We've fallen behind

[Kathie in VA]

My oldest dd is a 13yo rising 8th grader and my ds is a 12 yo rising 7th grader. My dd did Aesop A, most of B, and began Homer A. My ds did Aesop A and is almost done with B. I was thinking of just continuing with Homer A for each and just moving along. But I'm also worried that my dd won't get to the last book in the series which teaches report writing... this is necessary for college so I'm a bit worried about not getting to it. Maybe I'm wrong here but I remember doing mostly reports in college. Should I just continue on thru just getting as far as we can, skip the poetry to move faster, drop Homer A&B and use the one for Older Beginners instead, or supplement with something else at some point?

tia

[Carolyn]

"Behind" is one of those words that doesn't necessarily mesh well with homeschooling. For whatever reason, you are where you are. And the question is "What's the next thing?"

If your children are where they are because the material is difficult for them, and it continues to be difficult, then speeding up will not be profitable. It's much, MUCH better to do the basic skills well than it is to do many things poorly. A firm grounding is very important. In that case, continuing on at a "slow and steady wins the race" pace is probably best, with a supplement for report writing later on.

If your children are doing well with the material, you could pick up the pace, either by using the Older Beginners books, or else using the workbooks you already have and doing every second week.

[Kathie in VA]

Carolyn,

On one hand I do understand where you are coming from. Homeschooler really do not have to stick to grade level requirements and thus have the flexibility to work with our kids at the level and pace needed. However many of us have 2 issues with this:
1- Being behind does make sense when you have goals like being well prepared for SATs, college entrance forms, and college writing and you begin to wonder if those goals will be met in time with the program you are using. {this is mainly where I am}

2- Many must be prepared to deal with end of year testing and thus need to keep an eye on what the tests will include. Now legally we don't need to obtain a very high grade on these tests, but many prefer their kids to anyway. (perhaps so their kids are prepared for the tests, or so the option of sending them to school remains open, or 'cause they want to confirm they are teaching/learning well, etc?) {I do test at the end of the year also but we just do the simple CAT5 tests which, so far, have no writing}

That said, in my situation my kids are behind because other things got in the way (another writing program, a case of mono!, home improvements that they took part in, etc.) It's not the program. I really like CW, although I think my dd is getting a bit bored. I hadn't thought of just doing ever other lesson in Homer. That would move it along. I'll check to see where new material is taught and see if we can skip the review weeks (so long as they 'get it'). Hmm, switching to the Older Beginner books might also be an idea. We'd get to skip all the weeks on Aesop since we already did that. So how many weeks would that leave us?

What about the poetry? Should we pick the books for Older Beginners there also? How many weeks is that one?

Hmm, might still need to supplement with report writing... Any suggestions?

[Lene Mahler Jaqua]

Kathie,

Yes, "behind" is a real concept when you had a goal--for whatever reason--that you have not met.

Only two solutions, either

1. make a plan to catch up

2. don't sweat it.

And I would vote for a combination of 1 and 2, one that doesn't stress anyone out.

If your daughter is bored, I would consider that the bigger problem. You're probably moving too slowly. Speed up, or go to Older Beginners. It depends on how far your are in Aesop B, what I would recommend to 'catch up'.

But as far as report writing goes, it's no rocket science. Nor is that the most critical thing to learn for writing for college. Thesis/essay writing and good argumentative, however, skills are critical for college.

Report writing you can teach in a jiffy (and we do it indirectly through research on many topics through our books) by getting one of those little nifty Scholastic Report Writing books and studying their outline. I don't know how valuable it is. It is just another outline, and another list of things to look up and summarize, all of which are skills we teach in our books as well. We just don't call it "Report Writing".

If what you're talking about is the research paper, and perhaps it is, that isn't taught until high school in most places.

To wrap this up, the argumentative, organizational, and stylistic skills taught in Classical Writing is what writing is all about. The particular details of a particular type of paper for college (be it thesis statement and essay or research paper or a book report) merely requires a specific outline, which can easily be followed. The paragraph types that go into any outline are all taught in Classical Writing, as well as what sort of writing situation each paragraph type is appropriate for.

For example the ancients taught

• narrative paragraphs
  
• summary paragraphs
  
• explanatory paragraphs
  
• definition paragraphs
  
• comparison paragraphs
  
• cause and effect paragraphs
  
• contrary paragraphs
  
• contradiction paragraphs (and yes there is a difference between
  
• contraries and contradictions)
  
• testimony paragraphs
  
• circumstance paragraphs
  
• antecedent and consequence paragraphs
  

All those types are used in all sorts of settings and honed to fit the specific essay at hand.

The purpose for the ancients, and therefore our purpose in Classical Writing, is to teach the writer to write for every occasion, not a specific genre of writing.

Lene

[Kathie in VA]

Thank you both for your help.
I think once I have a plan then I won't stress.

So if we can get Homer and Poetry for Older Beginners done this year for my dd's 8th grade and ds's 7th grade, then we'd do:
Diogenes (which is a two year program, right?) for dd that would be grades 9 and 10 {and 8 and 9 for ds).
Herodotus (a 1 yr prgm) dd's 11th grade and ds's 10th
Plutarch (a 1 yr prgm) dd's 12th grade and ds's 11th
Demosthenes ( a 1 yr prgm) dd won't do this one , ds could do it in 12th grade.

Somewhere in there I will probably introduce some sort of report writing for history or literature... with all the research and references.

Where does the intermediate poetry book get done?

Not to mention my 8yr old rising 3rd grader who could start Aesop this year. He could also make it thru the whole prgm. Then there will be the current 3yr old!

So, now to just determine how to do all of Homer and Beg Poetry this year. My dd completed thru week 5 of Homer A and my ds completed Aesop B. If I put both into Homer for Older Beginners, should we plan to skip any of it since both kids completed all of Aesop?

Thanks again for your help!

[Lene Mahler Jaqua]

Kathie,

I have just graduated an 18 yo who will never finish Demosthenes either.

My upcoming 10th grader will be the first one of mine to finish the whole series, AND that is assuming that I WRITE FAST... she will not get through CW Shakespeare, our final enrichment program. (Unless I hire her as a proof reader after her senior year).

Your plan... It looks reasonable to me. Remember that the Diogenes books (years 1 and 2, Maxim and Chreia) contain much challenging material and are very appropriate for high schoolers. They do include some research and also modern referencing, quotations, even a section on plagiarism and how to stay authentic. In all our advanced books Diogenes and up, we always teach modern stylistic conventions, outlines and writing in the final unit of each book.

Intermediate Poetry is done when you are done with Poetry for Beginners, for most students that is somewhere between 7th and 10th grade.

home.att.net/~classicalwriting/Placement.htm#typical

Yes, if your students were in Homer A and Aesop B, respectively, skip the weeks that cover skills that look familiar when you get the OB workbooks. I can't say exactly how many but for sure all of the first 4 weeks for one and probably more for the older student.

And do ask if you have more questions. There are certainly things you can go through faster.

Lene