What We Used for LANGUAGE ARTS in High School

For JJ's Language Arts in High School, we used a variety of curricula. Here is what worked best for us. 

FRESHMAN YEAR:

• Easy Grammar Plus for instruction in Grammar and Punctuation. 
• Sequential Spelling for, well... Spelling, of course. 
• Igniting Your Writing by Sandi Larsen for writing instruction. 

We did Grammar and Spelling Monday-Thursday, then focused on a writing lesson on Fridays. The schedule worked out well for us because it wasn't too overwhelming for my reluctant writer. The lessons in Igniting Your Writing are short, easy to follow, and easy to comprehend. They take you step by step through an assignment, and what I love is that it has 3 different difficulty levels to choose from for each lesson. You can choose to do the easiest level for a reluctant or new writer, or you can choose intermediate, or advanced. You can choose to do one, two, or all three assignments, depending on your interests and needs. It is geared for those who do not care about writing, and helps make things simple to do and more fun for them.

SOPHOMORE YEAR:

• Queen Homeschool Language Lessons for the Secondary Child - Vol. 2
• K12 Reader - Free printable Spelling curriculum for High School
• Freewriting on Fridays using the ideas from Bravewriter - Set the timer for 5-10 minutes, give a topic, and have him write non-stop until the timer dings. Even if they write, "I don't know what to write" ten times, let them do it. At least they are writing and, eventually, they will figure out something else to write. 
• Plus, for U.S. History, he was required to write a research paper, so we used "How to Write a Great Research Paper" by Book Builders as a guide.   

I purchased Igniting Your Writing II, and intended to use it, but it wasn't the best fit for us at that time. Volume I was great for us, but volume 2 we weren't ready for. 

 

JUNIOR YEAR:

• Instead of using Igniting Your Writing II, I found something we liked better for Writing Instruction - Jump In from Apologia. 
• 100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know - A small book we used for Vocabulary

SENIOR YEAR:

• Movies As Literature - This is a complete, one-year high school English course that uses classic movies on video to introduce and study the elements of literary analysis. Student discussion and composition questions are provided for each of the 17 lessons.

JJ's Star Wars Limerick

Part of JJ's Language Arts curriculum this year is to do one lesson each day in LANGUAGE LESSONS FOR THE SECONDARY CHILD - VOL 1. This volume is written for a child between the ages of 10 and 15 and includes lessons in grammar, punctuation, copywork, narration, dictation, picture studies, letter writing, and learning how to write different types of poetry.

Last week, he had two lessons about a type of poetry called a Limerick. This is one of the most fun types of poetry - not really meant to be insightful or thought-provoking, but just written for fun. It consists of only 5 lines, with lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyming with each other and lines 2 and 3 also rhyming. Here's an example of a limerick (Author unknown):

There once was an old man from Peat

Who had an affection for feet.

He found them so cute

He would not wear a boot

And his tootsies were pretty soon beat!

JJ was required to write his own limerick, so he chose a Star Wars theme (What else!?), and this is what he came up with. He did this completely on his own, with no help from me, except I did correct his spelling:

There once was a man named Darth Vader,

And he was a very big hater.

He wanted more power

So he could devour

All the people he thought was a traitor. 

Story Mountain

We have finished our school year, and are heading into Summer fun, but I wanted to share what we have been working on for the past couple of weeks. We used an idea a friend gave us called "story mountain" to work on a creative writing project. If you do an Internet search for it, you will see various images. The basic one we used showed how to start at the base of the mountain by introducing your characters and the setting of the story. Then, you move halfway up the mountain where something happens to get the story started (the build-up). At the top of the mountain, there is a problem that comes up. Then, going halfway down the other side, the problem is resolved. Back down at the bottom of the mountain, the story is finally finished.

JJ writing out his story

The kids worked on developing their stories on paper. Then, I had them type the stories on the computer. They learned how to type this school year by using Typing Instructor for Kids. It worked really well for both of them. JJ flew through it and loved playing the games. EL wasn't thrilled with it, but has learned to type well, she just can't seem to pick up her speed past 5 words per minute. So, we will continue to work on that.

EL typing her story

JJ has still not finished his story. He has a lot of ideas that he wants to get down on paper, so that might be a good Summer project. But, EL finished a short story about some animals who live on a farm. Most of the words are her own words. I just helped her develop the story by giving her some ideas, then I helped her edit it to get the proper punctuation and spelling. Here is her story and artwork to match:

Molly On the Farm

By:  EL Stankus

On the farm there was a pretty blue bird named Molly. There was a worm named Hans.  One day, there was a mean and hungry orange and white cat named Nellie who came into the yard to eat Molly. And there was a chocolate lab named Nick. He was very nice.

Molly flew down from a tree to get Hans the worm. “Hi Hans,” says Molly.

“Hi Molly,” says  Hans.

Molly pulled Hans out of the hole, and put Hans inside her mouth. Then, Molly saw Nellie. “Please don’t eat me.” said molly the bird. “Nellie you are a mean cat.” Nellie opened her mouth. Then Molly heard a sound. It was Nick the dog barking. Nick growled and barked at Nellie. Molly flapped her wings and started to fly. The worm dropped out of Molly’s mouth, and Nellie ran away. Molly flew back down and said, “Thanks, Nick, the cat is gone.”

“You’re welcome,” said Nick. “But are you going to eat Hans the worm like Nellie wanted to eat you?”

“Yes, I’m going to eat Hans the worm, said Molly, “because birds eat worms, and I need to eat.

Nick said,  “Nellie the cat needs to eat, too,  like she wants to eat you.”

“She could eat cat food,” said Molly, “I don’t have an owner who could feed me bird food. Nellie is so mean to me.”

“You should pray for Nellie,” said Nick.

“Yes,” said Molly, “because God wants us to pray for our enemies.”

Luke 6:27-28  “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Molly closed  her eyes and prayed.

No body got eaten that day. Hans didn’t get eaten and Molly didn’t get eaten. Nick saved the day.

The End.

Our Haiku Poem

We have been learning about Asia for the past few weeks, and are currently "visiting" Japan. Something fun we learned about today was Haiku poetry, which originated in Japan.

A Haiku poem is short - only 3 lines - and talks about something in nature.

Line 1 should have 5 syllables.

Line 2 should have 7 syllables.

Line 3 should have 5 syllables.

The kids and I worked together on making two poems today in this style of poetry. Here is one that we came up with: 

FLOWERS  IN SPRING

Flowers are pretty.

Roses, daisies, violets.

Flowers bloom in Spring.