Writing Classes: Fiction for Teens

We are very excited about our fiction writing program for teens. This is a wonderful series of courses for students who enjoy creating their own stories. By the end of the series, students will have all the tools needed to complete and publish their own novels! 


Fiction writing is a fun way to learn necessary writing skills while at the same time encouraging the imagination. As C. S. Lewis once said, "Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning."

The fiction writing program consists of six mini-courses of four weeks each. The courses can be taken in any order. Students are invited to begin with us in September, 2012 or join us later as we continuously offer the six courses over the upcoming years. Our instructor, E. B. Conroy, is a published author and provides direct feedback to the students on their writing assignments.

The current schedule:
September 2012: Character and Dialogue
October 2012: Theme, Style, and Point of View
November 2012: Conflict and Creating the Breakout Novel
January 2013: Authoring a Book: How it works, what it takes, and how to succeed
February 2013: Plot and Structure
March 2013: Description and Setting

Below are course descriptions for the three fall courses. Register early to save up to $30 next semester:

Characters and Dialogue (Write Your Own Book Fiction Writing Series)

click on the course title above to register

Series description: There are a total six parts to the Write Your Own Fiction Book Series. Students can jump into this continuing series at any time. Once you have completed all 6 mini-courses, you can have a completed book!

Class dates: Thursdays, Sept. 6 to Sept. 27, 2012

Total classes: 4

Starting time: 2:00 pm Eastern (1:00 Central)

Duration: 1 hour

Prerequisite: None

Suggested grade level: 8^th to 12^th

Fee: $80 if you register on or before Aug. 1, 2012. $90 after Aug. 1 for all 4 classes

Instructor: E. B. Conroy, MA
Course description: This course teaches the key components of creating dynamic characters and dialogue for fiction books of any genre. Designed for writing fiction for middle grade, young adult, and adult plots, the course covers how to develop characters, the character arc, how do develop dialogue, and how to weave dialogue into character development and action. The course will also center on how to implement your Catholic worldview into your characters and dialogue.

Course outline:
Class 1: Types of characters, developing characters fully, introducing your character

Class 2: Character arc: Your lead character’s inner change
Class 3: Dialogue how-to’s, do’s, and don’ts

Class 4: Showing your character in the dialogue: weaving dialogue with your character and the action

Course materials: Word 2007 or later version. All materials are provided FREE via the instructor.

Homework: Weekly writing assignments, with direct feedback from Professor Brown Conroy, with an estimated three to four hours per week for homework outside of class time that includes reading, writing, and responding to feedback.

Theme, Style, and Point of View (Write Your Own Book Fiction Writing Series)

click on the course title above to register

Series description: There are a total six parts to the Write Your Own Fiction Book Series. Students can jump into this continuing series at any time. Once you have completed all 6 mini-courses, you can have a completed book!

Class dates: Thursdays, Oct. 4 to 25

Total classes: 4

Starting time: 2:00 pm Eastern (1:00 Central)

Duration: 1 hour

Prerequisite: None

Suggested grade level: 8^th to 12^th

Fee: $80 if you register on or before Aug. 1, 2012. $90 after Aug. 1 for all 4 classes.

Instructor: E. B. Conroy, MA
Course description: This course teaches the key components of creating dynamic theme, style, and point of view for fiction books of any genre. Designed for writing fiction for middle grade, young adult, and adult plots, the course covers types of theme, how to develop theme, developing your style of writing, and all of the major fiction writing points of view. The course will also center on how to implement the Christian worldview into your theme.

Course outline:
Class 1: What is theme and how to use it in your book

Class 2: What is style and how to develop yours
Class 3: Point of view

Class 4: Integrating theme, style, and point of view to create a dynamic story

Course materials: Word 2007 or later version. All materials are provided FREE via the instructor.

Homework: Weekly writing assignments, with direct feedback from Professor Brown Conroy, with an estimated three to four hours per week for homework outside of class time that includes reading, writing, and responding to feedback.

Conflict and Creating the Breakout Novel (Write Your Own Book Fiction Writing Series)

click on the course title above to register

Series description: There are a total six parts to the Write Your Own Fiction Book Series. Students can jump into this continuing series at any time. Once you have completed all 6 mini-courses, you can have a completed book!

