Homeschool Friday: September 23-27 2013 {Week 4}

We are now at the end of week 4 of our school year, meaning there are only 34 left to go (that sounds like kind of a lot). You might have noticed today that the Summer Reading 2013 page up top went away, and was replaced with 10th grade curriculum. That way, if you are curious about any of the curriculum I am currently using, or see in a post that I did two lessons of math, and are curious what math program, you can now find out!

History
I finished Beowulf, and worked on a writing assignment about Christian and Pagan influences throughout the poem. I did not do as much work as I would have liked, but I think it should be fine.

Science
I did a lot of science this week. I've been reading mostly about minerals and mineralogy.

Spanish
I got stuck early in the week with an exercise where I needed to learn the alphabet. I can't move on until I have it down, and I'm not remembering any part of it, not matter how many times I listen to it on the CD.

English
I've moved into a section on verbs, but I didn't get a lot done in English this week.

Math, Rhetoric, ect.
In math, I did about five lessons, which is good, but not enough to get me caught up. In Rhetoric, I've been continuing to work on a chapter about definitions.

Well, there's not a lot to talk about this week. Mostly just more of the same. I'm going to try to get some more Rhetoric done tonight if I can, and then maybe some math and English this weekend if I have time, which I very well might not. We will see how that all goes. I posted this late today, because I wanted to see how much school I got done today. Hopefully next week will be a little more interesting.

Don't forget I'm going a Q&A post soon, so if you have any questions about homeschooling (or really anything else) for me, please let me know, and I will answer them.

Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates {Book Review}

Today I'm reviewing Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates , which is an anthology of short stories featuring pirates, written by various authors.

As a collection, I enjoyed this book, though I feel that the quality of the stories varied quite a bit. Many of these stories are quite enjoyable to read on their own, and are the perfect length to read quickly, but still be satisfying.

I particularly enjoyed the final three stories in the book. Broadsided by KJ Kiegan featured fantastic of characters, good back story, and strong emotional ties between characters. The Pensioner Pirates of Marine Parade by Jonathan Broughton had a unique premise, and a surprising ending. The Book of Adventures by Douglas Kolacki was my favorite of all the stories. It took the theme (pirates), and turned it on its head. It was unique, enjoyable, and well developed.

I do have one criticism that goes for many of the stories in this book (though not for the ones mentioned above). Many of them felt like longer stories shoved into a short story format. This was particularly true with Khalballo by Margo Lerwill, and with Diamonds and Bones by Kris Radcliffe. They both had a good idea, but they became confusing because there was so much back story left untold, and too much action for the shortness of the story.

Overall, I recommend this anthology to anyone who particularly enjoys pirate stories. There is a good variety of classic pirate stories, historical ones, and a few that break out of the genre completely. As a reader, I think that short stories are a great but challenging form for prose, and some of these authors did better with it then others.


 I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

*This post contains affiliate links. 

NaNoWriMo - It's Coming!

For the last two years, I have participated in National Novel Writing Month each November. Basically, the idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. So far, I've successfully done it twice, and I'm excited to go at it again this year.

Last year, I worried a lot about the story, and ended up totally switching gears 20k words in because I didn't really like what I had done. This year, I'm going to try to forget the story, and focus on writing. While the story is obviously important, I'm not going to do any planning AT ALL (pantsers FTW!), and I won't even have any idea what I'm doing until the day before. How am I going to do that? A few years ago, I received the Storymatic as a gift, but have never really used it. It's a box with two types of cards: character cards, and plot cards. Character cards are things like: wrestler, servant, animal psychic, or mascot for a professional sports team. The plot cards are things like: shouldn't have touched it, nobody is watching, flat tire, or fear of getting old. I like them because they give you lots of freedom, but still get your creativity going.

My plan (at least so far, things could still change), is to pull a two or three character cards, and one or two plot cards on Oct. 31. That will give me some time to think about how I'll incorporate them all into my story. Then, whenever I need something new, I'll pull a new card. The story I end up with will be totally ridiculous, and the plot will probably be full of holes, but that's okay. I'm not writing this story because I want to publish it. If I did, things would be different. I'm writing to write. I want practice writing, and practice with being flexible with my story.

