heartofdakota.com

Hi ladies
I have a quick question.
In the high school guides, how much discussion is supposed to take place between student and parent regarding history and literature. I know independence is fostered and encouraged and I'm glad. But I also want to discuss and have rich, deep conversations about all they are learning also. I've found that often if a box is labeled "I", I don't know a whole lot about what she has done. That may be lack of proper oversight on my part. We are still learning the ins and outs of HOD.
Thanks
Poppy

Regarding history in World Geography, she has to narrate once a week. Every now and then, she also has to dictate her narration to me. For literature, we discuss one story per week, then she also has times that she had to come to me with a topic that we discuss. It seems like there's more and I'm forgetting... If you download the introductions to the guides, it will help you understand what happens in these areas.

Well we are just in CTC so still quite a few and more independence to come. We are almost to Res to Ref and I have that one in hand now too. Here's where I'm at.

1) I try to read as much of the stuff that my daughter will read as possible. So far this hasn't been too hard since I love to read and most of them are below my reading level so they go pretty quickly for me.

2) There is discussion. For everything my daughter does in an I box, I look over it and discuss it if I can. She is supposed to narrate to me once a week from science I think, and does a written narration for History which I help her edit before she copies it into the notebook. My daughter is the kind of person who you have to check her work pretty consistently anyway or she quits doing it or gets lazy and does a really poor job. So when I do sit down with her, there's definitely a "checking in" with the things she was supposed to do independently before we met. Then the T boxes that I still do with her are very rich in discussion. I really cling to this time with her now and I think I get more time to enjoy it.

If you look at Julie's weeks in review over on that board you see that with her oldest, who is in the newest guide, she has lots of discussion time. They probably don't spend lots of time discussing each aspect of what he's learning, but it seems like they discuss quite a few things and she has to keep in touch with what he's learning. I think that's just what you have to figure out how to do with your student.

My son is in the World History guide and as others have said there is built in discussion points. Once a week in history he has a talking point assignment where he shares talking points orally to me and then we discuss what he shared. There are also other types of oral narrations such as an opinion narration. In literature at the end of each book he does a detailed plot diagram as then you can grade/go over that with them as well as they are instructed to discuss certain questions with you at the end of each book. Another place where it is easy to have lit discussions is that the student completes a literary journal entry each day which is answering a specific question, as you grade this it is easy to discuss this. I read some of the lit books ahead of time and others I am reading as he reads so we can have those discussions. Health has discussion questions most days as does Pilgrim's Progress. My son and I have had very good discussions surrounding those subjects.

It truly is up to you how you fit in these discussions. I know Julie meets once or twice a day with her older students for them to do any discussion/oral narrations etc they are assigned. I only have the one ds at home so our discussions take place during the day. One thing I have altered a bit in order to facilitate more discussion is last year I read the living library books out loud and we talked about them because we were doing them together. That was very time consuming however, so our compromise this year is I read 1/3-1/2 of the reading out loud and then he completes it on his own and then I read it on my own. When we get back together the next day as a way of reminding each other what happened at the end of the reading we will talk about it and then move to that day's reading. My son has dysgraphia so certain assignments such as the You Are There assignments I listen in to with him because he takes sloppy notes while listening and then I write them neatly in his notebook. This also allows us to have discussions.

I find that there is plenty of discussion built in, but I know some people do add more, but it will add some time to your day if you decide to do that.