Class dates: Thursdays, Nov. 8 to Dec. 6 (No class Nov. 22)

Total classes: 4

Starting time: 2:00 pm Eastern (1:00 Central)

Duration: 1 hour

Prerequisite: None

Suggested grade level: 8^th to 12^th

Fee: $80 if you register on or before Aug. 1, 2012. $90 after Aug. 1 for all 4 classes.

Instructor: E. B. Conroy, MA
Course description: This course teaches the key components of creating conflict that gives us the breakout novel. The course will also center on how to implement the Christian worldview into your conflict.

Course outline:
Class 1: What makes a great novel and “stakes” (personal and universal)

Class 2: Conflict in the setting, characters, and plot
Class 3: Playing the “what if” game: making your character do the unthinkable

Class 4: Cliffhangers, self-sacrifice, and turning points

Course materials: Word 2007 or later version. All materials are provided FREE via the instructor.

Homework: Weekly writing assignments, with direct feedback from Professor Brown Conroy, with an estimated three to four hours per week for homework outside of class time that includes reading, writing, and responding to feedback.

Professor's biography: Erin Brown Conroy, MA, is the professor of College-Level Writing and Writing and Research for Patrick Henry College (five years) and taught writing at Cornerstone University for seven years. She is the author of several non-fiction books, including Simplified Writing 101: Top Secrets for College Writing Success, and has designed four college writing courses, including an AP English Language and Composition course for PHC Preparatory Academy online. Professor Brown Conroy also privately coaches ACT English prep live and across the US via Skype and phone conferencing and has spoken at conferences regarding the teaching of writing. A member of the Society of Children’s Book Authors and Illustrators, she is also a fiction writing coach for high school and college students for the last ten years and has judged writing contests. She is also a freelance professional writer and ghostwriter. Professor Brown Conroy also authored True North Reading: The Complete Mastery Reading and Spelling Program, a five-level multisensory learn-to-read program for children ages 3 to 15. Mrs. Brown Conroy has been homeschooling for 27 years. Mrs. Brown Conroy loves enjoying her two Australian Labradoodles, playing the Irish wooden flute, and homeschooling five of her 13 children who still live at home.

Equipment requirements: Classes are online, live and interactive. Students are required to have high-speed internet and a headset with microphone.

Misc:
Mrs. Brown Conroy will be available via email in between classes for questions and comments.
Recordings of classes are provided to students within 24 hours and available for 6 months.
Homeschool Connections does not provide record keeping services.

ADDENDUM: Our Fiction Writing Series is also available in recording through our Unlimited Access! Service (click to learn more). As our live classes are completed, they are converted to recordings. Currently available through Unlimited Access! are Plot & Structure and Description & Setting. The other courses in the series will become available within 4 weeks of completion. Also available are a variety of middle school and high school basic and advance writing classes, from Essential Grammar and Punctuation to Writing for College.

Teaching Tolkien, Hobbit and LOTR in Our Homeschools

ADDENDUM 2: We have now added a third Hobbit course on Thursdays at 11:30 am Eastern time. Click here to register: The Hobbit; Here and Back (Thursdays).

ADDENDUM: Due to the overwhelming popularity of this course series, we've added a second set of courses that will be taught just for middle school students (6th to 8th grade). For more information please click here: The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings for Middle School.  For information on the high school courses, simply scroll down.

With The Hobbit coming out on film this year, the homeschooling community is all abuzz with everything Tolkien. We are all abuzz here at Homeschool Connections too!  In fact, we plan on spending a whole school year studying The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Dr. Henry Russell will be teaching four separate courses, one on each of the books, starting in September with the Hobbit and then moving through the trilogy.

Here are the course details for each of the books:

The Hobbit or There and Back Again as Gateway to J.R.R.Tolkien

(click on title for registration)

 

Class dates: Tuesdays, Sept. 11 to Oct. 16, 2012

Total classes: 6

Starting time: 10:00 am Eastern (9:00 Central)

Duration: 1 hour

Prerequisite: Ability to read the book with pleasure at about 3 chapters per week.

Suggested grade level: 9th to 12th grade.

Suggested high school credit: ½ semester. Follow with Fellowship of the Rings for a full semester.

Fee: $90 if you register on or before Aug. 1, 2012. $100 after Aug. 1 for all 6 classes.

