High School Language Arts

How to Create an Honors Literature Credit for Homeschool Transcript

Here is how to create an Honors Literature Credit for homeschool transcript.

How to Create an Honors Literature Credit for Homeschool Transcript

Many colleges are looking for higher-powered credits on the homeschool transcript. One way to help your homeschool high schooler build a college-attractive transcript is to level-up on courses in their interest or skill areas.

American Literature 7SistersHomeschool.com

Click image for more information on this full year study of American Literature.

Literature is often one of these areas that homeschool teens will level up. While there’s not one right way to increase the power of Literature credits, here is one that many of our advisees have done. There are several reasons why leveling-up with this method is a good choice:

Serious college prep

An honors-level Literature course requires lots of reading of real books. Reading lots of real books increases focus, thinking and vocabulary. Analyzing some books in detail increases critical thinking skills needed to be a successful college student. Our local teens who have done honors level high school courses transition easily to college-level work.

Allows students to continue the depth and breadth of high school education

Another way to level-up is to take dual credit courses at a local or online college. This is fine (there’s not one right way to homeschool). However, these are survey courses and do not allow deep exploration of a topic. Creating an honors course at home allows exploration that teens can’t get with freshman level college courses.

British Literature High School British Literature High School curriculum with 9 study guides to enrich classic titles. Ideal for Christian or homeschool use.

Click on image to learn more about this full year study of British Literature

Here are general guidelines for Honors-level Literature. Remember, these need to be accompanied by writing to create the full Language Arts credit. (A more detailed list of how-to’s at Average, College Prep, Advanced and Honors levels is included in each 7SistersFull-Year Literature Guide.)

Note: Classics may be defined as any book that is a *standard setter* or *highly recognized or influential* in any genre.

9th grade

Reading: 40 books (6 classics, 10 can be Bible, may include some audio books)
Writing: 6 short papers, 6 essays, 2 7-page research papers

10th grade

Reading: 40 books (6 classics, 10 can be Bible,may include some audio books)
Writing: 8 short papers, 6 essays, 2 7-page research papers

11th grade

Reading: 50 books (6 classics, 20 can be Bible, may include some audio books)
Writing: 8 short papers, 8 essays, 2 10-page research papers OR 10-page and 2 5-page papers

12th grade

Reading: 50 books (6 classics, 20 can be Bible,may include some audio books)
Writing: 8 short papers, 8 essays, 2 10-page research papers OR 10-page + 2 5-page papers

World Literature: A Full-Year High School Course from 7SistersHomeschool.com

Click image for more information on this full year study of World Literature.

That sounds like a LOT! How do teens do this?

It isn’t that difficult. Most of our teens:

Keep an audio book going in the car
Intersperse longer or more difficult books with lighter, pleasure reading books (which still count toward total required)
Average one book a week, including summer reading
Count books of the Bible (which many teens read in their devotional time, anyway)
Only include Literature Guides for in-depth study on approximately 9 books/year
Engage in NO busywork!

7Sisters’Full-Year Literature Guides are designed to facilitate this powerful, no-busywork, college-attractive Honors Literature credit. Our own homeschool high schoolers and the hundreds of local teens who have followed these guidelines have been well-prepared for college (many come back and thank us)!

Download a 7Sisters Full-Year Literature Guide to create a powerful transcript for your homeschool high schooler.

How to Create an Honors Literature Credit for Homeschool Transcript

3 Totally Different Ways to Schedule Senior Year Writing Guide for Your Teen

Here are 3 totally different ways to schedule Senior Year Writing Guide for your teen.

3 Totally Different Ways to Schedule Senior Year Writing Guide for Your Teen

I was chatting with one of our 7th Sisters the other day. (You knew there are only 6 of us 7Sisters, right? You’re our 7th Sister when you visit us here!) She wanted some different ideas for scheduling her teen’s work on our Guide to Senior Year Writing.

High School Guide to Senior Year Writing 7SistersHomeschool.com

Click image to learn more.

She had a good question. We usually publish a planner/scheduler for our curriculum because there’s not ONE right way to homeschool: people have so many different schedules for their homeschool lives.

However, I came up with 3 common ways I’ve seen people schedule their 7Sisters High School Writing Bundles. So here are 3 totally different ways to schedule Senior Year Writing Guide for your teen.

Method #1: Spread the 4 guides included in Senior Year Writing over a 30-week school year, working some each day 4 days/week.

