Posts Tagged Post-Trivium Homeschool | High School
Story Prediction Engages the Homeschool Child
Posted by Diane in How to Teach Homeschool Skill 1: READING on November 28th, 2009
“Are we there yet?’ When Meredith and Connor were much younger, we regularly heard this plaintive cry from the back seat of the van on long drives to Chattanooga. This innocent question reveals an amazing fact about the human mind: children think in terms of linear progression. There follows here. Future follows present. Last follows first.
Likewise, you can capitalize on this rule of thought by incorporating prediction when reading aloud to your homeschool children. Predicting content is as simple as asking what is going to happen next. After you’ve read a colorful two-page spread in a picture book, stop before turning the page and ask your child to predict the subsequent content:
“What do you think is going to happen next in the story?”
Demonstrate how to predict content by showing your child how to do it, and watch him imitate your example. Use the illustrations and keywords as clues to how the author plans to develop or unfold the plot line. Ask questions about what has happened previously in the story. If a child expects you to stop periodically and ask him to predict content , he will anticipate your questions by paying closer attention to the reading. The satisfaction of getting the right answer will motivate your homeschool child to really concentrate. If he occasionally messes up, go back and point out the clues that he missed.
To prepare the young child for predicting content in the preteen and teen years of homeschool high school, look at the front cover, back cover, art, title, and any other clues everytime you pick up a book for read aloud time. After a cursory glance, ask your child to think about the total message of the story book. This broad or universal exterior prediction serves to supplement the interior predictions that you request while reading the narrative.
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Are you looking for the best homeschool books for your preschool child? Once your young child passes the toddler stage, look for books with sequencing and ordering like the timeless children’s classic, Caps for Sale, about a peddler and some rambunctious monkeys.
Integrating Multiple Sources is Tough Work
Posted by Diane in Post-Trivium Homeschool | High School on November 9th, 2009
In How to Guarantee Independent Reading, I discussed four ways to motivate young home school readers to seek opportunities to read on their own. Let’s say that you faithfully follow my advice and begin to see the fruit. In a few short years, your child will substantially master the three skills of the classical trivium and be ready for post-trivium independent studies. On the brink of the homeschool high school years, you sit back and relax, knowing that your teen knows how to read well. You’ve done all you can do to help her succeed in high school, right? Well, I hate to burst your well-earned bubble, but there’s more work to do. What other skills are needed besides independent reading?
Integration of Several Sources
Reading skills are essential to perfecting writing skills, but knowing how to read is not enough. To justifiably qualify as a true scholar, the homeschool high school student needs to know how to read several sources for meaning so that she can integrate or synthesize the main ideas in writing her essays and research papers. Reading for the purpose of integration is not an easy task; many high school students get bogged down in the details and lose the big picture when distracted by multiple sources (you may have been one of these unfortunate souls who dreaded sifting through all the sources for your research paper). To effectively tackle the challenges of essay writing and the even greater challenges of developing a debatable thesis statement for the lengthy research paper, your high school homeschool student needs specific strategies for success. You can give your student tremendous writing help with these three simple secrets.
Secret 1: Manage your time wisely.
When you assign a writing task like an essay or research paper, give your high school homeschooler hard deadlines with enough time to successfully accomplish the task. Establish a deadline for the final paper, one or two rough drafts, and the preliminary outline. Teach your teen how to count backwards from the final due date and how to subdivide his time into smaller units. For instance, if you assign a three point essay over three weeks, he might want to spend the first week skimming resources for 3 related points, the second week reading and integrating the ideas, and the third week drafting the outline, first draft, second draft and final essay. If your son keeps a calendar, have him write down his own goals for accomplishing the tasks; this act of writing down commitments will teach him to be accountable to himself. You could also teach him how to create a ‘to-do’ list.
Secret 2: Research broadly on the first pass.
Not all information is equally important. Teach your high school homeschooler the 80/20 rule: 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. (Here are two examples of the “Pareto rule” from real life that illustrate this concept. In business, it is generally proven that 20% of a company’s customers provide 80% of the company’s sales. In economics, 20% of the world population controls 80% of the world’s wealth.) In other words, your home school high school student would NOT be using his time efficiently if he read each word in the selected research texts because, out of 100 words, most of the important content would be included in only 20 words.