Instructor: Henry Russell, Ph.D.

Course description: Tolkien’s The Hobbit was written as a children’s story and retains much of the clarity and light-heartedness of its kind. But Bilbo Baggins’ world is slowly made richer and deeper both by the author’s use of the Catholic elements from the great medieval saga of Beowulf and the background world of Tolkien’s deepest Elvish imaginings. By the end of the novel, Tolkien’s life-long themes of 1) a long-fought history that shapes the needs of every modern day; 2) the need for heroism from simple people; 3) the necessity for constant moral vigilance by those who are destined to lead; 4) the conquest of charity over greed; and 5) the sorrow and beauty created by these first four themes, have penetrated to the heart of the reader. The success of this novel convinced Tolkien and his wise and humane publishers, Allen and Unwin, that the modern world was ready to hear more of the complex moral and supernatural world which Tolkien once thought was of interest mostly to scholars of the ancient like himself. We will both discuss the book and welcome comments about the new movie coming out in December.

Course outline:

Class 1: An Unexpected Party—A Short Rest

Class 2: Over Hill and Under Hill—Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire

Class 3: Queer Lodgings—Flies and Spiders

Class 4: Barrels out of Bond—On the Doorstep

Class 5: Inside Information—Fire and Water

Class 6: The Gathering of the Clouds—The Last Stage

Course materials: The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Homework: One to one and one-half hours per week. Weekly Quiz, Midterm, and Final. Answer keys provided for parental or self grading.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

(click on title for registration)

Class dates: Tuesdays, Oct. 23 to Dec. 11, 2012

Total classes: 8

Starting time: 10:00 am Eastern (9:00 Central)

Duration: 1 hour

Prerequisite: Ability to read the book and ask questions. Since most students will have seen the Peter Jackson films and will want to make comparisons, it is probably a good idea to see them.

Suggested grade level: 9^th to 12^th grade. 

Suggested high school credit: ½ semester. Precede with The Hobbit for a full semester.

Fee: $100 if you enroll on or before Aug. 1, 2012. $120 after Aug. 1 for all 8 classes

Instructor: Henry Russell, Ph.D.

Course description: This trilogy of novels is too well known for any brief description to be of use here. They are the most popular books of the twentieth-century and quite likely to be among the central books of Western literature. The poet Auden thought they compare well with Milton’s Paradise Lost. We will discuss the volumes in their outer form of a mythologized hero struggle of the kind with which Classical Liberal Education is replete (from Homer’s Iliad, and Virgil’s Aeneid through the Norse eddas and Anglo-Saxon poems and Arthurian romances). At the same time we will read them in light of Tolkien’s unambiguous declaration that "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” As such they reflect an imagined world that parallels clearly with the world of suffering and redemption shown forth in a book as deep as the Bible. 

 The Fellowship of the Rings takes us from the Hobbit world of ordinary comfort into confrontation with the evil that has always plagued the created world. It asks for individual sacrifice from several creatures only to show them that they are linked into a vast body of those who strive to keep goodness alive, each on very different levels of culture and consciousness. This ancient body is full of poetry, beauty, and varied forms of virtue. The fellowship forms to do the impossible and the seemingly suicidal, and in the mines of Moria and on the banks of the river Anduin, the band is made to pay a terrible price for thoughtlessness and to fall apart from individual sin.

Course outline:

Class 1: Biography of Tolkien;

Class 2: A Long-Expected Party--Three is Company

Class 3: A Short Cut to Mushrooms--Fog on the Barrow-downs

Class 4: At the Sign of the Prancing Pony- - Knife in the Dark

Class 5: Flight to the Ford—The Council of Elrond

Class 6: The Ring Goes South—The Bridge of Khazad-dum

Class 7: Lothlorien—Farewell to Lorien

Class 8: The Great River—The Breaking of the Fellowship

Course materials: The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R.Tolkien

Homework: Two hours per week. Weekly Quiz, Midterm, and Final. Answer keys provided for parental or self grading.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

(click on title for registration)

Class dates: Tuesdays, Jan. 15 to Mar. 12, 2013. No class Jan. 22 or Feb. 19.

Total classes: 7

Starting time: 10:00 am Eastern (9:00 Central)

Duration: 1 hour

Prerequisite: Ability to read the book and ask questions.

