once upon a time in Cheshire, Mongolvia there was a young, simple Chef de Cuisine. He had finally graduated from culinary school and opened a new restaurant. Chef had was working on a recipe for a stew, that his grandma used to make, for the grand opening. He was about to put in some pepper when his sous chef said “No, no, no! You should use the onion powder instead.” And so the chef did.

Next, the chef tried to put in some potatoes, but his chef de froid told him, in a very knowing tone, “You mustn’t use those, put in some artichokes.” Well the chef de froid seemed to know best, so the young chef put in the green thistle.

As the chef was slicing the beef, the old pastry chef walked over and shook his head. “What is the matter?” asked the young chef. “You shouldn’t use beef, my boy, rabbit would be far better.” replied the old chef. Since the Chef de Cuisine was so young he trusted his elder and added rabbit instead.

Finally it was time to serve it to the customers and boy, oh boy did they hate it! Every single dish was sent back. All the critics said it was the worst food in town. After everyone read the reviews no one would dine there. The restaurant had to close.

and

Who Won the West Side 

In a dark alley Mr.Duke, a big mobster, was patiently waiting for his rival Mr.Wallace. They were in a fierce battle over territory on the West Side. Mr.Duke heard a scuffle from the foggy opening, which made him whip out his shotgun. “Mr.Wallace has arrived.”, thought the mobster, as he fired his first of six bullets.

“Hello, Mr.Duke. One shouldn’t fire shots as a welcome.”, whispered a voice from behind him. Mr.Wallace walked up to Mr.Duke, who was quite scared, and held his gun against the mobster’s back.

“Surrender your turf to me now.” Duke swung around with incredible speed and as he grabbed the gun, he aimed for Wallace’s foot. He shouted, “Never.” when he shot the gun.

Although Mr.Duke had won the battle, there was another predator waiting around the corner. Agent McKinley had trained as a sniper during the Korean War, which allowed him to be unseen by the winning mobster. McKinley quickly fired 2 shots at Mr.Duke, who fell instantly to the ground. 

Mr.Wallace heard the shots and cautiously peeked around the corner to see what happened. When he saw Duke lying on the ground, he knew that all of the West Side was now his.

KM had no complaints up to this point other than the fact that she felt that Mr. Pudewa talked down to the kids, talked A LOT and didn't give them enough time to write down the notes as he was giving them.

The next skills that they covered were called "dress-ups" and these are things that Pudewa thinks should be added to enhance all writing and here is the point where I started to loose confidence in the program. The students are required to included certain things in each and every paragraph and this cause the writing to all sound very much the same - a potential negative outcome that I had thought might occur given the extremely structured nature of the program. 

The revisions are minor, but to me, they seem to be more distracting than enhancing. 

In my opinion, KM's story was better before she did the following rewrites to Le Chef Foo

Once upon a time in Cheshire, Mongolvia there was a young, simple Chef de Cuisine. He had finally graduated from culinary school and determinedly opened a new restaurant. Chef was working on a delicious recipe for a stew, that his grandma used to make, for the grand opening. He was about to dash in some pepper when his sous chef exclaimed, “No, no, no! You should use the onion powder instead.”, which convinced the chef to do so.

Although the chef tried to add some potatoes, his chef de froid told him, in a very knowing tone, “You mustn’t use those, put in some artichokes.” Well the chef de froid appeared to know many things, so the young chef put in the green thistle.

As the chef was slicing the beef, the old pastry chef walked over and shook his head. “What’s the matter?” asked the young chef. “You shouldn’t use beef, my boy, rabbit would be far better.” replied the old chef. Since the Chef de Cuisine was so young, he trusted his elder and added rabbit instead.

Finally it was time to serve it to the customers and boy, oh boy did they hate it! Every single dish was sent back quickly. When the critics said it was the worst food in town, no one would dine there. The restaurant had to close.

At this point they continued to cover more detail oriented things such as sentence openers, note taking, planning a paragraph, taking notes from live lectures, and writing full reports. As Pudewa read the students work, it was clear that the students in the class were catching on and KM was also noticing how similar their style was at just the point when they introduced more things that you should add and they called these "decorations". These included things like questions, dramatic openings or closings, similes or metaphors, and alliterations. KM agree with me on her pre-edited work being better, so was loosing gusto with the program. I told her to take things that she thinks will work and leave those that she feels are unnecessary. She should make it what she needs it to be.