During November, I'm going to be pretty busy trying to keep up with school and NaNoWriMo, so I might not have a lot of time to blog. I will try to blog twice a week (on Fridays and Saturdays), once to do my weekly school wrap up, and once to do a NaNo update. I might have time to write some posts ahead of time and publish them through out the month, but if not, I'll be back to regular posting in December.

I know November is still a ways away, and I'll probably post a few more NaNo planning posts before then. In the meantime, I do have some posts planned. I will be reviewing a short story anthology tomorrow, along with my usual school update. Doing those updates has helped me do more, I think, because I don't want to say that I didn't get anything done. I want to tell you about all the amazing work I did. :)

I also have two more posts in the My Favorite Things series coming up in the next few weeks, and another book review coming up sometime next week. I also thought it would be fun to do another homeschooling QA post, so if you have questions about homeschooling (or other things, it doesn't have to be just homeschooling), please let me know so I can get that post started! I'll be asking for questions on Google+ today as well.

Also, this blog now has a twitter account! If you use twitter, follow me @RWGHBlog to be updated when new posts are published, and to hear about books I love, and other fun literary stuff!

Banned Books Week 2013

Today is the beginning of Banned Books Week, and I'm celebrating with a round up of posts I've written in the past about Banned Books. This spring, I did this series about banned books, which came in seven parts:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four 
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven

Just a few days ago, I wrote a post about the censorship of a book I particularly like.

Also, check out this fun interactive list of this year's most banned or challenged books. How many have you read? I've read 8 out of the 41 on the list. This list repersents the most banned books of all time. I've read 8 out of 44. Finally, this list is the most challenged books of the 1990's. I've read 28 out of 100 there.

Let me know how many of these commonly banned or challenged books you have read. It makes me so sad to see these lists, because some of my all time favorite books are quite high on many of these lists.

I believe that there will always be people who try to ban or censor books. But remember, knowledge is power. Books are so important. They keep us from becoming like the people of Fahrenheit 451 (a favorite, often challenged, book of mine): empty, and tied up constantly with the most trivial of matters. They did not care about life, because they saw no meaning in it. There was no point that they could see because they knew nothing but the small constraint they had created for themselves. Books give us the power to see beyond our own time and space. They allow us to travel the world, and through time. They help us find meaning.

I don't believe is forcing books on people, and if people do not wish to read these books, they should not read them. I don't, however, think it is at all appropriate for these people to tell me what I can and can not read. That is a decision for me to make.

*This post contains affiliate links.

Some Thoughs On Books, YA Lit, and Censorship {Eleanor and Park}

Earlier this morning, I opened up my blog reader, as I so often do, and found this post. The post (which is from one of my favorite websites), talks about lots of interesting and fun things, but there were a few things which stood out to me. Go look over that post, and then read what I have to say. I'll quote it a little, but I don't want to steal their thunder.

The Parents Action League of Minnesota's Anoka-Hennepin school district is working to ban Eleanor & Park—a book supposedly “littered with extreme profanity and age-inappropriate subject matter”—from the high school reading list. Here’s what author Rainbow Rowell had to say about the situation. NPR even weighed in on the issue.

This is the section I want to talk about.  Now, please go read each of the three links. The first from a school district explaining why they wish to ban Eleanor and Park, and book that I read, loved, and reviewed, this spring. The second is an interview with the author, and the third is an NPR book critic's very thoughtful comments on the issue. I'm not going to just reitrate what they said, though that would be easy to do. Instead, I'm going to discuss this issue from another point of view: as a teenager, the exact group of people these ADULTS say should not be reading this book.

The first complaint these people had was about the profanity. Honestly, it really didn't bother me. Swearing is something that I'm used to seeing in books, but that does not mean that I like it, or never mind. There are plenty of books that I have read that used swearing as a tool, to show that they were cool, or to emphasize a point, and I don't like that. The profanity in Eleanor and Park is honest and real. It feels real, and makes a subtle point about the teens at the high school.

