We are 2 and a half weeks into our new school year and enjoying year 2 very much. I am stretching out this year with my kids: 8th, 6th and 1st. They have never studied King ARthur, Knights, etc. Last year we always got history reading and questions done as well as discussions and literature reading but timeline, people, doing questions/worksheets well was spotty at best. By doing the bulk of the work on one week and then having the 2nd week to focus on a fun topic like King ARthur and my really making sure that the work was done neatly and well fromt eh week before has worked well and taken off some stress. It looks like we will finish Unit 1 at this pace in November, so I will probably only finish 2 units and maybe part of unit 3. This is my problem... next year my oldest should be doing rhetoric level, so how will I start from there?? Is that even possible, especially with literary analysis.. The writing is problematic as well. I'm thinking for this year, I will use the types of writing assigned and just have to tweak the subjects to what we are actually studying. So they will get through all of the writing assignments for year 2 in the first two units since we are doing 2 weeks for every one week...though I am adding in more literature reading and such. Anyway, do I just start with the topics in year 2 unit 3 but up a level?? I'm getting confused..

Christine

Hi Christine,
Personally, I'd just keep him in dialectic until you are totally finished with Year 2. Then, when he begin Year 3, no matter when in the school year, I'd begin rhetoric. Chances are that you'll be able to do Year 3 at regular pace, so you can quickly get back on the four units per school year schedule.

Instead of completing ALL of the Y2 assignments, I'd suggest you spread them out too. So, if the student is assigned a compare/contrast paper one week, I'd have him do another one the second week. The exception would be multi-week projects such as a research paper, the poetry unit, or newspaper writing. On the second round of the multi-week projects, I'd focus on any weaknesses that your children have.

Just some ideas for you...

I"m not sure the writing suggestion will work. For example we have been doing school for 3 weeks, but are just starting week 2 this week so my 8th grader wouls have spent the time organizing his notebook. In fact in unit one he doesn't write and essay until week 9 which we won't get to until early November.. He is great at paragraphs, not so great at longer assignments. Also, it seems like the first few weeks spend a lot of time slowly ramping up each year.. since we only took off a month or so we really don't need such a slow start... Does that make sense? I appreciated the slow start last year getting used to TOG, but now I need meaty writing.. Does that make sense? Last year this 8th grader had an IEW writing class (but it was all paragraphs not long papers) as well as a speech class where he wrote a speech every other week, so we didn't do much of the TOG writing because those two classes took a lot of time to write/prepare. I REALLY want to work on essays and "real" writing like he would have to do in high school just in case he goes to the ps... I don't think he would as he is doing Geometry and Biology this year so where would he fit??? But if he does graduate from homeschool early... Writing is his worst skill as he is more of a math/science whiz. Any suggestions?

Christine

Hi Christine,
Yes, that makes sense. In that case, I think I'd suggest that you do the TOG assignment the first week and the second week assign reports (for a few weeks) and then transition to essays. (If he can follow our suggested format for reports in Writing Aids, then he can go to the next step of essays pretty easily.)

Does that help?

Hi There,

I have a similar situation in that we are half way through year 2 and my oldest is due to begin rhetoric work. I like the idea of keeping him in dialectic, but I wonder how that works as far as assigning credits go. Can he do dialectic work and still receive some amount of high school credit?

Thais

Hi,
Yes, because 9th grade is considered a transition year you can do some dialectic work. However, be sure and slowly move him over to rhetoric work because it doesn't hold true for 10th grade work (barring learning disabilities).

Blessings,