Suggested grade level: 9^th to 12^th. 

Suggested high school credit: ½ semester. For a full semester, follow with The Return of the King.

Fee: $95 if you register on or before Aug. 1, 2012. $110 after Aug. 1 for all 7 classes.

Instructor: Henry Russell, Ph.D.

Course description: The Two Towers creates a clear contrast between a culture based on selflessness and regard for the common good with an anti-culture based on pure selfishness and the desire to domineer over others. The anti-culture controls both the two literal towers of Saruman’s Orthanc and Cirith Ungol—both of them forced to serve the even greater tower of Sauron’s Mordor. The civilization of good offers the Mark of Rohan as its immediate heroic defender, backed by more ancient forces of the Ents and the Elves, to some degree coordinated by the towers of the city of Gondor. Yet the battles between these titanic forces are always being compared to the personal willingness of two hobbits to give everything they possess for the sake of the good that they love.

Course outline:

Class 1: The Departure of Boromir—The Uruk-Hai

Class 2: Treebeard—The White Rider

Class 3: The King of the Golden Hall—The Road to Isengard

Class 4: Flotsam and Jetsam—The Palantir

Class 5: The Taming of Smeagol—The Black Gate is Closed

Class 6: Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit—The Forbidden Pool

Class 7: Journey to the Cross-roads—The Choices of Master Samwise

Course materials: The Two Towers. J.R.R.Tolkien.

Homework: Two hours per week. Weekly Quiz, Midterm, and Final. Answer keys provided for parental or self grading.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

(click on title for registration)

Class dates: Tuesdays, March 19 to May 14, 2013. No class Mar. 26 or Apr. 2.

Total classes: 7

Starting time: 10:00 am Eastern (9:00 Central)

Duration: 1 hour

Prerequisite: Ability to read the book and ask questions.

Suggested grade level: 9^th to 12^th grade. 

Suggested high school credit: ½ semester. For a full semester, precede with The Two Towers.

Fee: $95 if you register on or before Nov. 1, 2012. $110 after Nov. 1 for all 7 classes.

Instructor: Henry Russell, Ph.D.

Course description: The Return of the King reaches into the realm of Arthurian Romance (which is itself based on the resurrection of the Christ), to offer a vision of Armageddon and world war where defeat means unguessed centuries of darkness, although victory means holding the darkness only at bay while creating a new civilization that will be attacked again someday. Here again, the personal agon and faithfulness of individual creatures is the central necessity for the victory of massive institutions and allegiances. All literature is moral in its center, and great literature reflects great moral truth. It was Tolkien’s genius to express the great truths of Christian civilization in a way, which could re-inspire and re-invigorate an age where many have lost immediate contact with those Christian roots.

Course outline:

Class 1: Minas Tirith—The Passing of the Grey Company

Class 2: The Muster of Rohan—The Ride of the Rohirrim

Class 3: The Battle of the Pellenor Fields—The Last Debate

Class 4: The Black Gate Opens—The Land of Shadow

Class 5: Mount Doom—The Steward and the King

Class 6: Many Partings—The Grey Havens

Class 7: Open Topics

Course materials: The Return of the King. J.R.R.Tolkien.

Homework: Two hours per week. Weekly Quiz, Midterm, and Final. Answer keys provided for parental or self grading.


Instructor biography: Dr. Henry Russell is Headmaster of the St. Augustine’s Homeschool Enrichment Program founded with his wife Crystal. The program began in Fall 2005 with 20 students in two living rooms and now tutors more than 70 students. He is also the President of the SS Peter and Paul Educational Foundation, dedicated to founding an orthodox Catholic Liberal Arts college in southeast Michigan.
          A graduate of Princeton and South Caroline (M.S.), Dr. Russell completed his graduate work at Louisiana State University. Formerly the Chairman of Ave Maria College’s Department of Literature, he has also been a professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville and Wake Forest University. He is a founding faculty member of the St. Robert Southwell Creative Writing Workshop held in Mahwah, New Jersey.
          Dr. Russell’s works include The Catholic Shakespeare Audio Series available from Kolbe Academy. He was the Associate Editor of The Formalist from 1990-2004 and his writings have been published in various journals. He was honored to edit Dr. Alice von Hildebrand’s groundbreaking volume, The Privilege of Being a Woman.