While your teen may work through the guides in any order, this order may be good for many seniors:

Guide to College Application Essay Writing: 1 week

Day 1: Read through the guide and watch videos on page 6-7
Day 2: Brainstorm and choose topic and make notes.
Day 3: Write rough draft.
Day 4: Watch videos on page 10 and use guidelines on that page to do first revision. Have one or 2 people read it over. Let it sit 24 hours.
Day 5: Write final draft.

Guide to Professional Writing: 13 weeks

This curriculum has 11 topics. Your teen can do 9 of the topics at one topic per week. Two of the topics: “Writing an Expository Speech” and “Writing an Organizational Newsletter” lessons are split out over two weeks each.

After the Christmas break, do Guide to Chicago-Style Research Paper writing: 5 weeks

This curriculum is broken into 5 weeks of work with 1 session assignment per day.

Now for the fun part! Creative Chronicling: around 10 weeks (will vary according to the size of the project and the amount of detail your teen wants to include)

Day 1: Mom and teen should read through the curriculum together
Day 2: Using the Scheduling Backwards instructions on page 8, decide a deadline for completed project, then create a schedule.

Method #2: Block Schedule

In block scheduling, rather than spread writing over the entire year, teens complete their assignments in 1 semester with longer writing periods.

Consider this schedule:

Guide to College Application Essay Writing: 1 week

Day 1: Read through the guide and watch videos on page 6-7
Day 2: Brainstorm and choose topic and make notes.
Day 3: Write rough draft.
Day 4: Watch videos on page 10 and use guidelines on that page to do first revision. Have one or 2 people read it over. Let it sit 24 hours.
Day 5: Write final draft.

Guide to Professional Writing: 6 weeks

This curriculum has 11 topics. Your teen will do 2 topics per week. They will have long days in the lessons for “Writing an Expository Speech” and “Writing an Organizational Newsletter”.

Guide to Chicago-Style Research Paper writing: 3 weeks

This curriculum is broken into 5 weeks of work with 1 session assignment per day. In block scheduling, students will work through 2 lessons per day instead of 1 lesson.

Creative Chronicling: around 5 weeks (will vary according to the size of the project and the amount of detail your teen wants to include)

Day 1: Mom and teen should read through the curriculum together
Day 2: Using the Scheduling Backwards instructions on page 8, decide a deadline for completed project, then create a schedule.

Method #3: Teen creates his/her own schedule

Read through with your teen, the Scheduling Backwards instructions on page 8 of Creative Chronicling and/or download the freebie: Scheduling Backwards.

Ask your teen to choose the deadline date for each of the guides. Then create a schedule backwards for the work they will do and when. Have them write it on a calendar or enter it on their digital calendar. Have them show you their calendar and discuss their plans.

The benefit of this method is that it encourages independent writing and some life-prep maturity (which they will need when they go to college).

Download your Guide to Senior Year Writing and have a wonderful Senior Year!

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3 Totally Different Ways to Schedule Senior Year Writing Guide for Your Teen

Homeschool Senior Year? Introducing Powerful Real-Life Writing Projects

Homeschool Senior Year? Introducing Powerful Real-Life Writing Projects!

Projects they'll actually use! High School Guide to Senior Year Writing 7SistersHomeschool.com

Click image to learn more!

Introducing Powerful Real-Life Writing Projects

Ever heard the question, “When will I EVER use this?” 7Sisters has an answer to that question with High School Guide to Senior Year Writing!

Homeschool high school seniors are busy. They need to make every academic moment worth their while. This special Senior Year Writing bundle will NOT waste your senior’s time! The 4 guides in this curriculum are actual preparation for college and life AND include a creative chronicling project that they will treasure for a lifetime. Included in this bundle are the following writing projects:

*High School Guide to Professional (Writing 11 writing projects they will ACTUALLY use in life!)
*Chicago Style Research Paper Writing Guide (User-friendly research paper style that is popular in many colleges.)
*Guide to Writing a College Application Essay (This may be the most important essay your teen writes in high school!)
*High School Guide to Creative Chronicling (This powerful writing project produces an heirloom.)

This curriculum assumes some proficiency in writing. (For teens who struggle with writing, it is a good idea to have your senior work in a curriculum level that best meets their needs such as High School Guide to Introductory, Intermediate or Advance Writing.)

Click image to learn more!

This curriculum bundle will save you money, too! If you purchased each of the included writing guides individually, your cost would be $39.96.

