Transcripts and High School Outline

Since I have just finished helping my daughter pull together a transcript for college applications, I thought I'd share a sample. General Transcript (doc)

This one is sort of a mix of the three transcripts we've produced so far for the two older boys and my daughter. They had variations depending upon particular gifts and strengths -- for example, my oldest son had a computer programming elective and apprenticeship, while my daughter learned several musical instruments during this time period, and my second son embarked on an extensive dendrology (tree) study that included all sort of research and field observations (since we live only 20 minutes from a Giant Sequoia grove). He also studied much extra history and wrote a 400 page novel. I would try to write their transcripts in a way that showed their particular focus but still looked fairly conventional and easy to figure out for the admissions officer.

The basic outline of our high school course (based on Kolbe Academy's) is over here at the Classical Co-op. I made that wiki page several years ago when my oldest was a senior, and now I have 3 high school grads. Time moves fast!

Weekend Work: Year 9 Syllabus

(I accidentally posted this to my other blog first, so am moving it over here. That's what happens when you stay up too late the night before, and then are doing things in a rush on a Sunday afternoon)

This weekend my goal was to get Sean's coursework figured out. So I browsed through the Kolbe syllabi, thought hard, typed out tables of contents, looked at the syllabi a friend sent to my classical egroup, and finally came up with this:

Year 9 Course Outlines
(it is a PDF)

The way it is structured is basically just as a checklist. Obviously, it is a work in progress. What I would like to add is a table of contents, a list of memory work, and more details about what the method is actually like. But just getting the breakdown typed out took about 4 hours.

I stayed up till almost 3 am -- it is SO. MUCH. EASIER to get things done when the little ones are asleep. You don't want to know how much coffee I've gone through in the past 15 hours. But it's nice to have this written out. Kieron's schoolwork has been flying -- a spontaneous, impromptu approach has been working great for him this year -- I love teaching sixth graders! But it has been harder with Sean because I didn't have things mapped out and he likes to charge through his work and then go about his day. So we'll see if this makes a difference.

One more thing: When I looked at it all laid out, I felt discouraged for a few minutes. I hate feeling like I'm caught in a lockstep with academics. Takes all the joy out of it. SO one more thing I'd like to work on alongside the basic syllabus is a list of topics for what Ignatian education calls "lectio statataria". That means something like a spotlight or focus, or what the Real Learning community calls a Rabbit Trail. It could be a bit like a Main Lesson, too. Basically, you stop for a bit as you progress through in order to concentrate on a particular event or person or theme.

With that as a priority, I will not worry if we don't get all the way through every book. It's just there as a guideline, but if we're finding some richness in dwelling on a skill or a subject, it doesn't matter if we slow down the pace.

SEan's Kolbe Course List

Religion: Our Life in the Church
Reading (see Literature)
Phonics/Word Study: n/a
English Grammar: Voyages in English 8
Vocabulary: Stanford Vocabulary
Spelling: Test every 2 weeks on vocabulary words
Penmanship: n/a
Literature: Kolbe Middle School Literature
History: Guardians of Freedom
Geography: All Ye Lands
Mathematics: Jacob's Elementary Algebra
Science: Prentice Hall Earth Science, Natural History
Foreign Language: Henle Latin 1
Other: Art & Music
Seasonal Sports for PE
New Testament Greek (using Hey Andrew, Teach Me Some Greek)

Day 34

Sean

• Algebra ch 4 lesson 4
• Latin -- matching cards
• Greek
• Vocabulary
• Logic -- I've started him on a habit of reading the day's work and then answering the questions.
• Mere Christianity
• King Solomon's Ring
• Clean room

Kieron

• Math
• Latin -- other half of exercise 21
• Greek
• Handwriting
• Tidy area
• Thinking Skills -- no, never mind -- Kieron was putting up a bit of a fuss because he had delayed schoolwork and wasn't going to get to eat his treat until he was done, so I sent him out to fill a box with kindling instead, on the theory that learning is a privilege.

Aidan and Paddy

• pink Montessori cards -- they both did great but Paddy doesn't know the sounds as well as Aidan does!
  

A couple of discussions about various things -- I ought to keep notes at the time so I don't forget!

I helped Clare with geometry.

Brendan and I had a great discussion about history last night -- he has read Warren Carroll's book about the Communist Revolution, plus Modern Times, and watched The War, so he knows a lot about the subject.

I have been researching literacy theory.

Thinking about British Literature.... and History Spine

Sonlight Level 530
and Level 200

Story of Britain -- by Antonia Fraser's daughter (list of AF's books included in that link)

History of the English Speaking Peoples

British Literature -- Faith's sidebar

English Literature -- Catholic Encyclopedia
(there are some articles about English history there, too)

English Literature for Boys and Girls

In Which Clare Designs her own Classes

(and some for her young brother, too)

JH Fabre

She has also got a really nice Literature course going in which she reads books by Chesterton about famous folks, and then reads works by them. So she is reading GKC's book about George Bernard Shaw, and then reading GBS's plays (she's already read Pygmalion). Then she intends to read Chesterton's St Francis of Assisi. She is slowly watching her way through Chesterton: Apostle of Common Sense.

She's reading When Character was King, about Reagan, by Peggy Noonan. Not really a biography -- more like a personal retrospective.

There are a lot more books on her list.

She still runs an informal music apprenticeship for her two littlest brothers, and of course, sews, and practices violin, classical guitar, piano, and voice.

Tomorrow she is going to a Marian retreat; Marian and retreat, good; Life Teen element, not so good. But I hope the good side outweighs the not so good, anyway.

Her main problem seems to be finding enough time (and sometimes enough energy) to fit in everything she would like to do.

Clare's Plans

Clare and I talked about planning today in the car. I'm writing it out quickly in note form while it's still in my mind.

Clare pretty much plans her own courses with some input from me. This year she is doing:

Math: Geometry.
Latin: Henle (she wants to do it with Sean, and possibly with Kieron, though I think a high school level class will move too fast for Kieron).
Science: Some text -- maybe Apologia Chemistry?
Nature Study: with Kieron, twice a week -- go out in the forest, take pics and sketch.

History -- she wanted to ask what to do about this. We are thinking maybe the 20th-century course I made for Liam, based on Kolbe's senior year. American Government and Economics alongside.

Literature -- she's designing her own course. I may give her some suggestions that fit in with the history.

English -- that comes naturally. She writes all the time.

Religion -- also comes naturally. We have a lot of books around and she reads extensively, participates in church activities and takes an interest in the Catholic internet world. Maybe I can get some ideas from her on how to inspire the younger boys.

SAT prep..... we've traditionally included this as part of a course on study skills.

I think I am missing something..... she is planning out a schedule. Music will be high priority too, of course.

The top box of books are her core materials and the books here on the shelf are the ones she is going to bring in later in the year.

(Another good blog post of hers about HP called "Ridiculous")

Oh, that's right! The last course is literary analysis. I'm having her read essays on criticism and analysis by CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Flannery O'Connor, and hopefully I will be able to collect some more. Liam did a similar course in his last year and it was a good thing for us -- we had lots of good discussions.