I am excited to share another sneak peek with you from our upcoming World History guide.
Today's peek is about the composition part of the English credit for the upcoming guide. Just to give you a fuller picture, I'll share that the English credit in high school is typically comprised of literature, grammar, composition, and vocabulary. These areas can be covered in any combination of ways, however usually they are all represented somehow within the credit. The combined English credit often leans toward 150 hours in a year for a credit. 
With this in mind, the piece I am sharing today has to do with the composition and grammar portion of the English credit. Our plan for the new World History guide is to schedule Matthew Stephen's Essentials in Writing: Grade 11 for the area of composition. We will alternate this course with Rod and Staff English 7 so that students will do Essentials in Writing twice weekly and Rod and Staff twice weekly.
Usually, we will plan for the time slot that these two subjects share to take approximately 35-40 min. each day. Students will have completed half of Rod and Staff 7 in the World Geography Guide and now will complete the other half of English 7 in the World History Guide. Of course, students who are new to HOD (or who came to Rod and Staff late) may be on a different Rod and Staff sequence, however I just wanted to share our "ideal". Just as in the Essentials in Writing: Grade 10 that we used in the World Geography Guide, there is much to love about Stephen's Essentials in Writing: Grade 11 course.
Our own oldest son is completing it this year, doing the Grade 11 even though he could have easily handled the Grade 12. This is because the Grade 12 course was delayed in its release, and so we simply continued with the just released Grade 11 to allow our oldest son to continue with Essentials in Writing. EIW was his favorite course last year and continues to be one that he is enjoying this year. From my perspective, it is one of the least painful, well structured (without being confining), and well modeled ways of doing writing instruction at this level.Essentials in Writing has a DVD component for most lesson days, with the video lasting 7-15 minutes. Matthew Stephens enthusiastically teaches these video lesson with the aid of a whiteboard, clearly sharing the writing process step-by-step as he teaches the lesson.
The Student Book is well laid out, including a summary of notes from the lesson, samples of effective writing, samples of ineffective writing, and clear rubrics to aid the parent in grading the student's work. Lessons are broken down into incremental steps, keeping the writing process from becoming intimidating. 
Even though many students using the World History Guide will be in grade 10, due to the fact that HOD students have done much writing in the past, they are more than prepared for the level of writing taught in grade 11 Essentials in Writing.
Plus, scheduling the Grade 11 course allows the writing component to work for older students in both grades 11 and 12 as well (who may be using the World History Guide too). As you can see by the samples linked below, the Grade 11 EIW also covers the writing of a research paper by breaking this large task down into incremental steps. What a blessing for all the families who worry about how to cover this very important skill! The cost is $50 for the DVD (which includes a link to a printable PDF of the Student Book). Or, you can buy a DVD and pre-printed workbook package for $67 that includes a printed and bound workbook. I believe that HOD will carry both of these product options.
Here is a link to the scope and sequence of the Grade 11 guide. Link: http://www.essentialsinwriting.com/reso ... SAMPLE.pdf
Here is a link to the grade 8 sample of a DVD lesson for the Student Book linked above. There are no DVD samples yet online for the high school guides (as they are so new), however this will give you an idea as to what the teaching looks like on the video lessons. Scroll down to the bottom of the link to see the video. Link: http://www.essentialsinwriting.com/eighth-grade.php
Overview of Grade 11 Essentials in Writing:
SENTENCE STRUCTURE - dependent and independent clause; simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences; address sentence errors (fragment, run on, and comma splice), appositives
FORMAL PARAGRAPH - structure; expository, persuasive, compare/contrast, descriptive, cause/effect, and narrative paragraphs
THE WRITING PROCESS - in depth study of each part of the writing process; practice the writing process with each multi-paragraph composition
ESSAYS (formal and informal) - detailed instruction and step by step process for expository, persuasive, process analysis, cause and effect, compare/contrast, and response to literature essays; 60-minute essay (college prep)
RESEARCH PAPER (project) - detailed instruction and step by step process to conduct a research project and write a research paper CAREER STUDY (EXPOSITORY)
We hope that you will be as excited about this selection as we are! Stephen's EIW is truly an answer to our prayers for a high school composition program for our World History guide. The Grade 11 Essentials in Writing was just released near the end of 2012.
Blessings,
Carrie
