Writing
* These curriculum posts can be a little long and wordy, so I found funny homeschool memes on Pinterest to throw in between paragraphs. Enjoy!
We are going to use IEW this year. IEW stands for Institute for Excellence in Writing. This is the writing program that all the homeschoolers love and use. I put it off for a long time because it's pricey, but I am going for it this year - our first full official year of high school.
Here is what comes with the high school IEW (they call high school Level C):
The student book is the 3 ring binder. I'm not sure we will be using that, since Kara keeps all her school work on her blog. But, here is what the inside of the binder looks like (the tabs are all empty):
And here are the discs:
My book has all the meat in it. These were loose pages that I had Staples bind for me.
Here is a quick look at the lessons at a glance. (One lesson is a week's worth of work.)
My book also has all the details of each disc.
Okay, so lesson 1 (which is for a whole week, remember) looks like this:
First, we will read this essay:
And sentence by sentence, we will pick out "key words." (You can see a few pictures back that I have a copy of what a good key words list looks like for this essay.) We are trying to outline the essay because the kids will rewrite it using their key words outline.
The idea behind this way of teaching is this: so many kids/people have a hard time writing because they don't know WHAT to write. So, we start out at the beginning with something specific to write, which is rewriting this essay.
Once we learn how to make a key word outline, we learn what a who-which clause is. We learn that combining two short sentences with the word "who" or "which," makes one big, interesting sentence. (For example: Kara went to the store. Kara needed bread. TURNS INTO: Kara, who needed bread, went to the store.)
Each essay with each lesson, has a rubric. That is, she will always know what is expected of her as she is writing. Actually, she is supposed to point out where each thing is that was required of her (to make it easier on the teacher who won't have to hunt for them.)
By the end of the year, A LOT MORE will be expected of them:
While Kara is a strong writer, I still think she needs improvement. She needs to learn structure, thesis statements, etc. I also think being a good writer is one of the most important skills she will need in her life/career, so I'm very willing to spend a lot of time perfecting it.
I still have one more subject to post. I may do a video with that one. (It's Bible History.) I know most of you aren't interested in the details of what we plan to use, but I LOVE going back and looking at these posts. :-)
The first day of ninth grade is only 3 days away!!! Yay!
We are going to use IEW this year. IEW stands for Institute for Excellence in Writing. This is the writing program that all the homeschoolers love and use. I put it off for a long time because it's pricey, but I am going for it this year - our first full official year of high school.
Here is what comes with the high school IEW (they call high school Level C):
The student book is the 3 ring binder. I'm not sure we will be using that, since Kara keeps all her school work on her blog. But, here is what the inside of the binder looks like (the tabs are all empty):
And here are the discs:
 |
| One DVD for teachers. This is the best video ever - it taught me how to teach this curriculum. I'll get more into it in a minute. |
 |
| There are four of these. They are videos of Mr. Pudewa teaching a classroom of kids what Kara needs to learn. I may end up teaching her myself....not sure. |
My book has all the meat in it. These were loose pages that I had Staples bind for me.
Here is a quick look at the lessons at a glance. (One lesson is a week's worth of work.)
 |
| Here is each week broken down day by day. I assign 5 days worth to be completed Tues-Fri. |
Okay, so lesson 1 (which is for a whole week, remember) looks like this:
First, we will read this essay:
And sentence by sentence, we will pick out "key words." (You can see a few pictures back that I have a copy of what a good key words list looks like for this essay.) We are trying to outline the essay because the kids will rewrite it using their key words outline.
The idea behind this way of teaching is this: so many kids/people have a hard time writing because they don't know WHAT to write. So, we start out at the beginning with something specific to write, which is rewriting this essay.
Once we learn how to make a key word outline, we learn what a who-which clause is. We learn that combining two short sentences with the word "who" or "which," makes one big, interesting sentence. (For example: Kara went to the store. Kara needed bread. TURNS INTO: Kara, who needed bread, went to the store.)
Each essay with each lesson, has a rubric. That is, she will always know what is expected of her as she is writing. Actually, she is supposed to point out where each thing is that was required of her (to make it easier on the teacher who won't have to hunt for them.)
By the end of the year, A LOT MORE will be expected of them:
While Kara is a strong writer, I still think she needs improvement. She needs to learn structure, thesis statements, etc. I also think being a good writer is one of the most important skills she will need in her life/career, so I'm very willing to spend a lot of time perfecting it.
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