Creating an English learning plan that’s applicable to someone targeting Media Arts as a career was more difficult than designing the technical Media Arts Learning Plan. However, after some persistence in searching for ideas and many hours of reading through a high school career-focused program that integrates academic subjects, I was able to draft a plan for my son!
The following links will lead you to more details:
- My Story
- Designing the English Learning Plan
- Continuous Improvement
- Lessons for Dumber Self
- Next Step for You
After previously creating the technical Media Arts learning plan, the next step would be to tackle the other subjects.
My Story
The next topic up was English. As with the Media Arts learning plan, the goal was to tailor the English plan to prioritize practical experiences. Was it possible to make the lessons relevant and relatable to my son? If so, what type of assignments could be put to real-life use after their completion? This would require me to put on my Business thinking cap as I researched for and drafted the plan.
With a goal of incorporating as many lessons and practice hours as possible that aligned with the direction that my son was headed for his career, while fulfilling the English academic standards, I drafted a customized plan. Below are highlights of the process that I went through:
Designing the English Learning Plan
To build upon the resources that I found while creating the Media Arts learning plan, I continued to look for additional references online to help me create the structure for the English learning plan and incorporate opportunities to emphasize the subject content.
Curriculum Standards
The government or other regulating bodies may have guidelines for a homeschool curriculum, so it’s important to ensure that those are met. In addition, using the standards for our State’s public schools and local school district were helpful. Based on the above combined sources, the minimum English requirements are as follows:
| Credits | Year(s) |
|---|---|
| 40 | 4 |
Learning Opportunities
Keeping the curriculum requirements and our son’s current knowledge and skills in mind, I spent countless hours absorbing the invaluable unit materials from Digital / Media / Arts, a two-year career-focused high school curriculum, to come up with current real-life needs that could be incorporated in the English learning plan.
In addition, I found the following resources that could help a student learn more about and develop additional appreciation for literature, language, and composition, while refining reading, listening, writing, and speaking skills:
- LibriVox – Free public domain audiobooks
- Reading Lists for High School Students – By grade level
- Shakespeare Plays – Play summaries
- Khan Academy – Free learning resource for all ages
- Georgia Virtual Learning Shared Resources – Online courses
Lastly, drawing from the above resources resulted in the current English learning plan for our son as shown below:
| Grade | Courses / Assignments / Presentations |
|---|---|
| 9 | Course: 1. 9th grade reading & vocabulary |
| 10 | Courses: 1. Everyone Has a Story 2. Settings from Page to Screen Assignments: 1. Short Written Memoir 2. Detailed Written Set Description 3. Set Design Presentation |
| 11 | Courses: 1. Casting a Novel Character 2. Going Public Assignments: 1. Written and Audio Character Monologue 2. Written Scene Dialogue 3. Written Press Release 4. Audio or Video Artist Statement |
| 12 | Course: 1. Speech |
A learning plan is a helpful guide for my son to strive towards completing his learning goals, but to increase the quality of the lessons, below are some steps that we will take:
Continuous Improvement
- Monitor the environment for additional real-life, hands-on scenarios and decide if any of them would be better than the activities on the current plan
- Adjust the learning plan to take advantage of any better opportunities that come up
Going through the process of personalizing the English learning plan was a tough one, but below is what I would like to remember when I’m stuck again in the future:
Lessons for Dumber Self
- Take a break
- Use a different approach
- Think from a different angle
- Re-use previous resources
- Accept imperfection
- Persevere
What will you do now?
Next Step for You
- Draft a homeschool learning plan that integrates multiple subjects?
- Read another post on this site? (Go to the menu at the top of the page.)
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