Help your middle school student gain writing confidence and become a skilled writer with an introduction to informative, expressive, and persuasive writing, including choosing strong and clear words, crafting strong sentences and paragraphs, and understanding how to write the parts of an essay with personal help and feedback on your work. Take the 7/8-2 course with this course to gain a full semester’s credit for writing.

 Instructor Access (optional grading support) is available for Unlimited Access or Single Access. 
See the sidebar to the left for signup information! 

There are two Instructor Access (IA) grading instructors for the 7/8 Series of courses. Teaching assignments alternate for the IA instructors, and the instructor you see now is the instructor who is "open" for working with you.   

Total Classes: 8

Prerequisite: The writing courses build upon one another and 7/8 students are responsible for previously-learned content in the 6/7-series of courses. Therefore, 6/7-1, 6/7-2, 6/7-3, and 6/7-4 are required. If your student is unable to take the previous courses LIVE, then at a minimum, he or she can watch the recordings on Unlimited Access before taking this course. An alternative to the prerequisite: a passing assessment from the Aquinas Writing Advantage Assessment service. Please contact homeschoolconnections@gmail.com for any questions on permissions.

Suggested Grade Level: 8th or accelerated 7th grade

Suggested Credit: One-half (½) of a semester's credit for Writing or English. Follow with MS 7/8-2 for a full semester's credit for writing.

Instructor: Erin M Brown (AKA Erin Brown Conroy/E.B. Conroy), M.A, M.F.A.
Instructor Email: ebconroy@homeschoolconnections.com

Course Description: In this course, your student will learn the skills and habits of strong and clear writing — and gain the critical foundations of essay writing needed for excellent high school writing. Learn the purposes of writing (expressing, informing, and persuading); the effect of your audience on your writing (key considerations for different audiences); and how to sculpt a piece of writing with direction (the characteristics of an effective introduction, body, and conclusion). You'll learn how to strengthen your linear writing, add transitions for excellent paragraph writing, and get specific writing feedback from the instructor, to make your writing stronger.

Course Outline:

• Class 1: Writing for a purpose and audience: the “why” of writing

• Class 2: Great word choice: how to choose the “right” word

• Class 3: Strong sentences: how to write a great sentence

• Class 4: Clear paragraphs: what makes a great paragraph/linear writing that makes sense to the reader

• Class 5: Writing with direction: great introductions and the hook

• Class 6: Writing with direction: great introductions and the thesis

• Class 7: Writing with direction: the body (of your paper) and how to make it “shapely”

• Class 8: Writing with direction: the conclusion

Course Materials: Course materials are included free. Microsoft Word or the ability to convert a document to a Word-compatible document is required, as all assignments are submitted in Word. If you do not own Microsoft Word, you can use a system such as Google Docs that converts to Word documents FREE.

Homework: LIVE and Instructor Access students will have weekly writing assignments with grading and direct feedback from the instructor (parents will grade Recorded students’ work). Estimated three (3) to four (4) hours per week for homework outside of class time, depending on the student's ability.

Note: All student work needs to be 100% the student's own work and the student's own writing. Nothing can be copied from anywhere else unless a source for the text is given on the assignment. Any students who copy work from elsewhere will receive a zero on the assignment. Repeated copying will result in failure of the course.