After reports they proceed to more things that they recommend you put in each paragraph and these are denoted as "decorations" - things like questions, quotations, alliterations and similes or metaphors. While the program thinks you should have one dress-up in every sentence, they advice utilizing 1 or 2 of these in each paragraph. 

Finally the program heads into essay writing, which was the main area that KM was looking for assistance in. They begin with the basic 5 paragraph essay and give some tips on planning out how many paragraphs you need to write for an assignment if it is given to with required words or pages. They also cover the Rhetoric Model, Super-Essay Model and outlining and thinking skills. These are all things that KM is fairly familiar with so was feeling more than a little disappointed by the lack of new information.

All and all KM felt let down by the program. She felt although the description of the program was accurate, she had been expecting more time to be spent on essay writing and more suggestions on open prompt writing as 90% of the assignments were rewriting the work of others - short articles or stories that you used the outlines structures to recreate. I honestly feel that there were some positive benefits as she had a good time being creative and the program did get her to write which helped improve her confidence. I also think that the outlining, story sequencing and note taking will be very helpful to her reading comprehension and study skills. However it did not give her any sort of tools to help her get past that blank mind feeling she gets whenever she sees a writing prompt. This is generally called brainstorming skills and we are going to have to find something to help her work on that. I am glad that she had the opportunity to try it, but also glad that we borrowed it because I do not feel that it would have been worth the $109 + shipping.

Now I feel as though I should also mention that although this program would not be considered secular by many people there was only one small mention of the bible and it was in regards to there being a number of similes and metaphors within it's passages. 

Are You Kidding ME?!?!? - 2-3-2008 Part One

Ok so I am just going to vent for a moment!
I am totally frustrated by a writing assignment right now! I don’t exactly know even how to begin with this. KM and I were working on this assignment on Friday, we decided to put it aside until Sat because it just wasn’t clicking. So Saturday came and we were still having some trouble getting her to express what it was that she was trying to say and we decided we would step away again. This afternoon was the last straw for me. We spent two hours working on it and had barely gotten through the first paragraph.
Now I really thought this was something that was going to go very quickly even though this is KM’s worst subject area. She just does not like writing! The assignment was to write a persuasive essay. We chose the topic rather quickly, but every time it came to her answering simple questions she became sheepish and shy. (If you have met my child you know that is not her norm, by any means!!) I asked why and you could tell by the tears welling up in her eyes she honestly had no idea what to answer.
I am at my wits end. The reason I am soooo frustrated is that for the last three years my daughter has been having problems responding to writing prompts at school. She is very intelligent (I know that a lot of parents say that but she has always been at the top of her classes, reading at the highest levels and comprehending what is going on.) but for some reason when it comes to her expressing what she is thinking it is just not making a connection. I brought this up several times to her teachers and they just said “oh she is lazy“, “she writes so large that it takes her a long time and she gets tired“, (That one drove me crazy!) “she can do it she is just not applying herself“.
Last year they had MCAS for long composition and her teacher kept making this huge deal about the size of her writing and how they were concerned that she would not have enough time to finish the test because her large writing takes such a long time to actually write. So we spent weeks trying to get her to write smaller and the teacher kept hounding her about it. Finally after receiving a progress report stating that they were getting “seriously concerned” about the size of her writing and that they wanted to consult an OT/PT specialist about it I went to the assistant principle and asked what happened if she didn’t finish it in time and the assistant principle said “The long composition section isn’t timed, if it takes her three weeks to finish it then that is how long she is given!” WHAT!?!?!? She also informed me, as the head of the SPED department that the size of the writing has no correlation to the amount of time that she is taking to complete the writing. WHY IS THE TEACHER HARRASSING ME AND MY DAUGHTER ABOUT THEN? She of course could not answer this question. As it got closer to the time for the test they started having after school groups for the children that needed more help getting ready for the MCAS. KM was not asked to participate in these sessions so I assumed that the problem had been resolved. She took the MCAS and said she thought she did great. She finished it in a good amount of time and that was that.
UNTIL the first progress reports came home this year. This was my point of breakdown with the school system. The MCAS results are sent home with the progress reports you see and my daughter was in the bottom of Needs Improvement Category for ELA. I asked a teacher to explain the scoring and let me know where the biggest problem area was so that we could work on it. She said that KM was having her biggest issues in the Long Composition where she scored a 1 out 4 possible points in every category. She got a perfect score on all the other areas. ****Now meanwhile she also scored in the high Advanced Level for Math.*****
Not long after scoring was sent home the school sent home a notice saying they were going to start a Homework club that was by invitation only and would focus on specific problem areas for the MCAS. I thought oh this is a great idea, take the kids that really need to focus on one area and put them together to try to work out and understand the problem. So KM got her invitation to attend and I signed it right away so that she could start the group the next week. Monday afternoon I picked her up and she said how great a time she had. I said oh what did you guys go over. Her response was oh we played a few multiplication games and went over some fractions. HUH? why are you doing math games in the ELA group?
You guessed it she was placed in the Math group. Her teacher got her mixed up with another child whose name starts with a K and assigned her to the wrong group. So we easily fixed that situation, she was going to be attending the Tuesday group which was for ELA.
The next day I pick her up from the group and she says again how great a time she had and how she got to sit with “this one” and “that one.” Well “this one” is a fourth grader and “that one” is a sixth grader. Why do they have all of these kids at different levels in the same group, because they all need help on the ELA MCAS! It doesn’t seem to matter to the coordinators that these kids tests are all completely different. They are going to do the same games and learning strategies with all of them and it WILL work! Don’t think so.
KM’s teacher and the coordinator for the group both expressed how they thought she was making great progress and they had seen a huge improvement! When her report card came we were expecting to see low As - high Bs after hearing how great everything had been going. What we saw instead were Cs. Now for a child who had never even gotten a B+ this was a bit of a shock. The teacher said oh well she is having problems with her writing assignments. My head nearly BLEW OFF!
So anyway…this whole situation was the NUMBER ONE reason why I took my daughter out of school. The system is screwed up! I have a child who got straight As on all her 4th grade report cards for all ELA subjects, yet she can not complete the 5th grade writing assignments and got Warning/Needs improvement on her MCAS. She can not write a complete paragraph! She can write a “$3 dollar” sentence without batting an eye, but she can’t make it fit into a report with any kind of flow or cohesiveness. I now have to go back and figure out where to start teaching her from. Thank goodness for the ability to stop and change things around to fit my child.
This is the first really big bump in the road and I apologize for having rambled so crazily through most of this entry. Which really was a long one. I thank any of you who are actually still reading at this point, because I probably would have stopped reading after the third or fourth paragraph.

