Courses from HS College-Bound

The Homeschooling Parent's Toolkit

Live Workshop —  Open for registration

Homeschooling the College-Bound Student

This program addresses the principal concerns parents have about homeschooling through high school — everything you need to know about the high school curriculum and credits, standardized tests, transcripts and record-keeping, applying to college, pursuing scholarships, and more.

Terrific. Full of information. The materials were so thorough. I now have a plan of action. Also, this workshop is inclusive: No matter what type of homeschooler you are, you will understand better how to prepare your student for college and present him or her in the best light.

— A homeschooling mom

Live Workshop

Homeschooling Fundamentals

This workshop provides essential information that empowers you to create an effective, workable educational plan. It includes:

• a tutorial explaining in detail the most common structured approaches (The Well-Trained Mind, Charlotte Mason, etc.);
• a primer on tailoring the approach to your needs and your circumstances — including developing your own curriculum, transitioning from school to homeschooling, homeschooling multiple children, and more;
• ways to organize yourself and motivate your child.

College-Prep For Students

Online Writing —  Open for registration

Logical Communication

The ability to sustain a clear train of thought is at the heart of effective writing.

This two-semester writing course is designed to help students develop the missing skills — the writing tools and know-how needed to perceive, control, and organize ideas. To help students understand and appreciate the kind of thinking that underlies the essay form, they read closely and analyze dozens of essays by really fine writers. They also do targeted writing workouts, master the finer points of punctuation, and produce and revise their own essays. In this course, students learn to:

• perceive logical flow in a piece of writing (or the lack of it);
• handle with skill the writing tools needed to sustain a train of thought and enhance its clarity;
• brainstorm points, arguments, and evidence on a given topic.

This course serves as a precursor to our course Essay Writing & Appreciation.

Online Literature —  Open for registration

Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet

These online sessions provide an in-depth study of this play as well as the historical, cultural, and literary background needed to bring the play to life. This course takes students to an advanced level of reading comprehension and analysis, enabling them to tackle sophisticated material across the spectrum of the college curriculum and even dissect difficult passages included in standardized tests.

Online Literature —  Open for registration

Shakespeare's Hamlet

For students, Hamlet can seem daunting — it's Shakespeare's longest play, with dark themes, complex ideas, and difficult verse. This course makes the play accessible and, in ten online sessions, reveals the play's deepest secrets. This course in close reading provides an in-depth study of the play some consider Shakespeare's greatest.

Prerequisites:  Students should already have some familiarity with Shakespeare. Our own College-Bound Intensive on Romeo & Juliet is ideal preparation for this course.

Online Literature —  Open for registration

Shakespeare's Macbeth

It may be Shakespeare's shortest tragedy, but Macbeth is packed with some of his most compelling imagery and finest verse. This series of seven sessions is for students who already have some familiarity with Shakespeare and seek greater depth. The emphasis is on close reading, and students also become familiar with 1) Shakespeare's sources for the play, and 2) the most interesting movie versions.

Prerequisites:  Students should already have considerable familiarity with Shakespeare. Our own College-Bound Intensive on Romeo & Juliet is ideal preparation for this course.

returning in 2020

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

Eight online classes

This new online series comprises eight sessions on one of Shakespeare's finest comedies. Twelfth Night satirizes unrequited love, mocks sanctimony and snobbery, and celebrates the simple pleasures of ordinary life. This course serves as an introduction to Shakespeare's comedy, and it is also a course in close reading — students become acquainted with Shakespeare's vocabulary and verse and get practice in important skills, like annotating the text.

Online Writing —  Open for registration

Essay Writing & Appreciation

This course is the follow-up to Logical Communication — a course that emphasizes logical flow, organization of ideas. The emphasis of this course, by contrast, is insight: those fleeting, intuitive leaps and connections we all make at some point — magic glimpses of understanding, and even wisdom.

In our daily lives, we seldom capture our insights, seldom record them or explore them. Yet they make for splendid essays. Students in this course, accordingly, are trained, first, to notice and record their own observations and insights; second, to explore them in the form of essays.

Our approach to writing emphasizes the following challenges, all closely related:

• effective openings;
• clear thinking;
• logical flow;
• clarity and precision;
• economy of expression;
• impact.

Online Literature —  Returning in 2021–22

Novels By Women

This year-long study features great works from around 1800 to the early 20th century — all by women. The primary activities in this course are as follows: 1) reading the novels on our reading list (see here); 2) class discussion of those readings; 3) writing two substantive essays of literary analysis. All works are introduced with a historical perspective and are read in roughly chronological order, allowing students to trace cultural and artistic developments throughout the hundred-plus years represented by our authors.

Prerequisites:  Recommended only for students of high school age. Students should already have strong reading skills, at least a 9th-grade reading level.

Online Literature —  Returning in 2020–21

History & Literature of the Middle Ages

This is a year-long online course in close reading of medieval texts. The emphasis is England and English literature, but a great deal of what the students learn about this period will be applicable to other European societies and cultures.

The "Medieval Millennium" extended from roughly 500 to around 1500 ad, encompassing a huge swath of British history. English literature of the period spans everything from Anglo-Saxon poetry and the epic poem Beowulf to The Canterbury Tales and Malory's Morte Darthur. This course provides historical perspective, traces the development of the English language, and takes students on a deep dive into the most important literature of the period.

English Language Arts —  Now available

The Writer's Guide to Grammar

1) Student Workbook; 2) Teaching Guide With Answer Key

Roy Speed's Writer's Guide to Grammar provides complete training in English grammar, usage, and punctuation — but with a twist: Roy emphasizes the topics that students actually need to know.

This workbook serves both as a home-study course and as material for classroom coursework — it's ideal for classes in homeschooling co-ops. Using this material, students can:

• master the most important points of English grammar, punctuation, and usage;
• perceive with little effort both the structure of a sentence and how proper punctuation can enhance the meaning;
• employ with dictionary-precision a rich arsenal of English words.

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