Diogenes for older student?

[rhondam]

Last year my then 6th and 9th grader worked through almost all of Homer A.

I suffered from homeschool burnout, thought IEW looked like a nice change and we have been doing that over the summer and the beginning of this year.

I want to continue the year w/ IEW mainly because due to an upcoming surgery this is going to be a hard year.

But I would really like to get back around to using CW.

My question is about my highschool student.

Is doing both levels of Diogenes enough for a highschool student?

If so...is there any chance of us catching up? I am thinking we could get CW Poetry for Older Beginners done this school year, then finish off Homer A this summer.

Would there be enough time to complete Homer B and both levels of Diogenes in 11th and 12th?

Or should I just stick with IEW for this particular child?

Can you give me some advice?

Thanks,
RhondaM.

[Lene Mahler Jaqua]

Rhonda,

Your 10th grader needs to be able to write argumentative and expository essays, and you don't have much time left to teach it. Don't stick that kid in Homer B, and while I would read lots of poetry, I would not work on the poetry either. It is essays you need.

I cannot comment on the suitability of IEW because I don't know its current format or extent, but you need those two essay types.

This could be accomplished by a crash course through Diogenes Maxim and Chreia and Herodotus over three years.

OR it may be accomplished through non-CW materials such as

Format Writing (with the Great Books as the topics in mind) and "The Art of Styling Sentences" which helps learn sentence patterns and imitation.

I'd also recommend that you get Dr Einarsson's Grammar Hand Outs, which I think he sells on-line for around$10 or 15. That workbook along with the other things I suggested would get your student running in writing, both at the paragraph writing level but also at the sentnece writing level. working with structures in Great Books.... and taking excerpts from the Great Books to work on it.

Here is Einarsson's web page for that workbook if you're interested:

www.classiclanguagearts.net/workbook.htm

Of course I would do the CW route, but then I wrote those, but it would be a heavier load to squeeze those three books in. With Herodotus you are set for a complete high school writing course except that you need SAT ACT essay skills too if your student is college bound.

So, buy some sort of ACT and SAT prep books which get your student familiar with the format of writing standardized testing essays. I am writing that material right now for CW Plutarch, which will be ready in the fall.

Does this help? Please write again if you have more questions.

Lene

[rhondam]

Thanks Lene. I guess we just got started too late with CW for this child...so we'll just keep on with IEW for him. I'm sure it will work for him...I was just hoping to be able to continue with CW.

But there is plenty of time for CW with my younger two. For that, I am glad!

Thanks for your reply.

RhondaM.