The second complain is about the story. They say that it is inappropriate for teens to read about the events in the book. It didn't bother me. More then that, these things that people complain about are some of what I liked the best about this book. It feels REAL. I don't want to read about sugar coated teens who never drink, or swear, or have sex, and who have perfect home lives. Why? Those people aren't real. They feel fake. Eleanor is an amazing character. Yeah, her situation sucks big time, but she makes it through. Her relationship with Park is heartbreakingly sweet, and yet so sad, and all so, so real.

For me, the real bottom line is that I don't think books should be banned. I don't think anybody should be required to read Eleanor and Park, but I think anybody should be able to. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and for the parents who wrote that article don't want their kids to read this book, it is their right to enforce that in their own home. But I think that that book should still be available to all those teens to wish to read and enjoy this book.

On an unrelated note, that same FYA article linkd to this awesome list of the 25 best YA books featuring LGBTQ teens. I've only read 5, but there really are some pretty great books on that list if you're looking for something to read.

Homeschool Fridays: September 16-20, 2013 {Week 3}

Wow, it's the end of the third week of our school year already! I ended last week a bit behind, and I'm ending this week the same way. Luckily, I actually did a little more then a week's work, so I'm less behind then I was. As confusing as that sounds, it means that progress is being made! In these posts I'm going to focus more on the topics I'm covering, and the things I'm learning rather then the number of lessons or chapters I completed.

History: Middle Ages
History has been tough this week. I have read all but about 30 pages of Beowulf, and I hope to have it finished this afternoon. The version I'm reading is a very literal translation, and I've found it to be a bit of a struggle to understand. I also did a little research on Germanic tribes (Goths, Vandals, ect.), and did a small writing project. I also had a map on the Viking expansion to complete, but unfortunately, I don't think that's likely to get done this week. Next week, I hope to do the map, write an essay on the Christian vs. pagan influences in Beowulf, and begin the textbook reading on the spread of Islam.

Earth Science
I did a LOT of science this week, and am finally finished with all the intro stuff, and the section on maps. Hopefully that means things will start getting a little more interesting next week.

English, Vocab, Rhetoric
For English, I was a bit stalled out at the beginning of the week, and am still a lesson behind. Vocabulary is pretty easy, though I still have a a few paragraphs to write for this weeks review assignment. Rhetoric was a VERY long lesson on definitions, which I only did about a third of. Since there are only 25 lessons in the book, I can affoard to slow down and spread these long lessons out over several weeks.

Math and Spanish
For math, I'm just plodding along. I'm about a lesson behind where I want to be, but I'm not too worries about that. For Spanish, I did some number practice, and learned a lot of pronunciation rules.

That's it for this week! I have a lot of other thing I want to talk about today, but I think I'm going to make them into a separate post. Expect another post later this morning!

My Favorite Things: Blogs

This post is kicking off a series I'm calling "My Favorite Things." Since I already talk a lot about books and stuff on here, this is going to be a chance for me to talk more about some of my favorite things I don't usually discuss. Today, it's blogs, and over the next few weeks I have plans for posts on computer games, YouTube channels, and basically all the other fun stuff I do that takes up too much of my time. :)

Today, I'm going to highlight a few blogs I like to read. Honestly, I have way too many blogs that I check on regularly, and many more then that in my RSS feeder. Because of that, I was pretty worried when Google Reader was retired, but I've since been using Feedly, which works okay, though I don't love it.

I'm going to separate these blogs into categories, since I tend to read blogs for a few reasons: homeschooling blogs, blogs of people I know, and reading or writing blogs. Some of the blogs of homeschool families I follow have very different values and beliefs then my family, which is one reason I find them so interesting to follow. Also, many of the blogs of people I know are actually homeschooling families.

Blogs of People I Know

A Baker's Dozen and Apollo XIV

A Time for Every Purpose

Boots Before Corset

The Smog Blog

Book and Writing Blogs/Websites

The Office of Letters and Light

History of the (Whole) World

Read More! (this one almost fit in the people I know category, but I decided to leave it here.)

Pretentious Title

Forever Young Adult

Go Teen Writers!
 
Homeschool Blogs

Life In a Shoe

Large Families on Purpose


As I said before, I read MANY blogs, but these are some of the highlights. What blogs do you read?