How Much Should My Homeschooler Write in High School?

Ann emailed me to clarify her email address for my newsletter, and asked this question for my blog:

As long as I’m writing, how many papers do you think a 10th grader and 12th grader should be writing in English? We were signed up with (an online program) and they required 24 plus a term paper. I’m trying to do it on my own this year, and I have no idea what is a typical number of papers for a highschooler.  This school’s requirements seemed quite heavy to us.  The requirements were 24 papers during the course of the year, starting in 9th grade at one page per paper, 10th grade–one to two pages, and 11th and 12th–two to three pages, in addition to a term paper, whose page length requirement got longer with each year of high school. We are trying to maintain their high standards on our own, but their paper requirements were killing us!  I also think that I was expecting too much–going over my son’s papers with a fine-tooth comb, and it got to be a heavy burden for both of us.   Any advice for us?

Most high school student curriculums seem to have one 5-6 page paper assigned one or two times per year, with some smaller papers in between.  In public school, students are often asked to write one or two papers like that per year.  I personally asked my children to write 500-1000 words per week when they were in 11th and 12th grade.  That was about 1-2 pages typed and single spaced, most weeks of the year.  It wasn’t all “English” because sometimes the papers were for history, or French, or art.

The reason our writing program was successful is because I taught my kids at their level, and I knew how much to push them so they wouldn’t break.  That’s why homeschooling works.  If you have them write AT THEIR LEVEL, they can learn.  If you have them write too much, then they will get frustrated, angry, or worse,  rebel!  I know that I had my kids write a lot, and I know it was more than most.  That’s what my kids did because they were capable, and both are good writers.  But the reason it was effective wasn’t because of how much I had them write, it was because I asked them to work at their level.

Trust yourself on that. You say the requirements are killing you – for that reason alone I would NOT follow that program.  You’ll find that each child may be different, as well.   Perhaps if you consider having them write for, say, an hour a day, that would be a more reasonable measure.  If you feel that your child is being asked to do too much, then I am 100% confident that it’s too much.

Have them write every day, and have them write different things.  But don’t push them so hard that they hate writing.  Keep that “five year plan” in mind, where they have a love of learning at the end of it all.

I hope that helps!

PS.  On Monday, my email server went haywire.  It sent out FIVE HUNDRED blank messages to people, all from me, with just an unsubscribe message at the bottom.  Ugh! Debbe wrote, asking me what was up.  I explained the problem and apologized profusely.  She gave me a great suggestion about how I should handle it, though!  She suggested that I tell everyone it is “It’s part of our anti-spam address culling diagnostic regimen. Thank you for your response – now we know this is a live E-mail address.” LOL!  Way to go, Debbe!  I love it!  Yup, we’ll go with that.  (I still apologize to anyone who was inconvenienced!)

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