Equipment requirements: Classes are online, live and interactive. Students are required to have high-speed internet and a headset with microphone.
Misc:
Dr. Russell will be available via email in between classes for questions and comments.
Recordings of classes are provided to students within 24 hours and available for 6 months.
Homeschool Connections does not provide record keeping services.

Science: Health, Fitness, and Wellness for Middle School Students

Science: Health, Fitness, and Wellness for Middle School Students

(click on course title for registration)

Class dates: Thursdays, Sept. 6 to Oct. 11

Total classes: 6

Starting time: 12:00 pm Eastern (1:00 Central)

Duration: 1 hour

Prerequisite: None

Suggested grade level: 6^th to 8^th

Fee: $75 if you register on or before Aug. 1, 2012. $85 after Aug. 1 for all 6 classes.

Instructor: E. B. Conroy, MA

Course description: This course is designed as a foundational for understanding personal health and wellness in the areas of physical, mental, and emotional health. The interrelationships between the body, mind, and soul will be emphasized as students learn foundational life habits and the ways to create healthy lifelong habits.

Course outline:

Class 1: Physical health: aerobic exercise, flexibility, and strength

Class 2: Physical health: nutrition and how food relates to our mind, body, and spirit

Class 3: Mind and emotions: stress and its influence on the body

Class 4: Mind and emotions: anger and its influence on the body

Class 5: Social health: maintaining healthy relationships in community

Class 6: Spiritual health and the interrelationship of the physical, mental, and emotional

Course materials: Everything is provided FREE online from Professor Brown Conroy

Homework: Weekly reading assignments and quizzes, with an estimated three to four hours per week for homework, outside of class time.

Advanced High School Writing; Rhetoric, Figures of Speech, Essays, and Papers

Advanced High School Writing; Rhetoric, Figures of Speech, Essays, and Papers

Foundational for All High School Students and Essential for College-Bound Students!

(click on course title to register)

 

NOTE: Class size is limited. If the course fills, a waiting list will be made available.

Class dates: Wednesdays, Sept. 5 to Nov. 7, 2012

Total classes: 10

Starting time: 2:00 pm Eastern (1:00 Central)

Duration: 1 hour

Prerequisite: Simplified Writing for High School Students, Elements of Writing: Essential Punctuation and Grammar for High School Students, or permission (information@homeschoolconnections.com)

Suggested grade level: 10^th to 12^th

Fee: $200 if you register on or before Aug. 1, 2012. $225 after Aug. 1 for all 10 classes.

Instructor: E. B. Conroy, MA

Course description: This course content is known as a prerequisite for many colleges for college-bound students. Designed to give the teen skills that make writing strong and clear. Your student will learn methods of rhetoric and how to use the skills in all of the main conventions of writing used in college—including in-depth use of nine basic forms of rhetoric (rhetorical modes); be able to identify and use major rhetorical strategies and figures of speech; and pre-write, draft, and edit a comparison and contrast paper, including use of the hook, thesis, introduction construction, conclusions, and rewriting with specific, individual feedback from the instructor. Vocabulary related to upper-level writing will be introduced and integrated into the learning. Specific class time will be used to show how to edit and revise upper-level work.

Course outline:

Class 1: The academic paper; advanced academic writing with strong thesis construction, hooks, and introductions

Class 2: Rhetorical Mode 1: Narration; rhetorical strategies and figures of speech (tropes, aposiopesis, apostrophe, chiasmus, epithet)

Class 3: Rhetorical Mode 2: Comparison and Contrast; creating a thesis and hook for your paper

Class 4: Rhetorical Mode 3: Illustration and Exemplification; rhetorical strategies and figures of speech (litotes, zeugma, euphemism, idiom)

Class 5: Rhetorical Mode 4: Description; drafting your paper’s outline

Class 6: Rhetorical Mode 5: Process Analysis; rhetorical strategies and figures of speech (hyperbole, metonymy, metaphor, mixed metaphor, extended metaphor); prewriting for papers

Class 7: Rhetorical Mode 6: Definition; rhetorical strategies and figures of speech (bathos, caricature, deus ex machine, epiphany)

your paper’s rough draft

Class 8: Rhetorical Mode 7: Cause and Effect; advanced methods of draft revision 1

Class 9: Rhetorical Mode 8: Division and Classification; advanced methods of draft revision 2; formatting advanced academic works (brief style guide introduction)

Class 10: Rhetorical Mode 9: Argumentation; integrating rhetorical strategies into upper-level writing

Course materials: Word 2007 or later version. The Essential English Language and Composition Vocabulary Guide (by E. B. Conroy), available online as a download for a discounted price or hard copy on Amazon; all other materials provided FREE by the instructor.