Purchasing this bundled High School Guide to Senior Year Writing curriculum gives you all of the same resources for $29.99! Download it today!

Click HERE to view EXCERPTS from High School Guide to Senior Year Writing.

Want more information on each of the guides included in High School Guide to Senior Year Writing? Click on the above links or read below.

High School Guide to Professional Writing

A High School Guide to Professional Writing equips senior-year students (or other accomplished high school writers) for 11 types of writing commonly applied in workplace or community scenarios.

High School Guide to Professional Writing offers 13 weeks of instruction in a step-by-step, conversational style that refuses busywork and reassures students that this schoolwork will be of use to them in REAL LIFE after graduation.

The 11 Types of Writing covered in High School Guide to Professional Writing:

Writing a Business Letter
Writing a Letter of Complaint
Writing an Organizational Newsletter (2 weeks recommended for this lesson)
Taking and Formatting Meeting Minutes
Writing Advertising Copy and Press Releases
Writing a Product Review
Writing a Book Review
Writing a Set of How-To Instructions
Writing a Professional Bio
Writing an Expository Speech (2 weeks recommended for this lesson)
Writing a Project Proposal and Abstract

Rubrics are included for grading each assignment.

Click here to view EXCERPTS.

High School Guide to Chicago-Style Research Paper Writing

Chicago style NB research papers are popular these days on many campuses, so 7Sisters is bringing you our Chicago-Style Research Paper Writing Guide.

Chicago-Style Research Paper Writing Guide is a 5-week study aimed at high schoolers who already have some experience with research paper writing. It is self-guided, step-by-step, no-busywork guide that coaches a teen from start to finish through writing a Chicago-style research paper. Rubric for grading included.

What is Chicago style?

Chicago style is the creation of the University of Chicago Press. It is an old and successful format that has been re-popularized with several variations. Chicago style NB format (Note-Bibliography), Chicago-Style Research Paper Writing Guide follows that format.

Click here to view EXCERPTS from Chicago Style Research Paper Writing Guide.

Guide to Writing a College Application Essay

Help is here for writing the all-important college application essay in this 10-page downloadable ebook text! Homeschooling seniors applying to colleges need to be able to communicate their thoughts in a clear and persuasive manner, paying close attention to the details that are uniquely effective in a college application essay. 7Sisters’ Guide to Writing a College Application Essay builds confidence in high school juniors and seniors through a conversational style of instruction that will help them write those essays with excellence and gain positive attention from college admissions offices.

The Guide to Writing a College Application Essay includes topics to help build real-world understanding in teens, answering questions such as:

How important is the admissions essay?
What are typical college application essay prompts?
What are the must-include pieces of this process?
What are common mistakes, and how can I avoid them?

With helpful examples and no-busywork, Guide to Writing a College Application Essay equips your homeschooler for this important task!

Click here to view an excerpt from Guide to Writing a College Application Essay.

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High School Guide to Creative Chronicling

Short story writing, plus project planning, plus media and computer skill development in a senior year curriculum? Yes!

Are you looking for a unique writing assignment for your student’s senior year or as an additional assignment for a student who is creative and loves to write? Maybe you’d like to equip your student to create a group yearbook, or a written gift to commemorate a special event or milestone in your family. High School Guide to Creative Chroniclingoffers all of this and more. This high school guide does more than just teach writing. It encourages students to combine writing with computer skills and photography to create a chronicle of lasting memories.

High School Guide to Creative Chronicling is a 38-page downloadable pdf guide, written by Marilyn Groop and Sabrina Justison collaboratively to encourage upperclassmen to capture memories with excellent short-story writing, photography and photo editing, formatting, and creative presentation that results in a true keepsake book.

High School Guide to Creative Chronicling is a blend of creative-academic-meets-real-world-writing that is perfect for seniors who already have built strong writing skills with essays, research papers, short stories, poetry in the earlier years of high school.

Beginning with instruction in project planning, the High School Guide to Creative Chronicling walks your student writer through a multi-step process:

decide on a purpose for the chronicle,
select the number of stories to include,
choose whether or not to work collaboratively with other writers,
develop a timeline to ensure that deadlines are met,
delegate duties if working with a group,
plan a visual look for the finished book,
edit photos, graphics and text for a professional appearance,
and designate a printing and binding style for powerful presentation.

Click here to view an excerpt from High School Guide to Creative Chronicling.

