Teaching English grammar and Latin

[mamato9]

I know this has been hashed out over and over and over. It is hard to wrap my brain around actually implemting this. Right now however, I am involved with a Charter school that just started this year in my home town. We meet one day a week for Science, Language Arts, Humanities (which is actually history ala SOTW). They are a Classical Education school that is pretty much following TWTM. There are two of us however, that are more inclined to follow LCC. I teach Latin there and the other teaches Humanities. We have been talking with the administration about a lot of things. Right now the grammar program they are using is JAG. The students (this is the Lagic stage kids) are not doing very well. They hardly get above a C. The other compnent tof the Language Arts is Writting Strands. I would like to see more of am intergration of the Language Arts into the Latin and the Humanities class. The Humanities is excellent. The books we are able to have the students read the geography they do, I am pleased with everything. It just seems like the WS and JAG are so segregated. The students are required to write different papaers for Humanities, more like comparison, researching, ect. But they really do not have the skills to do this. The Rhetoric class exspecailly is made up of a lot of previously publis schooled kids and they are not able to produce a quality paper. I would like to see the Language arts somehow encorporated more to help the students in their other class. Also I have to Cambridge. This is a fine latin program but I am comming from LC and Latin Book 1 where there is lots of good old fashion grammar bieng taught. So anyway, I dont want to go on forever. Is there any advice or thought any one could offer on a better LA program. I am asking them to consider using Lively Latin in the younger grades and Latin Prep 1 for the Logic stage. They already have a teacher who teaches the Rhetoric level, thus the reason for Cambridgeshe has been teaching it for years.

If you have read all this thank you. Feel free to offer any advice
Lora

[Plaid Dad]

Would they consider something like Classical Writing to cover grammar and composition?

Lively Latin would be great for younger students. As you probably know, it integrates English grammar seamlessly with Latin instruction. Good stuff. After that, if you wanted to keep English grammar tied to Latin, I would consider Henle. It's really the most systematic and therefore the easiest to use to teach English grammar. If you need to get older students up to speed, you might look at Basic Language Principles with Latin Background.

I'm also involved in a start-up high school right now and we're facing a lot of the same challenges with figuring out how to make sure that students with very different levels of grammar and writing preparation can go into a full Latin and Greek program while developing strong writing skills. At this stage we are planning to use CW, possibly pulling the Harvey's instruction out to a separate hour for freshmen. We'll be using Lingua Latina for Latin, which is a top-notch program but not ideal as a medium for teaching English grammar.

Good luck!

[Mama Lynx]

I second the recommendation for Classical Writing. If you have a teacher who is well-versed in how to teach CW, she could even tailor the lessons to use the literature and history selections already in place.

In our homeschool we use a combination of Latin Prep for "logic stage," along with Classical Writing (and Lingua Latina for reading, which would be Cambridge's strong suit). The combination of a Latin program strong in grammar with CW results in a very, very good study of grammar.

I second the recommendations for Lively Latin and Henle, though I also recommend Latin Prep - it has rigorous grammar, and is more colorful and fun for the kids than Henle. Henle has a strong Catholic focus, where Galore Park is secular. Henle is more systematic. Both are excellent.

[Cadam]

Just a random thought about the kids coming from ps and ready for the necessary level of writing. How about an intensive extra class. The University my sister went to had break all of january but the students could take a "Jan-term" class. It was a years worth of one class in a month's time. How about all new students can take a highly intensive , quick overview of grammar and writing?

I find all of this so interesting because I think someday when my kids are graduated I would like to start a small classical school. Thank you for sharing these adventures.:)