Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Argumentative Writing & Blogging

The following is a description of a class I'll be offering to homeschoolers this spring at the Huckleberry Center for Creative Learning in Valencia, California.  All classes for the spring semester begin the week of  February 7, 2011 and end June 2, 2011.  If you have questions regarding registration, please visit:  www.hucklc.org.  Huck is a vendor for several area charter schools.  


This class will be on Mondays from 10:30-12noon.



Ages:  12+
Writing is one of the most important and essential skills a student can learn.  Writing well allows someone to express their ideas, argue their opinions and demonstrate their knowledge.  Writing also helps students to learn.  The process of organizing, developing and arguing ideas is an excellent way to learn about any subject.  We will write essays that inform, critique and persuade.   In this class, students will work on a combination of traditional, argumentative essays (approx. 3-4 pages in length), and smaller, but more frequent argumentative essays/posts as they design and maintain their own blogs.  Blogging provides a wonderful opportunity for students to get audience feedback and blogging several times a week will challenge students to expand their creativity and work those “writing/thinking” muscles.  Students will blog about topics THEY want to know more about and create posts that help them gain and RETAIN that knowledge.  This is a class that will provide plenty of opportunities for students to practice the process of organizing their ideas into unified and coherent essays and blog posts.  We will look at essays together as a class so students can also learn about the reactions their writing elicits from others.  Writing is, first and foremost, communication, so we’ll look at both ends of that transaction: the writer and the reader.  Whether you want to prepare for the type of writing you’ll need to master for college success, or just want to practice your persuasive writing skills, this is the class for you. 

Ages 12+
Homework:  Writing (approx.) 2 hours/week
(Bring laptops if possible -we have 4 available at Huck).
Materials Fees:  $20
Tuition $210 (For details see www.hucklc.org)

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