Okay, I know there aren't too many of you here with high schoolers, but hopefully there are a few. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my middle daughter for next year. This year (9th grade) has been, well, unsuccessful in many ways. We had to drop biology and will start over next year with a different curriculum. She basically just didn't do her English course, so we have to make that up next year, too. But she doesn't want to use the same thing as this year, and said the reason she had problems is she just doesn't learn anything with it. She was doing Total Language Plus (TLP) which I've used with my older daughter with great success. That should have been a clue to me right there -- the two of them rarely do well with the same curriculum! So now we have 3 years of high school left but have to complete 4 years of English. My youngest will be 9th grade and I'm planning to do Write Your Roots with her, so I think I'm just going to use that with the two of them together and count it as "English I" for both of them. But I need something else to use for English II that middle dd can do at the same time. I'm thinking probably something in Literature, but it could also be or include grammar and/or vocabulary, but probably not a lot more writing since Roots is pretty writing-intensive. As I said, TLP didn't work for her. She's not a big reader (she says she's a slow reader) but I think that's an area she needs to work on. Any suggestions for a course that counts as a full year of high school English that doesn't have a lot of writing in it? It would be nice if it's something she can do pretty independently, since I'll be doing Roots with them already (and that requires quite a bit of Mom time). Any thoughts?

Lori it might be too late to offer a suggestion or two, but here's my idea. You are looking for a lit type English for your 10th grader if I understand it who is doing 9th & 10th together, right? Well, you could look at the scope and sequence of your state ed requirements to see what benchmarks they set and build a lit course with titles. I have middle schoolers who I am preparing to use Smarr Publishing for 9th grade and we used Shurley English last year...will use Daily Journal-Monthly English this year with our own emphasis in lit via our world history unit study-Veritas Press: we are going to cover the entire world history as an overview of the past four years of going chronologically before beginning a final run beginning with Ancient for 9th, Middle Ages for 10th, Early Modern 11th and Modern 12 grades. Smarr Publishing has literature curricullum with a total English emphasis to include the writings related to the time periods in a chronological format or in an age graded set up if you aren't studying history in this way. I just found that when studying the history chronologically it makes sense to read the world's lit the same way...but whatever will work with your daughters of course is best. For vocabulary, I am using Roots and Fruits over the entire middle/highschool years as spelling/vocabulary preparation that teaching the latin roots of the English language. For my 7th grader, I will first go through this year an exhaustive list of commonly misspelled words which can be found online. Check to see if there is a website that will give reviews of books online too so you can plan what you will choose easier if you go that route too. I realize you asked way back in the spring, and while I'm no expert FOR SURE I can offer you some suggestions of what I have used and what I am planning for you to ck out for yourself.
Hope all is well
all the best~
blessings
cheryl

Cheryl,
Thanks for the ideas. I think I have a plan in place, and we start school on the 8th so I'll see then how it will work. I ended up borrowing Notgrass Exploring World History from a friend for my 10th grader. It includes a full credit of history, Bible and English. The English credit is a combination of literature and writing, with a little bit of grammar review thrown in. My plan is for both girls to work together on Notgrass and on Write Your Roots, so both will end up with 2 English credits for the year. That catches up my 10th grader and puts my 9th grader one credit ahead in English, but she's one that really needs a challenge so I think that will work. The reason I'm having them both do Notgrass now is that it's borrowed and I may not be able to borrow it again the following year, and I really want both girls to do that course. Anyway, I think that will solve my problem for my 10th grader, and also not be too intense on me since it covers both students. It will be a lot of work for them, but doable, I think. We'll just have to be very disciplined about sticking to our schedule and putting in the necessary hours. The girls have both already told me they plan to work harder at school this year, and my 10th grader, especially, is determined to get caught up, so her attitude is definitely right. Thanks, again, for your input, I'll hang onto these ideas in case I need them for future years.

Sounds great! Glad you got something...I just hated to see that no one had responded...and hey, I have learned about Nograss...will see if I can research it...it could be better than what I am planning at this point! This is the beauty of connecting with other folks of like mind!
all the best
blessings
cheryl