The Everyday Educator

27 November 2009

In This Issue

• Letter from Janice 
• News: Beat-the-Clock Essay Workshop in Chesterfield VA, Tutoring, Blog Carnival
• Fun Bits: November Celebrations
• Feature: High-School Scheduling: Why Not Do What Works Best?
• Subscription Management (Need to change your e-mail? Here's where!)

Dear Friend,

My favorite month of the year is almost over, and the golds and reds of our forest are fading. Autumn always seems like such a rich tapestry of sights, scents, and sounds-- I just love it! I shared one of my favorite autumn poems on the blog last year-- Helen Hunt Jackson's October’s Bright Blue Weather. It's a lovely poem for copywork-- I hope you enjoy it!

Excellence in Literature II and V are progressing more slowly than I expected. It's been a huge learning curve for my assistant, so I have been helping as much as possible. I promise that we're working as quickly as possible. It's not been fun-- I just hate to be late with things, and I expected these to be done long before November.

If you live in central Virginia and have a student who is preparing to take the SAT*, you may want to register for the Beat-the-Clock Essay Workshop I'll be teaching in Chesterfield, VA on November 13. This is one of my favorite workshops to teach. I just love to see students come in feeling that they don't know how to write, and leave with two complete essays and the confidence that this is something they can do. Even more fun are the students who say, "Can't we write one more before my parents get here?" Now that's fun!

Blessings,

Janice Campbell

P.S. If you haven't seen the animated Bayeaux Tapestry video that I posted on the blog, please take a look. This is a wonderful complement to any study of British history!

www.Everyday-Education.com

News

Beat-the-Clock Essay Workshop in Chesterfield

Come learn how to increase your SAT/ACT score and position yourself to earn more scholarship money and entrance to the school of your choice!
 
Date: Friday, November 13, 2009
Time:  10:00 am- 2:00 pm
Where:  Chesterfield Christian Academy

Tutoring

My colleague, Connie Schenkelberg, a retired teacher and author of Grammar Made Easy and other helpful resources offers tutoring and mentoring services for a very reasonable monthly rate. If you're not sure of your ability to evaluate writing or guide your student through his or her studies, I recommend that you contact Connie at cschenkelberg@comcast.net. She's an excellent teacher, and I highly recommend her.

Blog Carnival

I'll be hosting the Carnival of Homeschooling at my "Taking Time for Things That Matter" blog on November 10. You'll be able to submit a post for inclusion during the week of November 3-9 at the Blog Carnival site. I look forward to your contributions!

Fun Fact

November has a lot of celebratory occasions, but my favorite is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This is the month when thousands of otherwise sane people commit to writing an entire 50,000+ word novel in just 30 days.

When you sign up at at the NaNoWriMo website, you’ll find the blog of founder Chris Baty, interviews with other NaNoWriMo participants, and message boards for support. There's even a Young Writers Program where students and their teachers can sign up. If you're participating with a young person, I recommend sticking with the Young Writers section, as some of the message boards can contain inappropriate language. 

The value of doing this is not in the likelihood that you’ll produce a publishable manuscript (highly unlikely, actually), but in the discovery that with a bit of self-discipline, you actually CAN write a novel. Rather than getting stuck on perfecting the first paragraph, you’ll find that the deadline pushes you to just keep writing. There will be plenty of time for revision and rewriting once the month is over.

If you participate seriously, NaNoWriMo forces you to break through the barriers that have kept you on the writing sidelines, rather than in the game. You don’t have time to wait for the muse, or for those perfect purple pens, or even for the perfect word. You write. You write more. You keep writing, and pretty soon, you have a novel.

If you or your student wants to be a writer, NaNoWriMo may give you the kickstart you need. Why not try it?

Here's a link to a post with helpful resources: Gearing up for NaNoWriMo

Feature

High-School Scheduling: Why Not Do What Works Best?

by Janice Campbell

When was the last time you thought about the best way to schedule your school days? Six subjects, one hour each per day, five days a week– ho hum. Maybe it’s time to ask some questions about scheduling!

Why do most high schools follow a traditional work week schedule?

• Does it work well for learning?
• What does it accomplish?
• Is an hour enough time for a student to grow interested in a subject, hear a lesson, and do the associated work?
• Does this format work equally well for all subjects?
• Is this the best format for your student’s learning style?
• If this is the best way for students to study a subject, why are college classes not scheduled this way? 

When we were doing school with the boys, I often chose to use different scheduling options. We found that while the daily style of scheduling was efficient for repetitive, rote subjects such as math, a college- or block-style schedule was often more interesting and effective for classes in the humanities. As they got older we would often choose to do history and literature on Monday and Wednesday; math and science on Tuesday and Thursday. Friday was for field trips and errands.

Another option is what a nearby military academy calls the “One Subject Plan.” They divide the school year into five seven-week terms, and during each term the students study only one subject. This intensely focused immersion style of learning is what we have used when we wanted to learn something independently. I have used it for academic, business, and home-centered subjects, and the boys have used it to learn about subjects ranging from the Civil War to classical music, computer programming, HVAC, and con-worlding. I would consider this type of scheduling to be related to delight-directed study or unit study scheduling.

Year-round schooling is another scheduling option that works well for many families. They choose to school for ten weeks on, three weeks off, or some variation, and it works quite effectively. This schedule adapts well to frequent travel or other unusual situations, and can help families keep a regular routine going all year, rather letting it all go for three months and having start fresh each fall.

Block scheduling or the one subject plan can allow time for students to immerse in a topic and get some serious work done. By the time students reach high school age, their brains are sufficiently well developed that they can easily skip a day– especially in subjects they enjoy– without forgetting material covered. The one-hour schedule, on the other hand, can be frustratingly short for subjects that would benefit from a longer period of concentration or practice.

The point of all this is to remind us all that we need to consider what works best with our family life and our student’s learning needs, rather than just doing what is traditional. After all, education is about thinking and purposeful planning!

(c) 2009 If you'd like to re-print this article in your local newsletter, you may do so as long as you include the following blurb: Janice Campbell homeschooled her four sons from preschool into college. She is the author of Transcripts Made Easy, Get a Jump Start on College, and Evaluate Writing the Easy Way, as well as the Excellence in Literature curriculum for grades 8-12. Be sure to visit her website, www.Everyday-Education.com, to get a free writing evaluation rubric and sign up for her free, twice-monthly e-zine.

I hope that you've enjoyed this issue of the e-zine. If you have questions you'd like to have answered, please feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me, and I'll do my best to get you an answer. Please feel free to forward it in its entirety to anyone who may enjoy it, and invite them to subscribe.

Thank you for reading!

With gratitude,

Janice

Visit the website! www.Everyday-Education.com

There's a new post at the blog every Tuesday when all goes well- Wednesday if it doesn't! www.Janice-Campbell.com

If you work with words, or want to, you need to get "The Edge: Success Strategies for People Who Work With Words," a free twice-monthly e-zine from the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors at www.NAIWE.com .

*SAT, CLEP, AP, and PSAT/NMSQT are registered trademark of the College Board and/or National Merit Scholarship Corporation, which were not involved in the production of, and do not endorse, this website or products.

(c) 2009 Everyday Education, LLC