Homework: Students will have weekly writing assignments and direct feedback from Professor Brown Conroy, with an estimated four to five hours per week for homework (outside of class time) that includes reading, writing, and responding to feedback. Students should expect a 2-week turnaround on grading.

Advanced High School Writing; Rhetoric, Figures of Speech, Essays, & Papers

Foundational for All High School Students and Essential for College-Bound Students!

(click on course title to register)

German I, Part One

We are very excited about offering this brand new course next school year. Mrs. Mausolf is an outstanding and committed instructor. She will meet with students live twice a week. We hope you'll take advantage of this opportunity to learn a foreign language in an innovative setting with other Catholic homeschool students.

German I, Part One
(click on course title)

Note: This is a 2-part course. Students are expected to also register for Part Two in the spring semester.

Class dates: Mondays and Wednesdays, Sept. 5 to Dec. 19, 2012. No class Nov. 21.
Total classes: 30
Starting time: 10:00 am Eastern (9:00 Central)
Duration: 55 minutes
Prerequisite: None
Suggested grade level: 8^th to 9^th grade. Upper grades may also participate if beginning German.
Suggested high school credit: 1 full semester
Fee: $175 if you register on or before Aug. 1, 2012. $195 after Aug. 1 for all 30 classes.
Instructor: Alexis Mausolf
Course description: This 16-week course will introduce students to German vocabulary, grammar, and culture with bi-weekly meetings. The program will focus on building a solid German vocabulary and developing comprehension of the written and spoken German language. Each class will feature pronunciation practice, conversation, new grammar concepts and cultural trivia. Students will complete regular homework, quizzes and chapter tests, dictations and a short presentation at the end of the semester. To demonstrate that it is a living language, everything from nursery rhymes, songs, and proverbs to commercials and cartoons will be incorporated as learning aids.
Course materials: German is Fun Book 1: Lively Lessons for Beginners by Elsie M. Szecsy, published by Amsco. (best ordered directly from publisher – http://amscopub.com) The Everything Learning German Book with CD, second edition, by Edward Swick, MA. Published by Adams Media. (easy to acquire from Amazon) *Both texts will be used for the second semester course as well.
Homework: Learning a foreign language requires regular practice. Ideally, at least half an hour per day should be spent on German, i.e. completing the grammar drills assigned, memorizing vocabulary, reading for comprehension, taking tests or quizzes, listening to online German news broadcasts, and generally becoming familiar with the language.

Instructor biography: Alexis Mausolf, MA

Mrs. Mausolf is a Catholic homeschooling mother of two. She has a Bachelors degree in Russian studies from Washington and Lee University and a Masters degree in German, with a concentration in German literature, from Florida State University. Before her marriage she lived in Germany for a year, teaching English at several colleges. She has taught German at the college level in te States for a number of years and is eager to work with homeschoolers now. Her husband is from Germany too, and they enjoy speaking German at home in Texas with their Kindern.

German I, Part One
(click on course title)

 

Advanced Placement (AP): Literature and Composition

AP: Literature and Composition; What Good is a Good Story, Part One

(click on course title to register)

ADDENDUM: The course fee has been reduced to $245.00

Note: This is a 2-part course. Students are expected to also register for Part Two in the spring semester.

Class dates: Tuesdays and Thursdays, Sept. 4 to Dec. 13, 2011. No class Nov. 1 and Nov. 21.

Total classes: 28

Starting time: 8:00 pm Eastern (7:00 Central)

Duration: 1 hour

Prerequisite: Students should be ready for upper division English and 17- to 18-years old. Instructor’s permission is required for students 16-years old or under. Students are expected to take the AP test (May 9, 2013)

High school credit: One full semester

Suggested grade level: 11^th to 12^th

Fee: $245 for all 28 classes. Note: enrollment is limited.

