I am going through the Ron Paul Curriculum, a home schooling program, and for my English class I was asked to write a semester report. This is what I learned from the first semester of the 7th Grade English class.
The first week I started reading “The Dragon and the Raven” by G. A. Henty, and it focused on getting me used to the schedule we would use, and how the reading assignments would work, so I didn’t learn any new content in that week.
The second week, however, we reviewed the five parts of a plot, the exposition (also known as the introduction), the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution. I had learned this in the sixth grade, but review didn’t hurt, and I finished the book.
The third week we spent learning about the setting and I started reading the book “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” by Mark Twain. The setting can be shown in three ways, the time, the place, and the social standing. Lots of books set their story in the past, but most of these are Fantasy books, while the future is often reserved for Sci-fi, though this is by no means is all you can do. The present as well is used in all manner of themes. The place is possibly the most variable, with fictional locations being used in abundance, though you can usually figure out what real world location it’s based on, if it is based on any. The social standing is normally variable within the story, and hinges on the story, with the protagonist normally rising in social standing as they do heroic deeds. Though this is most common, the more popular characters, like Batman and Spiderman, never rise in social standing, they are most often scorned, despite any heroic deeds.
The fourth week was spent reading the rest of “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” and the teacher tested me by writing an essay on it’s setting, since time, place, and social standing take large precedence in that story.
The fifth and sixth weeks were spent learning about character development and reading another book from G. A. Henty, “Wulf the Saxon”. Character development is essential if one want’s to make a popular character. Some characters, however, don’t develop, and they are called Static Characters (Dynamic Characters do develop) and they are normally villains, so that you can be shown how the protagonist outgrew the villain. We also learned about primary characters and secondary characters, primary characters being “Main” characters like the protagonist, antagonist and oftentimes their sidekick, while allies and henchmen are secondary.
The seventh week was spent learning about theme, otherwise known as the moral. The theme of a story is what the reader is supposed to take away from the story, and returning to the example of Spiderman, his overarching theme is the famous line “With great power comes great responsibility”, or in the book I read, “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson, a major theme would be “be careful of those you call friends” Unlike other parts of a story the theme can be subjective, which means different people can see different themes, though there often major themes that most everyone sees.
We learned about author’s style in the eighth week, but there wasn’t much there to cover, since all an author’s style is just the unique way in which the specific author writes. I read “White Fang” by Jack London, since he has a fairly distinct style of writing.
The ninth and tenth weeks I simply read “A Knight of the White Cross” also by G. A. Henty, and at the end of each week was asked to write half a report on it, describing in one the setting and character development and in the other the theme and plot.
Weeks 11 and 12 talked about the five forms of literature, novels (regular books), novellas (short books), short stories (partial books), poems (varying length, flowing words, not read using prose (how we read regular books)), and drama (which is preformed as a play and reads as an instruction manual). I read “The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood” by Howard Pyle, since it’s practically a short story collection with several longer novellas.
13 and 14 covered genres, nonfiction and fiction included. Nonfiction genres include biographies and autobiographies, but most often are reports on historical facts. Fiction, however, is much more common, with genres like fantasy, Sci-fi, and pretty much everything you can imagine, since even realistic stories fall under “realistic fiction”. Speaking of realistic fiction, I read “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe these two weeks.
Week 15 had me read a lot of Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, and talked about the mystery genre, since it is relatively new, only being started around 200 years ago.
Week 16 was the week before winter break, so I got a break from school work and just read “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens.
Week 17 and 18 I’ve spent reading “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carrol and have been tasked with writing this very semester report, after reviewing at length the proper way to organize your report. One such way is chronological order, which I have used here.
School Essays 