Home school High School – How Much is Too Much Writing?
One popular variant to the “how much is too much” question for homeschooling involves high school writing. In particular, what is a normal, appropriate level of writing to ask your high school students to accomplish?
Many high school student curriculum seem to have one 5-6 page paper assigned one or two times per year, with some smaller papers in between. In public school, students are normally required to write one or two papers like that per year. I personally asked my children to write 500-1000 words per week when they were in 11th and 12th grade. That was approximately 1-2 pages typed and single spaced, most weeks of the year. It wasn’t all “English” as sometimes the papers were for History, French, or Art.
This might seem like too much to you, but the reason our writing program was successful was because I taught my kids at their level, and I knew how much to push them so they wouldn’t break. That’s why homeschooling works. If you have them write AT THEIR LEVEL, they can learn. If you make them write too much, then they could get frustrated, annoyed, or worse yet, rebel. I recognize that I had my kids write a lot, and I understand it was more than most. That’s what my kids did because they were capable, and both developed into wonderful writers. But the reason it was effective wasn’t because of how much I had them write, it was simply because I asked them to work at their level.
Trust yourself on that. If you are involved with a writing course, and the requirements are killing you – STOP! You are going to find each child in your family may be different, as well. Perhaps if you consider having them write for, say, an hour a day, that would be a more reasonable measure for high school. If you believe that your child is being asked to do too much, then I am 100% convinced that it is too much.
Have them write everyday, and have them write different things. Good writing is all about practice, so they do need to do some writing on a daily basis. But you should not drive them so hard that they despise writing. Keep a “five year plan” in mind, where they have a love of learning at the end of this wonderful homeschooling.
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