Questions about homeschooling a 9th grader...

[ToniaStarr]

I am asking this for a friend of mine. She is homeschooling her 9th grade daughter and so far has been pretty much sticking to curriculum and following the books, ya know? But she is wanting to make it more interesting and hands on learning through unit studies, etc... I myself do not have a whole lot of learning in regards to that as I unschool. I was wondering if you could share some ideas that worked for you. What things do you think are important to learn (ie: neccesary) and how did you go about teaching it? Gimme ideas for unit studies your kids did and how you went about making it work. Basically, she is branching out into unseen territory here so any and all advice or tips would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Tonia

[Lillian J]

Here's a good article about creating unit studies: unit studies.

But I think the most important thing might be to try to let her to be her own teacher as much as possible. That's a delicate age for beginning to homeschool. It used to be that the public school home study programs in the county I used to live in wouldn't even enroll 9th graders - they would take every grade but that one. So I hope she's allowed for some decompression/deschooling time.

I'd also suggest that your friend take some time to read some good homeschooling books. This might be a good one for her: The First Year of Homeschooling Your Child: Your Complete Guide to Getting Off to the Right Start, by Linda Dobson (the synthesis of countless years of educational inquiry and experiment, from many contributing homeschoolers).

These are a set of annotated links to interesting websites - and there are lots of them that her daughter could really enjoy and learn from: Homeschooling Gateway. It sounds as if they might not have Internet access, though - but they can find so many great resources at the library. It's amazing what a person can learn just from following their interests. They should check out the juvenile non-fiction section, and they might want to get some suggestions from a youth librarian as to what kids that age are reading. And, come to think of it, libraries are providing more and more onsite computers these days - so that's a possibility too. Lillian

[Charles Baudelaire]

Hey, I can't speak to homeschooling a 9th grader because, well, that's a way off for us, BUT I am a f/t public school English teacher and freshmen are my forte.

Most freshmen I see truly lack decent writing skills -- I'm not talking about the ability to compose a decent English sentence reasonably free of grammatical and mechanical errors, but rather, they're woefully unable to express their thoughts in writing, explain why they think so, and discuss the evidence that led them to their conclusions in the first place.

The other big struggle freshmen have is the ability to probe below the surface of a text -- they're able to tell you what a statement means, but not why the author used those words and not some other words. They can't really discuss symbolism, irony, or tone.

For both of these issues, the curriculum I would most strongly recommend is Junior Great Books , but bear in mind, it's not necessarily designed for homeschoolers. However, what I like about it is that a) the texts are INTELLIGENT and challenging without being impenetrable, and b) the questions they ask are very good, very probing, and very relevant.

Speaking quite honestly about grammar, I don't think grammar past a certain point is all that relevant. I honestly think that if you basically studied grammar to the point where she would acquit herself well on the ACTs, that would be more than fine.

As for literature itself, if I were designing a freshman English program (sweeeeet prospect that will never occur....), I would do it this way at least starting out:

The Iliad
The Odyssey
The Aeneid
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex and Antigone
Euripedes, Medea
Aristophanes, Lysistrata (contains adult content)
Plato's Dialogues (including Ion, Euthyphro, and the Phaedo)
Plato, Allegory of the Cave
Socrates' Apology
I.M. Stone, The Trial of Socrates

I would then move on to the Romans, Dante, Boccacio, the medieval writers, and so on...you get my drift.

Sorry, I could about this for a long time. Hope this gives you a start.

Originally Posted by ToniaStarr

I am asking this for a friend of mine. She is homeschooling her 9th grade daughter and so far has been pretty much sticking to curriculum and following the books, ya know? But she is wanting to make it more interesting and hands on learning through unit studies, etc... I myself do not have a whole lot of learning in regards to that as I unschool. I was wondering if you could share some ideas that worked for you. What things do you think are important to learn (ie: neccesary) and how did you go about teaching it? Gimme ideas for unit studies your kids did and how you went about making it work. Basically, she is branching out into unseen territory here so any and all advice or tips would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Tonia

[muttix2]

I've just begun homeschooling my 9th grade sister this year (she was pulled out a little into the school year). I'm still trying to figure out the way that she learns best but since your friend is the mom, she has a head start on that. Ask her which way her dd works best and to build on that. For example, my sister is a hands on learner so crafts, hands on projects, and games are best for her. Anything where she's passive (TV, even reading) doesn't tend to actually teach her much. "Homeschool Your Child for Free" has a lot of good links (its a book full of links w/explainations and ratings about each site). Also "Homeschool Your Child The Teen Years", or something close to that, is pretty good. We're doing a loosely based classical education so we got lots of our materials from TWTM.

Proving "why" she has to learn something is a big deal around here. Because she's not my kid I have to follow my parents' "rules" thus she didn't have any decompression time and I'm struggling to get her to realize that all learning doesn't derive from pure evil I think that the best advice I could give is to make it fun. During the decompression time (which I read somewhere can be expected to be, on average, one month per year of school. Don't know the actual figures though) your friend should pay attention to the little things. Teenagers think that the world revolves around them and so are likely to think that everyone should know what they're interested in. The result is that no one does. But if she can get her dd talking (a hard feat after years of ps ) she should be able to pick up on the small hints. Her dd will open up more as time goes on and she learns to be a kid again.

[sagira]

This website has great resources for your ninth grader, including book lists:

www.amblesideonline.org

Click on ninth grade on the left.

Cheers,