Instructor: Laurie Navar Gill, M. Ed.

Course description: This course syllabus has been approved by the College Board to bear the designation “AP.” All students in the class will be receiving a preparation that will help them to succeed on the AP Literature and Composition exam, which many students take for Advanced College Credit. You may also be eligible for a weighted grade.

                  The course approaches the goals of AP Literature through a Catholic lens. The primary themes under consideration are God’s universal charity and the consequences of sin. As we travel with the pilgrims of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, imagine the end of the world, examine the tragedies of Othello and King Lear, look at Gothic horror novels through the lens of contemporary bio-ethical dilemmas, and finally, ponder how God’s plan is worked out through very imperfect instruments in The Power and the Glory, students can mature and deepen in their understanding of human weakness and God’s sovereign mercy.

Course materials: Each student will need 7-11 books; all are available in inexpensive paperback editions. Specific editions will be suggested, but library copies are fine. In the case of literature in translation, particular translations will be required. Some of the texts are available FREE online. Contact us for the complete reading list.

Homework: The course requires roughly an hour of reading every day, with additional discussion/posting responsibilities. Each reading unit (approx. every 3 weeks) also includes a major writing assignment that will go through draft, conferencing and revision stages. Students should plan on spending an average of 30-60 minutes, 5-6 days a week outside of class on reading and writing for this course. All grading provided by the instructor.

Note: Please email homeschoolconnections@gmail.com for a complete syllabus.

Theology of the Body: “The Best Method of Educating Man”

Theology of the Body: “The Best Method of Educating Man”

(click on course title to register) 

Class dates: Tuesdays, Sept. 4 to Oct. 23, 2012

Total classes: 8

Starting time: 1:00 pm Eastern (Noon Central)

Duration: 1 hour

Fee: $90 on or before Aug. 1, 2012, $110 after Aug. 1 for entire 8-week course.

Instructor: Monica Ashour, MTS; M Hum

Prerequisite: None.

Suggested grade level: 10^th to 12^th

High school credit: ½ semester credit

Course description: This overview of Pope John Paul’s Theology of the Body will give a “bird’s eye” perspective of the whole of TOB. Far from relegating TOB to the area of sex and sexuality, TOB provides meaningful tools to see one’s life in the context of Jesus’ love for His Church and the life and love of the Blessed Trinity. A special emphasis will be made regarding the vocational call to the priesthood, religious life, and married life, and how both “celibacy for the Kingdom” (JPII’s words) and marriage mirror and inform each other. Caveat: Coursework subject to change based on the discretion of the online instructor’s assessment.

Course outline:

Class 1: Overview of Theology of the Body.

Class 2: The “language of the body”

Class 3: Original unity

Class 4: Fallen man

Class 5: Redeemed man

Class 6: Eschatological man

Class 7: Vocational discernment

Class 8: Recapitulation of everything

Course materials: For the first day’s class: please read the required reading from the Bible.

1. Genesis, Chapters 1 to 3

2. The Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 355-682 (Read 47 paragraphs a week)

3. The Documents of Vatican II; Gaudium et Spes, paragraphs 47-62 (2 paragraphs a week)

4. “Letter to Families” (Pope John Paul) (This gives a good TOB outlook in abbreviated form)

5. The short essay “The Weight of Glory” in the longer collection with the same name: The Weight of Glory and short essay “Man or Rabbit”, both by CS Lewis.

Additional reading lists provided for students who desire to go deeper into the subject.

Homework: Weekly quizzes, a major project, & final exam: Answer keys provided for parental or self grading. A minimum of 30 minutes a day suggested for study, reading, quizzes, project, and final Note that the pressure is not great, as rarely is there discussion over the reading assignments. Rather, Miss Ashour gives the reading list to help the students find good resources and to learn more on their own since we don’t have much time in class.

Note: Please email homeschoolconnections@gmail.com for a complete syllabus.

Fall 2012 Course Details

The 2012/2013 Course Catalog has been available for over a month now, helping parents plan for the next school year. Here at the blog, I'll post detailed information for each of the individual Fall 2012 courses over the next several weeks, starting later today. In the meantime you can find the course catalog and links to registration at the website, www.homeschoolconnections.com.

Summer 2012, Fall 2012, and Spring 2013 are all open for registration.