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Homeschool Senior Year? Introducing Powerful Real-Life Writing Projects

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Senior Year Creative Writing Project – High School Guide to Creative Chronicling

Sometimes high school seniors feel like they have done it all. They’ve written essays until their eyes fell out, prepared research papers until their brains short-circuited, penned creative papers until they ran out of descriptive language, and now you need to INSPIRE them to keep writing until graduation. Here’s the inspiration they need, a senior year creative writing project that fits the bill! High School Guide to Creative Chronicling is a unique blend of academic-writing-meets-real-world-application, and upperclassmen love it.

Senior Year Creative Writing Project

Can you really find a curriculum that has short story writing, plus project planning, plus media and computer skill development in a no-busywork guide? Yes!

Perhaps you need a unique senior year creative writing project for your student or an additional assignment for a mature student who is creative and loves to write. Or maybe you’d like to equip your student to create a group yearbook, or a written gift to commemorate a special event or milestone in your family. High School Guide to Creative Chronicling offers all of this and more. This high school guide does more than just teach writing. It encourages students to combine planning, writing, formatting and editing with computer skills and photography to create a chronicle of lasting memories.

Beginning with instruction in project planning, the High School Guide to Creative Chronicling walks your student writer through a multi-step process:

decide on a purpose for the chronicle,
select the number of stories to include,
choose whether or not to work collaboratively with other writers,
develop a timeline to ensure that deadlines are met,
delegate duties if working with a group,
plan a visual look for the finished book,
edit photos, graphics and text for a professional appearance,
and designate a printing and binding style for powerful presentation.

The High School Guide to Creative Chronicling is ebook curriculum in convenient .pdf file format that downloads immediately to your device after purchase. This 38-page guide by Marilyn Groop and Sabrina Justison is $7.99 and provides instruction for an assignment that will take the idea of a senior year creative writing project to a whole new level!

Click here to read the full product description.

High School Guide to Creative Chronicling — no-busywork, real-world learning, and FUN!

Senior Year Creative Writing Project

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3 Workable Ways to Help Teens Learn Independent Writing Skills

Here are 3 workable ways to help teens learn independent writing skills.

3 Workable Ways to Help Teens Learn Independent Writing Skills

When my youngest started college, his freshman composition teacher asked him to stay after class for a moment. He was a bit nervous: Did he do something wrong?

The instructor simply wanted to know how he learned to write so well, “What level course did you take for writing in high school? What is AP Composition?”

My son told him, that no, he did not do AP Comp. He was homeschooled and learned to write well and write well independently.

My son gained his excellent writing skills, not because he loved writing (he doesn’t love writing). He gained good skills with good curriculum and independent writing experiences.

Here are 3 tips to help teens learn independent writing skills:

Introductory Writing BUNDLE 7SistersHomeschool.com

Click here to discover this user-friendly curriculum.

Tip #1: Use a curriculum that makes independent writing possible. You may have noticed that some high school curricula is so intense and complicated that many teens need adult guidance and supervision for the entire process.

We long ago learned (by vetting everything we produce on our own homeschool high schoolers and other local homeschoolers) that teens often learn best with:

short lessons
no-busywork instruction and assignments
simple instructions
adaptability to different levels of ability and interest
rubrics

That’s what my son, the 7Sisters homeschool high schoolers and many other teens have used for successfully developing independent writing skills.

Intermediate Guide to High School Writing 7SistersHomeschool.com

Click here for info and excerpts.

Tip #2: Set deadlines and enforce them. Many teens have not developed skills for planning writing projects and time management. Help them by teaching them to schedule backwards. This is a practical planning method where teens:

put final deadlines on their calendar
then move backwards to when rough drafts are due (put that on the calendar)
then move backwards to halfway through the project (put that on the calendar)
then move backwards to start date (put that on the calendar)

It’s easier to listen to Sabrina explain the process in Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Conquering the Crunchtime Craziness!

Tip #3: Don’t Hover. Using the checkpoints in Tip #2, have your homeschool high schoolers share their work with you. Remember the following 2 guidelines for parents when checking their progress:

*Don’t practically rewrite the paper for them. “Shouldn’t you have said it this way?” “Shouldn’t you use this example instead?” If your teens must write in YOUR voice, they’ll never learn to write independently.

Instead, use a rubric (make sure your teens checks their work against the rubric before showing it to you). 7Sisters Writing Guides include a rubric for grading writing projects.