Spring Session Lesson Plans

Spring is all about focusing around here, specifically focusing on writing a clear, concise, and comprehensive essay. Since KM busted butt and finished her Applying Algebra, Physics, Glencoe Literature Units, Movies as Literature  and the GED Writing Book we have streamlined her lesson plans to the bare-bones to be able to put the majority of her energy into prepping for the GED Essay. 

We will be using the GED Essay workbook by Steck-Vaughn in a few weeks, but first we will be utilizing IEW Student Writing Intensive Group C. I have to admit that I bit the bullet...despite all my former positions on writing curricula, I BORROWED - I am stressing the fact that I did NOT buy the program - from my very dear friend and personal home ed guru. She is an accomplished writer and two of her three girls who have taken the SAT got PERFECT writing scores on their essays, sooooo I give her opinion a lot of credence. She recently completed this program with her three younger kids and even her most reluctant writer enjoyed the program. KM feels given the great praise her friends gave it, that she should give it a try. She will be working on this when I am home so that I can be sure that things are moving along appropriately and I can be aware of what advice and tips the program is giving in each lesson. When we are through with it I will be sure to give a full review of this program.

Here is what KM's daily breakdown will look like for the next 10-12 week session - 

For a bit more info on the current GED essay guidelines download this free PDF - HERE.

These are the additional resources that we will be trying out during this intensive prep period - 

