Language Arts

Everyone has their own strengths, and Language Arts isn't Tim's! Unfortunately, while someone who isn't good at science, or even math, can often thrive in well-chosen career paths, being able to write and speak well is important in any occupation. (Fortunately, his weakness doesn't include reading, except that he's somewhat slow.)

So it seems that this year, in an attempt to begin compensating for this weakness, we are spending about one-third of our time on it! His primary curriculum, the one that we are following exactly, is called Put That In Writing. As you might guess, it's a writing course. For some reason, although IEW is big with a lot of homeschool families, it has never appealed to me. Fortunately, I've been very pleased with PTIW. Level 1 teaches the paragraph. It takes a very systematic approach to writing; perhaps more so than would be necessary for a student who is naturally a good writer, but it's perfect for us. We began it last Spring, and in just that short time, I noticed decided improvement in his writing. So, this year, we went back to the beginning and are going through it again. I did skip through some of the early parts we'd done last year, as I'm hoping to get to Level 2 (essays) in early 2008. I'm especially grateful that the creators of PTIW have a yahoo group to which I can post questions about using the curriculum.

In addition to PTIW, we're going through the first half of Rod & Staff English 8. The current plan is to finish it next year. Don't let the '8' fool you. We're using this primarily to beef up grammar and do fun things like diagramming sentences, and it's more in depth than some high school texts in those areas. R&S is only done three days per week.

Of course, in high school, one ought to be doing some formal literature study, so he's also doing most of Lightning Literature and Composition 8. We skip a lot of the composition; although as he gets further along in PTIW, I'll start using LL8 to practice writing skills learned elsewhere. In this case, the '8' level is a bit of a problem. Since this is a weak area, I wanted to start him off more gently. I'm trying to beef it up with high school level literature guides for some of the books he has to read for Notgrass Exploring World History. Fortunately, from his perspective at least, the pace of LL8 isn't too difficult.

And just in case that isn't enough... vocabulary is important, too, right? With ACTs, PSATs, SATs and whatever other alphabet soup tests looming, he also does a separate vocabulary program each day -- Vocabulary for Achievement. I've used both this and Wordly Wise. I don't have a strong preference for either; I just managed to get these very inexpensively (used) at Follett.

He rarely spends less than two hours on Language Arts, and usually more. I feel like this both subtracts from his ability to give his best work to other subjects, and also causes him to feel/be overloaded at times. I'm hoping that we'll be able to lessen this load over time, but it seems both necessary and beneficial for him at present.

He does have a lot of strengths, by the way. In 9th grade, he's taking Chemistry and Algebra II and doing well in both. (He will do Geometry next year.) A year and a half ago, he built his own computer, buying the components with money earned from a paper route. (I just had to add all this, after talking so much about his weaknesses above!)