While you’re planning for success, watch this encouraging Facebook Live from Sabrina about what teens need to write during high school.

Download a 7Sisters Writing Guide for your homeschool high schoolers!

3 Workable Ways to Help Teens Learn Independent Writing Skills

Give Career-Preparation Professional Writing Skills to Homeschool Teens

At last: Give career-preparation professional writing skills to homeschool teens!

Give Career-Preparation Professional Writing Skills to Homeschool Teens

One of the hats I (Vicki) wear professionally is Career Coach. I often serve young people starting out in the work force, so I get to know their fears and needs. One of the more frequent complaints they have is not knowing how to do business writing!

We homeschool parents prepare our kids for many of the writing projects they will face in college by giving them a strong Language Arts writing component. Our teens graduate with confidence in writing:

Essays
Research papers
Short stories
Poetry

But often we feel ill-equipped to teach our homeschool high schoolers the professional-writing skills they will need in many work settings.

7Sisters’ Sabrina Justison has been teaching our local homeschool high schoolers about professional writing skills. Now, her user-friendly, no-busywork writing guide is ready to share!

High School Guide to Professional Writing 7SistersHomeschool.com

Click here for more information and excerpts!

7Sisters’ High School Guide to Professional Writing equips senior-year students (or other accomplished high school writers) for 11 types of writing commonly applied in workplace or community scenarios.

High School Guide to Professional Writing offers 13 weeks of instruction in a step-by-step, conversational style that reassures students that this schoolwork will be of use to them in REAL LIFE after graduation.

The 11 Types of Writing covered in High School Guide to Professional Writing:

Writing a Business Letter
Writing a Letter of Complaint
Writing an Organizational Newsletter (2 weeks recommended for this lesson)
Taking and Formatting Meeting Minutes
Writing Advertising Copy and Press Releases
Writing a Product Review
Writing a Book Review
Writing a Set of How-To Instructions
Writing a Professional Bio
Writing an Expository Speech (2 weeks recommended for this lesson)
Writing a Project Proposal and Abstract

Rubrics are included for grading each assignment.

Download High School Guide to Professional Writing for your homeschool teens and give them good career-preparation.

Give Career-Preparation Professional Writing Skills to Homeschool Teens

3 Ways Chronicles of Narnia Improve Teens’ Critical Thinking Skills

Here are 3 ways Chronicles of Narnia improve teens’ critical thinking skills.

3 Ways Chronicles of Narnia Improve Teens’ Critical Thinking Skills

Teens need to have sharp critical thinking skills to prepare for adulthood. So how can reading a series of children’s novels help homeschool high schoolers improve their critical thinking skills?

The Chronicles of Narnia Literature Guides for High School-Complete Set from 7 Sisters Homeschool

Click here for more info on these user-friendly guides.

Of course, I’m admittedly biased on this topic. I am a C.S. Lewis junkie, having read all his books and some many times over. The Chronicles of Narnia are an example of multiple readings of a book. After all, Lewis himself said that, ” A children’s book that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”

Teen should read Chronicles of Narnia again in high school. There are several reasons for this:

They are a fun read
They enhance spiritual growth
They inspire character development
They improve teen’s critical thinking skills

7Sisters’ Literature Study Guides for Chronicles of Narnia help teens with their critical thinking skills.

The Last Battle Literature Study Guide 7SistersHomeschool.com

Click here to learn about The Last Battle Study Guide

Here are 3 ways reading Chronicles of Narnia improve your teens’ critical thinking skills:

Characters in the books must frequently evaluate and discern what is true. This is an important concept in this day of *fake news*. One of the best Narnian books for this is The Last Battle, a book which is rife with the conflict of true truth and fake truth.

Characters in the books must often remember their righteous training and align apparent evidence with what they already know is truth. Think about Voyage of the Dawn Treader: the children must frequently discern between information they are given and what they learned in the days of their reigns about what is real and true.

Voyage of Dawn Treader Literature Study Guide 7SistersHomeschool.com

Click here to learn about this study guide.

Characters must continuously remember to hang onto Aslan’s words. In The Silver Chair, the children must memorize Aslan’s words and hold onto them throughout great trials.

Silver Chair Literature Study Guide 7SistersHomeschool.com

Click here to see a sample of this study guide.