• GED Language Arts, Writing w/ CD-ROM (GED & TABE Test Preparation)
• GED Language Arts, Reading (GED & TABE Test Preparation)
• Test-Taking Strategies for Students Taking Essay Tests
• Taking Reading Comprehension Tests
• GED Connection Programs #10 - Essay Writing
• PBS Literacy Link - GED Prep
• Additional practice essay topics HERE, HERE and HERE

~~~~~BE AWARE though the current format will only run through the end of 2013. There will be a new GED released in 2014 and these materials will be obsolete.

To see are many other posts on our frustrations with writing HERE. 

Writing BREAKTHROUGH!!!

I can't even tell you how EXCITED I am right NOW! KM's writing issues have been the bane of my existence for the past 6 years! If you search this blog you will find nearly every frustration I have had with homeschooling has stemmed from writing. However I have had a breakthrough! I decided to take a look at the Official SAT Study Guide, that I got off of Paperback Swap so that I could use it as a guide for our studies over the next few years, and I came across this AMAZING little paragraph...

"There is no formula for writing an effective essay. You are free to choose your own writing style. For example, you can write an essay that is narrative, expository, persuasive, or argumentative. Furthermore the SAT will not reward or penalize you if you write, for example, a five-paragraph essay. Good writing is marked by the strong development of ideas, the ability to connect to an audience, precise use of language, effective organization, and appropriate choices of evidence." p. 103

Why on earth have I been trying every method under the sun to teach her to write a five -paragraph essay if it is not even REQUIRED on the SAT? Why is this nearly the ONLY method of writing that is being taught to children in Public, Private and Homeschools, yet the national be all to end all of tests doesn't even require it?

I am baffled, dumbfounded and completely elated all at the same time. I read on to some of the example essays that were given perfect scores and was ecstatic to see that the content was the main derivative for the scores. They want the student to be able to express their point of view clearly and thoroughly!

I am DONE trying to teach KM how to write. She knows how to write and has always known how to write, she just has had a very difficult time getting her information to come across intelligently in the 5-paragraph essay format. Instead I will be helping her to develop her point of view clearly and effectively, organize and focus her ideas so that they are coherent, enhance her use of language by using varied vocabulary, and to continue to improve on her grammar and mechanics.

I had KM read through this section of the SAT guide herself as well, so that she could get a grasp at what she should be aspiring toward. She was also SHOCKED to find out that the writing style wasn't all that important. We spent quite a while discussing strategies and wondering why in the world the school had spent so much time and beat her down so hard over something that apparently means very little in the grand scheme of academia.

Of course we never came to a real conclusion, yet we did develop another truly solidifying moment for homeschooling!

Winter Session 7th Grade Curriculum Picks

As we are drawing our fall session to a close over the next week, I figured it was time to look ahead and finalize the choices we have made for the upcoming Winter Session! Since we are always changing things around here, this is of course a rough guess of what we will be doing. Most of our picks for the fall session worked out rather well, but there are some areas that we needed to tweak a bit. Here is our "intended" outline -

ELA -
We have swapped out our ELA system SEVERAL times in the past two years, but I do think that we have finally made a bit of progress in this area. KM worked through Levels 3 & 4 of Writing Strands rather quickly and decided to work through a few workbooks for latter half of this past session and the next.

• She has been working through 5-Minute Daily Practice Grammar, she tends to do all 5 lessons for the week at once on Monday, but she is getting them all correct, so I guess I can't really complain can I.
• Quick Practice Writing Skills is a bit more of a challenge for her - well it varies day to day. There are some things that she just needs a slight reminder on and others that have never been covered, so when we come to an area that needs to be covered completely we stop and cover it. It seems to be working and she is far less weary of asking for help.
• For writing itself we have gone back to the 3 minute non-stop writing and are using 350 Fabulous Writing Prompts. Some of the prompts are not so fabulous in my opinion, but we just skip those ones and take those days to go back over and review or edit her previous days writings.
• We will also begin working through the Grammar and then Writing on BrainPop.
• For literature we will be using Teacher Created Resources for Tuck Everlasting and The Island of the Blue Dolphin. As well as a Scholastic Book Guide for Around the World in Eighty Days which will coincide with our Geography. KM of course will also be continuing her free time reading - not that I have to worry about that.

Math -

• We will be finishing up The Complete Book of Algebra and Geometry this next session so that she can feel confident when she goes back to the Teaching Textbook for Algebra in the Spring.
• I also thought that it would be fun and interesting to take a look at Women Mathematicians during this session. This book features 15 women and we will spread them out covering one or two a week for the 10 week session.
  

Science -

• We have decided to put off Story of Science again as KM wanted to slow down a bit on her Physics so that she could really investigate each area more closely. So for the next session she will continue with her Physics Workshop Kit from Thames & Kosmos. She will also continue to supplement with Brain Pop.