How do you apply this time management principle? First when you begin your search at the library, pull 20-25 books for the first pass. Preview each book then skim each text and jot down any ideas that might work well in your proposed essay or research paper. Next eliminate half of the original resources by picking those that are most pertinent to your topic. That means that your research pool now includes 10-12 books instead of 20-25 books. Of these culled books, continue skimming until you have six potential topics for your three topic essay. In skimming the text, look for key words that are repeated. Prioritize all six potential topics according to amount of available content. Decide on your top three topics.
Secret 3: Narrow the topic and integrate your sources.
Now it is time for in-depth reading. Read only those passages that deal with your three topics. By reading passages, rather than entire sources, less time elapses between the various readings. This concentrated use of time to focus on the meaty content will help your home school high school student retain the main ideas. Remember the 80/20 rule even in your in-depth reading. Look for the topic sentences in each paragraph of the related passage. Jot down the main ideas from the topic sentences to highlight the issues. Reflect on these ideas. Teach your teen to take his time during this phase of the work so that he can absorb, evaluate, and integrate the ideas that he is discovering.
When my kids were learning how to integrate multiple sources for a mini-research paper, I showed them how to create a multi-column, multi-line chart. Here’s how I structured the chart:
Put each book or internet source on a horizontal line under the first column, then fill in the key ideas about each topic. Once you have the chart filled out, the task is easier. With the chart in front of you, ask your son to point out or highlight elements from each source that are related, similar, or can be combined into a whole idea. At this point, your son or daughter should be able to take multiple sources and hopefully produce a more fully developed idea on the topic than any one of the stand-alone sources. He may even think of new ways to approach the topic.
Now you understand why knowing how to read independently is not enough. Synthesis of meaning for essay writing and research papers is tough work, but if you do your part and teach your homeschool high school teen the secrets of successful integration, you’ll definitely see the benefits, and your rising classical scholar will create thoughtful, meaningful content in every essay and research paper.
Mentoring Teens in the Pursuit of Knowledge
Posted by Diane in Post-Trivium Homeschool | High School on January 7th, 2009
As high school looms on the horizon, your homeschool teen is close to substantially mastering the three skills of the classical trivium. Capable of skillfully using the English language to reason and express his thoughts with intelligent coherence, he can now be released to study virtually any discipline in depth! Early in your homeschooling career, you were the primary teacher, but now, you will guide your teen in the acquisition of knowledge and accumulation of graduation credits. The young scholar will now learn to be primarily responsible for his own learning with mom and dad taking a supervisory role as a mentor.
What disciplines are studied?
An authentic classical Christian homeschool uses primary sources (classic histories, literature, philosophies, science, mathematics,and government treatises) to explore meaning. Secondary sources like surveys are used to supplement the classics and give a cohesive overview. So the idea of “living” books from the earlier years of the homeschool child’s education advances in the teen years as the rising scholar tackles the classics of the past and uses surveys (text and audio) to historically contextualize the meaning.
In this regard, a classical Christian homeschool is very different from a public school. A course for credit does not merely comprise a textbook, but could include a textbook (serving as the survey), a classic text, and an apprentice opportunity. For instance, the student interested in three dimensional spheres might use a geometry textbook, the original classic on geometry written by Euclid, and a CAD-CAM program for designing shapes.
What classic texts are read?
Over the past 2,500 years of Western Civilization, the generally agreed-upon core of a classical education has remained constant while new classics are added to the collection. Hellenistic Greeks like Alexander the Great memorized the legendary epic poems of their past like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Roman senators like Cicero studied the classic epics of Homer and the classic essays of Aristotle. Christian monks studied the classics of Homer, Aristotle, and the classic oratory of Cicero.
Protestant reformers like John Calvin studied the classics of Homer, Aristotle, Cicero, and the classic Christian confessions of Saint Augustine. America’s founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson studied the classics of Homer, Aristotle, Cicero, Saint Augustine, and the classic theology of Calvin. Confederate General Robert E. Lee studied the classics of Homer, Aristotle, Cicero, Saint Augustine, and Calvin. You can see how as time marches on, certain classics endure in the core curriculum while new classics are added as they prove the test of time.
Must the homeschool high school student read all the classics?
No, even if you get an early jump on high school credit because your 12 year old has substantially mastered all three skills of the classical trivium, he would be unable to complete the list of classics before graduation. Most people take a lifetime to read all the classics! The good news is that your rising scholar can tailor his or her content, with your guidance, to include those classics that are most appropriate to his or her own interests, abilities, calling, and family values.
