Looking for an English curriculum for your high schooler?

As my kids get older I’m realizing homeschool plans that work for younger kids, do not work as well for older kids. Also, my kids have OPINIONS. Very loud opinions on what they want in a curriculum. Let’s take a high school English curriculum. We’ve worked on writing, but I wanted my kids to know specifics for formal writing. I remember having to learn and write out all of the formal grammar rules in high school. It was tedious.

(this post is sponsored by Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum, my opinion of the English Language 1 is all my own)

Why your kids need a formal high school English curriculum

via MEME

I’m sure you’ve seen the Facebook status that went viral about schools being “clothes” because of the quarantine. I found it on a meme site, so I’ve included it here.

Or you’ve read the crazy textspeak they send you, or maybe you send it (I’m a stick in the mud and use proper grammar and spelling, my friends make fun of me).

Or maybe, your child is like mine and is addicted to adding parentheses to EVERYTHING (I don’t know where she picked that up /sarcasm/).

Either way, in very short order our kids will be launching out into the world and they need to know how to write a paper.

Yes, even your future computer programmer. My future engineer attempted to protest he won’t need that because he’s going into engineering, and I told him to talk to his Dad the computer programmer if he ever has to write reports or respond to people in writing.

He didn’t like the answer.

 

What I like about this high school English curriculum

I’ve used PAC curriculum three times before, every time I’ve used it, it has helped me learn something new I need to make sure my kids are learning:

The first time I learned my kids have no clue how to take tests, and the curriculum helped me teach them

Next we learned about taking notes, and it really helped fill out the pre-algebra curriculum the kids were using.

This time I learned about my daughter, and how she reacts to changes, and how much her skills have advanced (I’ll talk about that more in a moment).

As with all PAC curriculums, this is student-led. It worked great for my daughter who is naturally gifted at writing (though not so much at grammar), so she could go quickly through the parts she knew already and could concentrate on the parts she didn’t know as well.

If you want, your child can self-grade, and work through this whole thing by themselves.

I like the additional information it gives for each lesson. I like it not solely focusing on grammar because that can get dry, but instead, it gives a short example for each lesson taught and then pulls examples from that to extrapolate from.

 

Some negatives about PAC high school grammar curriculum

My daughter found this too easy. She complained forever about the vocabulary words and the grammar lessons and how she felt it was ridiculously easy. I read through the text, and thought it was on-level for a high school freshman. If I was truly picking for her ability, I should have picked for a later grade. Instead, I got to listen to her rant about the vocabulary choices and how she felt insulted, and what did they think was she stupid?

It did provide some humor for me.

This is a secular curriculum with a moral viewpoint. Each lesson has a “Life lesson,” and they can sometimes feel oddly put in.

I actually like the life lessons and think they pull good quotes and interesting points. But, I’ve heard others complain about it, if you’re unsure about that aspect, I highly recommend reading the samples to see if this will annoy you too much. Okay, this particular picture is not a quote I would keep, but many of them are.

Now that’s the complaints my kids had, my one complaint is for my kids, the grammar had a lot of daily work that can feel like busywork. I totally see how some kids can really use this much practice for the high school grammar, but my kids don’t. For me, I would not do the daily work every day.

 

What I really love about using PAC curriculum

I like homeschool curriculum companies who get how homeschoolers use their curriculum. Many homeschoolers have multiple kids, or are homeschooling because their kids had a need that public schools couldn’t meet.

PAC offers a digital version of their curriculum, that you can print off multiple copies for your family (I emailed to verify they allowed this). I will say, if you’re going to do all of the daily work, I think it’s probably less expensive to buy the individual workbooks, but if you’re only planning on doing part of the work, then the digital and print what you need is smart.

 

Next, PAC offers an audio version of their curriculum. I have several friends who homeschool because their kids have learning disabilities and struggle with reading. They completely understand if they hear it out loud, but they read super slow. An audio version is life-changing for their kids.

 

That’s what’s so great about PAC curriculum. It is so easily adaptable to so many different types of learning styles.

 

PAC has a discount for you on their high school homeschool curriculum

15% off AND free shipping on full course kits through the end of June using the coupon code: 15ANDFREE