• We are also going to revisit Chemistry. She had done a bit of it last year at our co-op, but I think we will try to dive a bit deeper this time around. I have gotten a light textbook - Chemistry of Matter - from Paperback Swap and she has agreed to try it. I have the Periodic Table from Basher Science Books - WHICH SHE LOVES! - as a stand by in case the text flops. I have a lot of projects and kitchen chemistry things to add in as well as BrainPop - AGAIN!
  

Social Sciences -

• For history we will be working on Ancient Rome and finishing up volume one of Story of the World. This will also conclude our Giant Lapbook! I will be sure to post all the info on that when it is complete! This will be our final history pocket as well. KM is very happy that we will also be continuing with the Horrible Histories series, which despite mixed reviews from others, has been going over very well with her! We started out with the books, then I purchased the animated series on Ebay and now have been using the resources for the CBBC series.
• We will be finishing up Rand McNally's Intermediate Geography as well as doing a cultural study of each area as it is covered in the book. I am using several other resources for this including Global Trek, Hands-On Heritage series and Art Projects from Around the World.
  

Health -
KM really likes the Learn to Be Healthy site - though some of the content is a bit below her level, most of it seems to be sinking in and she is moving right along through it. They do have a high school level, but I don't think she is ready for that set just yet. She is also working through the Health topics on Brain Pop.


Electives -

• Staying with our strong Science focus - per KM's request - she will be studying weather and meteorology this session. I will be listing our resources for this in a separate post.
• For her foreign language she is going to be doing Spanish. We were lucky enough to get a FANTASTIC deal on Tell Me More by Auralog through the Homeschool Buyers Co-op last summer and she is REALLY enjoying the program. The voice recognition software is great and the homeschool edition has worksheets that you can print off to supplement with. I will be supplementing with two workbooks - Let's Learn Spanish Grades 7 & 8. I also picked up to sticker books that I thought KM & SC could do together. This would help reinforce the basics for KM and would introduce SC to a bit of Spanish as well.
• Music Alive! is still a big hit and we will continue with this through the next session. We also will be taking a look at some opera pieces from Opera for Everyone and will be going to the Boston Lyric Opera's presentation of Barber of Seville.
  
• Piano Adventures is working incredibly! She will be starting on Level 2 and I am amazed and awestruck by how well she is playing with no outside instruction. There was talk of an interest in Flute, but I am not too sure how serious that was...
• She will be continuing with Drama at our co-op and they will be working on another Shakespearean play with music and dancing, but the title has not been disclosed yet!
• We will be continuing to work through the Meet The Masters for our art practical and theory section. She will also continue on her cross stitch work and may start some sewing as she interested in working on her costume for the play this spring.
  

Again I can't stress enough how much of a guideline this is and it is in NO WAY set in stone. I am very open to changing things that are not working and try to make sure that KM feels that she can be honest with me about how she feels something is going.

Moving right along -

is what our week has been doing. I can't believe it is Wednesday night already! Our spring session began on Monday and it is going really well. KM seems to be enjoying doing science everyday. We are using a new series for us from Usborne called Adventures of the Human Body in Ten Terrific Weeks. She really likes the shorter lessons and the hands on charts, projects and interactive websites. We are also making a collage on an area of wall in the playroom where she can display all that she is learning - kinda like a HUGE lapbook. I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of the program and am going to be looking into the Knighthood one once we get into the Middle Ages. It gives a really good outline using books that you can easily get through most library networks.

Another new thing we are trying is doing the Writing Tales lessons twice a week - we had been doing the full weeks lesson all in one day on Friday, so that it took her two weeks to get through the story as it is meant to be done. Now we are doing one on Wed and one on Fridays so that she gets the first and second drafts of the story done all in one week. This will allow her to finish the program by the end of this spring session and then she can decide if she wants to move on to level 2 or go onto a different writing program. KM has always detested writing! She would dictate things to me with no problem so I had always thought that it was the actual physical writing,but I am beginning to think it was more about the pressure of it being accurate and creative that would get to her. With this progymnasmata writing program she really seems to be becoming much more confident in her writing. It doesn't take her nearly as long to get it done and there have been fewer and fewer mistakes lately. That is why we decided to move it up to twice a week - she feels she can handle it. Although this curriculum is below "grade level" in comparison to everything else that she is doing, it has really been a perfect fit for her to gain the confidence that she needed. I think I am going to try to convince her to do the second level starting next fall and then move on to more essay and expository type writings after that. I don't think she will give me much of a hassle with it, but this is one area that I feel I don't want to rush through as I am seeing such a huge amount of progress.