If this were ancient Rome, the rising scholar, having successfully mastered the three skills of the trivium, would move on to the mathematical arts (the quadrivium) which included arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and music theory. If this were the early 1700s, the rising scholar might be reading classic philosophies. Fast forward one hundred years, and you might find that classic histories like Thucydides’ history of the war between ancient Athens and Sparta influenced certain officers of the American Civil War. Vast choices of great variety await the homeschool high school student who desires to study specific areas of interest like military tactics, poetry, political theory, and scientific discoveries!
What else is needed besides classics and surveys?
In order to tackle such weighty material, your homeschool high school teen needs excellent study habits, advanced writing abilities, and the desire to engage in lengthy discussions with the parent or other mentor as the content is explored and understood. Unstructured quiet time to digest the material is also preferable as well as access to a public library or bookstore. Most of all, the rising scholar needs a willing spirit to join the great thinkers of the past and discover the riches of a classical Christian heritage in what some have called “the wisdom of the ages!”
Homeschool Kids Compete for $22,000 in Prizes
Posted by Diane in How to Teach Homeschool Skill 2: THINKING on December 20th, 2008
Inspiring Homeschool Invention
I get so excited when I come across a national contest that homeschool kids can enter, and this competition inspires invention which fits right in with teaching the three skills of the classical trivium in your Christian homeschool: language, thought, and speech. Two winners will be selected, one from the k-8 group and one high school student, to receive a huge prize package each. If you are creative and diligent in recording the work performed, you can incorporate the entire process from start to finish as part of your homeschool curriculum for the high school transcript. For example, Meredith and Connor are both writing essays for the homeschool speech ISI George Washington essay contest, so I will be including that as part of their composition credit. This particular contest involves video production and the use of software, so you could incorporate this project in any number of courses for homeschool high school credit: composition (writing the script), information technology (using the video software and video camcorder), or even art (graphics and photos). Here are the competition highlights:
The Advertising Council, Sony Creative Software and Discovery Education have announced the “Inspiring Invention” public service advertising (PSA) development contest to engage a new generation of children in innovation. The contest is part of the Ad Council’s “Inspiring Invention” campaign, sponsored by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation (NIHFF). The contest is open to school groups at the elementary, middle and high school levels nationwide. In addition to prizes including Sony video and audio production software and hardware, the winning entries will be distributed to media outlets throughout the country in spring of 2009.
Entrants to the Inspiring Invention PSA Contest will submit their video in either the elementary and middle school or high school categories by March 15, 2009. Contestants are encouraged, but not required, to download a demo of Sony Creative Software’s leading video editing application, Vegas Pro 8 software or Vegas Movie Studio software. Initial entries will be submitted to Sony Creative Software on DVD accompanied by a backgrounder on the production and theme. If selected as a semi-finalist, participants will then furnish broadcast-ready components for final judging.
One grand prize winner will be chosen from each of the two categories and awarded a prize package valued at more than $22,000, featuring Sony Creative Software’s professional video and audio production applications, Vegas™ Pro 8, Sound Forge™ 9, Cinescore™ and ACID™ Pro 7 software, as well as Sony Creative Software content including loop libraries, sound effects and Cinescore themes, in addition to having the PSA aired on national television. See full contest rules and regulations including a printable pdf with lots of details for your budding homeschooler videographer.
I am a firm believer in competition even if the homeschool child has little realistic hope of placing in the top finalists. Why is that? Well, when you give a homeschool child or teen an attainable goal with a hard deadline, they usually step up to the plate and give their best effort. They also learn so much in the process about being organized and systematically tackling a task. Why not incorporate this video contest into your homeschool curriculum after the holidays? You’ve got plenty of time before the March 15, 2009 deadline, and it will look great on the high school transcript whether your homeschool teen wins or not!
The Post-Trivium Years: Dialogue Drives Instruction
Posted by Diane in Post-Trivium Homeschool | High School on October 24th, 2008
Mastery of the three skills of the classical trivium is not achieved on a single day in homeschooling history. You will never be able to look back and pinpoint the day when your homeschool child “graduated” from the trivium. Some time during the teen years, you will realize that she has become extremely proficient in the use of language, thought, and speech. There could be some areas of the trivium that she still needs to work on, but by and large, she is ready for more. For what has the classical trivium prepared her?
