Homeschooling High School: Is Outsourcing an Option?

When I talk about homeschooling through high school, I always mention the possibility of seeking outside help for advanced subjects. Although most people understand the reasons behind finding an experienced algebra tutor or writing coach, some parents don’t see it that way. I heard from one irate mom after I mentioned several options for working through advanced subjects: “That’s not homeschooling through high school,” she fumed, “that’s not even homeschooling!”

As I understand homeschooling, the defining characteristic is that parents choose and oversee what is learned and how it is taught, and most of us do most of the teaching, at least for the primary grades. Read more

Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins: A Review

I have a weakness for books with funny titles– especially if they are about writing, grammar, style, and usage. Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins: The Careful Writer’s Guide to the Taboos, Bugbears and Outmoded Rules of English Usage by Theodore M. Bernstein has finally made its way from my Amazon wish list to my desktop, and I’ve been enjoying it immensely.

Bernstein, a former editorial director of the New York Times Book Division, a 25-year journalism professor at Columbia’s School of Journalism, and consultant on usage for the Random House and American Heritage dictionaries, tackles some of the unfortunate strictures that have made writing more difficult than it needs to be. With delightful good humor, he routs “Syntax Scarecrows” and other distractions, while answering grammar, usage, and style questions you didn’t know you should be asking. Read more

Perfectly Parsed Piffle- The Writing Evaluator’s Dilemma

As parent-teachers, we’ve all seen boring writing assignments– a grammatically-correct report that simply paraphrases an encyclopedia entry or a five-paragraph essay that piles one trite cliche on another, and concludes without a glimmer of an original thought. If you’re anything like me, you may even remember writing a few of those! The cause of such frightful compositions usually lies in an inadequate reading foundation (input) or in a poorly-thought-out writing assignment.*

I’ll write about how to remedy the causes another time, but today, I’d like to discuss how to evaluate this kind of writing. To a parent, perfectly parsed piffle often poses a dilemma. If there are no obvious mechanical errors (spelling, punctuation, grammar, word usage), does the student’s work deserve an ‘A’? How do you grade a paper for shallow content and lack of originality– and should you even do so? Read more