All our teens will face fake news, challenges to what is right, challenges to God’s words. It takes good critical thinking skills to navigate these trials. The learnings they take away from Narnia will help them develop their critical thinking skills to successfully weather these trials. Download 1 Literature Study Guide or the entire Chronicles of Narnia Literature Study Guide Bundle.

3 Ways Chronicles of Narnia Improve Teens’ Critical Thinking Skills

Literature Guides Are Now Editable!

You have loved the content, and the new format means our literature guides are now editable! Your students can type answers directly into the .pdf file if you want them to — same low price, same great content, with a new feature that works just beautifully for ebook curriculum.

Literature Guides Are Now Editable!

We don’t believe in busywork or overkill, but we DO believe in the value of adding a series of guides in high school to help teens begin their exploration of literature analysis. If this sounds like it may make Language Arts learning in high school overwhelming, it’s actually quite the opposite.

Literature analysis is a necessary skill for high schoolers to develop. Analysis means going deeper, digging below a surface comprehension of the story (what happened when, who did what, who was driving the story, who learned a lesson, etc.) and examining the underlying ideas the author used his story to communicate. For some students, this step into literature analysis happens naturally and easily, but for most teens this is an unfamiliar way of thinking, and a literature guide with the right approach can facilitate that process and keep things interesting and fun.

What makes our literature guides unique?

No busywork.

When a 7Sisters guide asks a comprehension question, it’s not a dumbed-down, kill the student with busywork question. It’s there to draw their attention to an important moment in the story that will HELP them with the analysis to come.

No overkill.

7Sisters literature guides do not attempt to analyze the book within an inch of its life! We choose two or three elements on which to focus for this particular reading of the book, and we leave the other rich elements to be explored some other day. If a teen reads a classic novel and uses a guide that analyzes EVERY rich element possible (symbolism, theme, metaphor, descriptions, character development, style, tone, background, plot structure, mood, dialogue, setting, and so on), it is an overwhelming analysis that robs young people of the pleasure of the story itself. Treating literature analysis as a process that is best practiced bit by bit to build critical thinking skills means students are not overwhelmed by our guides.

7Sisters Literature Guides Facebook Live video

Click here to view Sabrina’s Facebook Live to learn more about literature analysis for teens

Created by real homeschool moms.

If you missed the Facebook Live explaining the use of literature guides for analysis in high school, click the image above and watch the video! All of us at 7Sisters are REAL homeschool moms who homeschooled our own kids for 20+ years (not the same kid for 20+ years, mind you…we had multiple kids!), used our curriculum in co-ops and group classes in our local community, and are now making that curriculum available to you, our “7th sisters”! Our literature guides were not developed in some environment separate from the homeschool trenches; this is real homeschool curriculum that has been tried and refined over years of use with homeschool high school students.

We are excited to offer these guides now in an editable .pdf format so students can type their answers directly into the guide as they work. If you have purchased literature guides from us in the past and would like this new version for use with your younger students, just send an email to sabrina@7sistershomeschool.com! We will be glad to send you the new version at no cost. (Please allow a few days for a response…there will be a lot of email flooding in!)

Help us spread the good news that our literature guides are now editable! Teens need to learn the process of literature analysis, and 7Sisters guides can help them do that successfully.

Literature Guides Are Now Editable!

Homeschool Co-op How-to: Meaningful Literature Analysis Essays

Here’s a Homeschool Co-op How-to: Meaningful Literature Analysis Essays.

Homeschool Co-op How-to: Meaningful Literature Analysis Essays

7Sisters’ Marilyn contributed her expertise for this post.

We use Literature Analysis Essays in our homeschool group classes each year in addition to group discussion of some of the books they are reading.

Essay Writing is fun when you choose topics wisely

Click here to learn about the Introductory Guide to High School Essay Writing!

Why have your student write an essay, rather than merely discussing the elements of a particular book?

Capturing in writing the ideas our homeschool high schoolers have discussed in class helps them develop their own inferential and critical thinking skills.
Writing the Literature Analysis Essay requires teens to organize their thoughts in a logical manner.
Students must look carefully at their books to find support for their essay’s thesis. (“Riding the fence” on a topic is difficult when formulating a well-written essay.)

Discussion is the first tool for a student to explore the deeper meanings of their books. It is especially meaningful for teens to be exposed to various opinions regarding the literature that is being read. A co-op or a book club can be a wonderful means for gaining multiple perspectives on great pieces of literature.

In co-op class, discuss the purpose for the author’s writing.