The Roman Quadrivium
If this were ancient Rome, your rising scholar would progress to the remaining four liberal arts of the the quadrivium taught by a private tutor: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music theory. The pragmatic Romans took the Greek idea of paideia and decided that every free man should learn seven “arts” in order to be fully educated. Nearly three millennia later, we know that learning the four mathematically-oriented disciplines of the quadrivium is no longer sufficient. Unlike the timeless skills of the trivium, the Roman quadrivium is obsolete.
A staggering amount of discoveries have been made since then in math, science, and technology that preclude any man from being a true expert. The inherited body of knowledge accumulates at a frenzied pace as the record of human history continues. In short, the choices for learning in the 21st Century are limitless. Yet, there still remains a core set of fundamental truths with which every educated homeschool high school student should grapple. The Roman quadrivium is not enough.
The Greek Paideia
You may recall that the Greek paideia is the foundation of a true classical education. According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, paideia is the:
Training of the physical and mental facilities in such a way as to produce a broad enlightened mature outlook harmoniously combined with maximum cultural development
Learning was the path to a higher nature through the exploration of abstract concepts such as truth, goodness, and beauty with the expectation that such examination would lead to noble character, gracious behavior, enlightened minds, and enriched society. Exploration of ideas between pupil and teacher usually occurred through a two-way dialogue made famous by the philosopher, Socrates. However, the early Greek culture from which classical education arose was pagan, and as Emperor Charlemagne realized hundreds of years later, classical education would never accomplish its true objectives unless informed by relationship with the Living God. Man is limited in his knowledge. He needs inspiration. The Greek paideia is not enough.
The Christian Paideia
Most contemporary Christians cannot read Koine Greek, the language of the New Testament, unless they have been to seminary, so you might be surprised to discover that the Apostle Paul uses the word paideia at least seven times in the New Testament in his letters to the Hebrews, the Ephesians, and to his disciple Timothy. Upon reflection, this isn’t really surprising because as I discussed in the posts on rhetoric, there is quite a bit of textual evidence that Paul received a classical education with a concentration in Jewish theology.
I believe we can take the Greek idea of paideia (the search for knowledge) and look at Paul’s use of the word paideia (discipline or instruction in righteousness) to understand the next homeschooling journey for our high school age kids. Paul knew that the Greeks had a good idea, but their educational philosophy lacked one critical component: the inspiration of the indwelling Spirit of God. True education is a transformational process of growing in knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.
In the early section of the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul spends a lot of time developing the thought that God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom. God reveals His knowledge to those who love Him so that they can worship and serve Him in spirit and truth. Unlike the unrealized dreams of the ancient Greeks, our search for knowledge is exquisitely fulfilling as the Lord of Glory reveals little bits of truth in our daily walk with His abiding Spirit. Faithful followers use what they have learned in service to others. Enlightenment for the sake of worship and service is our final objective. In this way, we reclaim our classical inheritance and join the long line of ancestors who realized the wealth of a true classical education.
Jesus gives us the perfect example of what the this looks like in the Gospels. He lives with his disciples (by the way, disciple is a derivative of the word discipline which is the English translation of paideia) and in the course of every day life, he conducts an ongoing dialogue about ideas:
- ideas about God
- ideas about man
- ideas about man’s relationship to God
- ideas about man’s relationship to man
- ideas about life
- ideas about death
In short, Jesus instructs his disciples by asking them questions about the fundamental realities of life. Sometimes he provides immediate answers, but more often than not, he allows them to wrestle with the questions through life experiences, parables, and more dialogue. Like Socrates before him, Jesus knew the value of dialogue or conversation in learning. He has always been after relationship with us, and in that relationship, we learn more and more.
So what do the post-trivium years look like in authentic classical homeschooling? They look like the socratic model that Jesus followed with his disciples. As parents, we supervise the dialogue that our teens are having with the classics and with other authorities like university professors. We narrate. We write. We disagree. We agree. We listen. We discuss the big ideas on a daily basis. We allow the dialogue to drive the instruction, so sometimes we end up going off on tangents, but that’s okay because we are wrestling with knowledge. Despite the apparent sanctity of the public school formula, knowledge cannot be perfectly squeezed into discrete subjects. Every home school minute is an opportunity for learning as parent and high school age teen engage in an ongoing dialogue about the fundamental realities of life.
father and daughter photo © Mikhail Lavrenov – Fotolia.com