We also decided to do away with spelling and vocabulary in the traditional sense. We are incorporating vocabulary into literature, using Number2.com daily and we are continuing with Latin using the Minimus program which I managed to get through Paperback Swap - SCORE! It amazes me how much she has already picked up and how quickly she has begun to really get the roots. She has also been using Word Coach on the Wii and Spelling Challenge for her DS. It amazes me how many educational games there are out there for things that I never would have thought of! It makes life so much easier when they are truly enjoying the things that can get so monotonous!

Our local homeschool coop is finishing up for the season and we will be having our closing ceremony this coming Monday, which will include the older kids performing in Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights Dream. They have been working on it since January and have really done a great job! They are all so excited about the upcoming performance and are already talking about doing one again next year! It is so amazing to see such a truly great group of "tweens" who are thoroughly enjoying Shakespeare!

Our other programs are all pretty much moving along the same as they had been -

• Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra is still holding up to our expectations and likings
• we are continuing on in our timeline of history - we are just getting into the First Humans and the beginnings of Civilization and are supplementing the text with lots of living books and projects from Ancient Science.
• KM is moving right along through the Piano Adventures series and still loving it!
• Next week we will for Health will be starting another NIDA free program called Brain Power! and KM will starting an astronomy unit - hopefully as a cooperative thing with one of her friends.
  

All and all things really are just moving right along! Now if the weather could just move right along into spring we would all be perfectly sublime!

Curriculum Picks for Fall Session - 7th Grade - English Language Arts

I am continuing to hammer down our curriculum choices and here are our ELA choices!

English Language Arts - Traditionally, the primary divisions in the language arts are Literature and Language, where language in this case refers to both linguistics, and specific languages. The subjects, including reading, spelling, and composition, aimed at developing reading and writing skills, usually taught in elementary and secondary school.



You may have seen my many different postings about KM's lack of interest in writing and my realization a few months ago which has lead me to the following choices -

• Word Smart Junior I & II
  
• Writing Strands Level 3
• 5-Minute Daily Practice - Grammar
  

Literature & Reading Comprehension -
KM is an avid reader - she has already read 31 books this summer. So we are going to try a different approach to literature this year by alternating with an actual literature curriculum and literature unit studies. I am hoping that with this mix it will keep things moving and build her writing skills a bit as well...

• Island of the Blue Dolphin - Teacher Created Resource
  
• Cricket in Time Square - Teacher Created Resource - we will be using many of these products throughout the next two years
• Language of Literature - we will be alternating doing one literature unit mentioned above and one unit from this book.

We also will be trying to increase and encourage more free writing and may work out some sort of writing prompts as we did toward the end of the spring with our Proverbs Project.

2012 - 2013 Ed Plan revisited

In light of recent decisions and adjustments in regards to DN's direction over the next "school year" I have decided to repost a corrected outline for our ed plan which only lists KM's resources. I will also post what we decide to have DN use once that has been finalized, but for now here is what she will be doing -

Subject	Summer '12	Fall '12	Winter '13	Spring '13
ELA - Literature & Writing	Historical Fiction Steck-Vaughn G: Language Arts, Writing	Movies as Literature Steck-Vaughn G: Language Arts, Writing	Movies as Literature Steck-Vaughn G: Language Arts, Writing	Movies as Literature Steck-Vaughn G: Language Arts, Writing
Math	Hands on Banking for Teens	Applying Algebra (Applied Math Series)	Applying Algebra (Applied Math Series)	Applying Algebra (Applied Math Series)
Science		Chemistry (Science) Janice VanCleave's Chemistry for Every Kid: 101 Easy Experiments that Really Work	Chemistry (Science) Janice VanCleave's Chemistry for Every Kid: 101 Easy Experiments that Really Work	Chemistry (Science) Janice VanCleave's Chemistry for Every Kid: 101 Easy Experiments that Really Work
Health & P.E.	Bowling ExerBeat	Bowling ExerBeat	Bowling ExerBeat	Bowling ExerBeat
Social Sciences – U.S. History & Geography	A History of US Books 5-9 Story of the US DVD U.S. History – Basic Not Boring	A History of US Books 5-9 Story of the US DVD U.S. History – Basic Not Boring People and Events: 1865-Present CNN Student News Election Study	A History of US Books 5-9 Story of the US DVD U.S. History – Basic Not Boring People and Events: 1865-Present CNN Student News	A History of US Books 5-9 Story of the US DVD U.S. History – Basic Not Boring People and Events: 1865-Present CNN Student News
Elective	Milady's Standard Cosmetology Theory Workbook Practical Workbook Japanese from Zero!	Milady's Standard Cosmetology Theory Workbook Practical Workbook Japanese from Zero!	Milady's Standard Cosmetology Theory Workbook Practical Workbook Japanese from Zero!	Milady's Standard Cosmetology Theory Workbook Practical Workbook Japanese from Zero!

This will be her summer schedule -

 and for the fall -