Math and science may scare some people, but I was intimidated by English. Math and science are wonderful, because there is always a right answer and a wrong answer. Unfortunately, English isn’t that way. English has “voice” which is very difficult to teach and difficult to correct. How do you know writing is “right” or “wrong” when it could be just the voice of the writer?
I finally decided that my job as a homeschool parent was to simply help my children become better writers. Not perfect, and not “right” just better than they were yesterday. That’s when I decided that writing was more about practice than anything else. Practice and feedback, more practice and more feedback.
I have been collecting some ideas for writing that may encourage you as you think about English for your own homeschool.
Free Online Classes
50+ Open Courseware Writing Classes from the World’s Leading Universities
Online Courses
Brave Writer
Write at Home
Home 2 Teach
The Potters School
Online Inspiration for Writing
One Year Novel
National Novel Writing Month Young Writers Program
A Novel Writing Site
Write a blog using one of these resources
https://www.blogger.com/start
http://wordpress.com/
Writing for Publication
Teen Ink monthly magazine
Cicada Magazine
Stone Soup
Popular Essay Contests
Merlyn’s Pen yearly essay contest
Scholastic Art and Writing Competition
Ayn Rand essay contest
Even though I am listing some courses, remember that most homeschoolers teach English and writing at home using tools they have around the house (mainly paper and pencil.) You don’t need to have online resources, and you don’t need a teacher to grade papers for you. You can choose a writing curriculum you do at home, or choose writing assignments independently and be completely successful. However, I’m aware that some parents are serious about wanting additional help in this area, so I wanted to make sure to list a bunch of ideas. I have heard great reports about Brave Writer and Write at Home in particular.
Here is an article about English that may help you with the grading.
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August 12th, 2010 at 5:38 am
Mikki says:
My daughter has been using One Year Adventure Novel now for the past two years. It has been perfect for her, and one of the best things is the on-line community she has been able to be involved in through their website. I highly recommend it for any student who loves writing fiction. They now also have a curriculum for writing fantasy and science fiction.
November 22nd, 2011 at 11:41 am