Our Homeschool History

Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I take the concept of writing essays and join it with a little research, a quote or two, a formulaic approach (three paragraphs/three topics), and boom---we have an assignment that spans many levels of junior high and high school, that boys actually like too, that can be differentiated easily, and that is fun to each!

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Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, the question and answer format is utilized for elementary and middle school writers to write Christmas decoration paragraphs. In the question and answer format, the student is given one paragraph passages to answer questions about---and then they turn those answers into a new, original paragraph. This is a great approach for students who are not quite yet adept at finding information themselves—and especially for those who are still not sure what to include in a paragraph about a topic when they do find a source.

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Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this second part (of two) episodes, I teach the important skill of editing student writing. Editing student writing is a skill that teachers can achieve through years and years of practice. It takes some nuancing to truly apply what we teach students in grammar and language arts to their writing (for them as writers and us as editors/graders!).

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Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I teach the important skill of editing student writing. There is a huge disconnect in the learning process once students turn in their writing project—one that can be overcome and even enhanced through thorough, purposeful editing student writing.

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Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I teach from a fun finish this story lesson for middle school and beyond. Students usually love to finish the story with familiar tales. They already know the general story line, so for them, instead of “choose your own adventure” chapter book, they  get to “choose their own finish” to given scenes—in this case, from the story of Mowgli in The Jungle Book.

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Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I geek out a little bit on grammar, namely my weekly grammar quiz parts of speech for upper level students. In this weekly grammar quiz, I cover the parts of speech that my students need to memorize in order to write well.

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Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I go back to the littles for descriptive writing! Even very young students, as early as second grade, can be taught to complete descriptive writing if they are given the tools—and especially the framework—to do so. In this project (which you get for free---grab your Teacher’s Notebook with the blank Paragraph House Outlines, adverb lesson, descriptive writing instruction, and more!), students are taught using the Directed Writing Approach.

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Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I bring you how to use describing words in writing for upper elementary and middle school students. Describing words, for this lesson, include adjectives, adverbs, and several literary devices. Students learn how to write two descriptive paragraphs using describing words with the Teach-Practice-Apply Method.

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Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I am ready to teach you with quotation examples for dialogue! Dialogue writing is tough for students, so the more quotation examples we can give them, the better! And that is why I go to great (and expensive due to all of the edits needed!) lengths to be sure that I have samples of everything I expect my students to do—including many quotation examples and dialogue examples.

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Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, we are going to dig into all things dialogue for students. Story writing in high school usually requires a certain savviness of dialogue for students. But how do we get our students to the level where they can write dialogue well---including correct punctuation and speech tag placement?

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