Some books are written simply to tell a story.
Others are written with a particular purpose in mind, such as exposing a social issue (racial tension, poverty, oppression of a particular group, etc.) These authors tell the story as a vehicle for expressing their concern about the issue. Many classics are written along these lines, such as the novels by Charles Dickens, whose concern for the poor and how they were being treated spurred him to create his stories.

Next, cover any other important themes that you want to develop with your teens. 7Sisters Literature Study Guides are excellent, no-busywork tools for learning about these themes. One important distinction of 7Sisters’ guides is that we don’t kill the book with endless literary topics. Rather, we stick to just a few topics so that teens can explore those themes well but without feeling overwhelmed.

Homeschool Language Arts 7SistersHomeschool.com

Click here to view 7Sisters’ Literature Study Guides.

Then, you can remind the teens that a book with a complex purpose requires much thought. You can remind them that important thinking starts through discussion, but even deeper thinking happens when they follow discussion by writing a Literary Analysis Essay.

Intermediate Guide to Essay Writing 7SistersHomeschool.com

Click here to view Intermediate Guide to High School Essay Writing

All of 7Sisters Essay Writing Guides contain several types of essays. You will find no-busywork, user-friendly Literature Analysis Essay writing in each level: Introductory Guide to High School Essay Writing, Intermediate Guide to High School Essay Writing and Advanced Guide to High School Essay Writing.

CAUTION: Writing an essay on every book read could ruin the joy of reading! However assigning some literary analysis essays encourages critical thinking:

examination of others’ responses to a book
formulating one’s own opinion, finding support for one’s opinion
logically organizing one’s thoughts

Click here to view Advanced Guide to High School Essay Writing

Download an essay writing guide for your homeschool high schooler and they will find the help they need for essay writing- especially Literature Analysis Essays.

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Homeschool Co-op How-to: Meaningful Literature Analysis Essays

Homeschool Highschool Co-op: Activities for MLA Research Paper

Have a homeschool highschool co-op? Here’s activities for MLA research paper for your teens.

Homeschool Highschool Co-op: Activities for MLA Research Paper

Teens need to write a research paper each year for Language Arts. We’ve never had homeschool graduates complain about this (although they did complain when they were teens). College and career teens tell us that the skills they learned in high school writing those paper has been a BIG help after graduation.

MLA Research Paper Writing Guide 7SIstersHomeschool.com

Click here for info about MLA Research Paper Writing Guide!

Our 7Sister Allison, shares how she uses MLA Research Paper Writing Guide for activities with her homeschool highschool group classes:

Writing a research paper is most certainly an individual student project. Students must devote time to independent research of sources, organizing their thoughts on the subject, drafting their discussion, and revising to produce a quality paper of their own.

However, the co-op setting provides certain benefits to the process of writing MLA research papers:

*First, and perhaps foremost, a co-op or group setting can be a platform for incentive and encouragement while students undertake this sometimes overwhelming writing assignment.

*Procrastination undermines the research writing process, and deadlines shared by a group somehow appear more definite in the mind of the high schooler. Many students dislike writing a long paper, but “group suffering” in co-op sweetens the sour.

Homeschool Highschool Podcast Episode 61: Writing Research Papers

Click here to listen to Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Writing Research Papers!

Here are some practical tools for use in your co-op MLA research paper class include:

• Thesis feedback: Let students read each other’s theses and make suggestions. Use the “Evaluating a Thesis Worksheet” (page 17 in MLA Research Paper Writing Guide) to guide student responses.

• Introduction response: Have each student share his or her introduction and conclusion with another student. Does the introduction capture the reader’s interest?

• Conclusion response: Pair students and let them play the “So what, why should anyone care?” game. Read the conclusion, then ask the writer, “So what, why should anyone care?” The writer’s answer can then be incorporated into his conclusion or can spur another, “Why should anyone care?” question which can lead to more ideas for the conclusion, etc.

• Editing: Encourage students to share papers with each other and act as editor. Use the editing checklist (page 31). Editors can mark areas for correction, then return the paper to the writer for polishing. This strengthens both the writer’s and the editor’s skills.

• Practice Citations: Divide the co-op into two teams. Give each team several sources from which to create in-text citations and works cited entries. Have the teams trade sources and lists and see if they can locate the correct source and spot for each citation the other team created.

MLA Research Paper Writing Guide is a great choice for homeschool highschool co-ops. Take a look at it!

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