In the Ron Paul Curriculum homeschooling program I’ve been taking four classes, and one of them is the 7th grade English course. I am writing this as a review, or recap of what I’ve learned over this last school year.
In the first two weeks I reviewed the five parts of a plot that I had learned about last year, the exposition, rising action, the climax, falling action, and the resolution, or the start, build-up, final goal, let down, and end. I also read “The Dragon and the Raven” by G. A. Henty, which is historically set in England during the Viking invasions, and is historically accurate as to what the main character saw happening around him, though he himself didn’t exist. This, like all the books, was provided in the lessons.
In the second two weeks I learned more about the setting of stories as I read “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” by Mark Twain, real name Samuel Clemens, in which the physical setting, social standing, and time period all played important roles. This helped evidence what I was learning during the lessons.
In weeks 5 and 6 I read “Wulf the Saxon” by G. A. Henty, which followed the historical accuracy of the first book, but this was set 100 or so years later. I also learned more proper terms for studying literature like “static” versus “dynamic” characters, while learning more about character development.
I read “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson and learned about themes, the underlying messages in stories, during the 7th week, which are far more subjective than anything else I had learned, since themes are inherently unobtrusive.
In week 8 I learned about authors style, or the method of writing distinct to each writer, while reading “White Fang” by Jack London, since he has a rather distinct style.
I read “A Knight of the White Cross” again by G. A. Henty during weeks 9 and 10, this time set in the Mediterranean 300 years after the last one. I then wrote a two part analysis of it by using what I had prior learned in the class, and therefore didn’t get a whole lot of help from the video lessons. They primarily covered many vocabulary words, most of which I knew of, but hadn’t actually learned.
In week 11 and week 12 I read “The Adventures of Robin Hood” by Howard Pyle, one of the first written books about Robin Hood. I also learned about the differences between novels, short stories, novellas, dramas, and poems, since Robin Hood is almost like a collection of short stories and novellas (shorter than a novel, longer than a short story). I would read several poems and dramas later in the year, as well as short stories, but for this half of the course we stuck to novels in prose, which means regular writing.
I learned about genres during weeks 13 and 14, such as fiction and nonfiction, sci-Fi and fantasy, while I read “Robinson Crusoe” by Danial Defoe, which is a realistic-fiction survival story by the way.
In week 15 I read assorted Sherlock Holmes stories, and learned about the origin of the mystery genre, which is much newer than any of the other ones, our culture having only developed proper detectives and police around the 1800s.
Week 16 was the week before Christmas, and so he basically gave me the week off, just having me read “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens to read.
in weeks 17 and 18 I read “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, which was a bit too scatter brained for me to enjoy. I wrote my first semester report during this, summarizing the weeks 1-18 just as I have here.
Weeks 19 and 20 had me reading “Lion of the North” by G. A. Henty, taking place about 150 years later during the 30 years war. This was also the last G. A. Henty book of the year. The lessons had me studying how to properly organize to write a book report, which I wrote about that book.
Weeks 21 and 22 had me reading “Journey to the Center of the Earth” by Jules Verne, which was somewhat anticlimactic, and taking in-depth lessons on note taking, even providing a guide on how to use Evernote, a note taking website, to use the best possible notes.
I learned about a plethora of worldviews in weeks 23 and 24 as I read “Little Men” by Louisa May Alcott, which was an extremely wholesome story. I summarized a great deal of the worldviews at the end of week 24.
In weeks 25 and 26 I learned quite a bit about narration, first, second, and third person perspectives, passive vs active voices, and more vocabulary for writing as I read “Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain.
In week 27 I read the script for “The Taming of the Shrew” a comedy by William Shakespeare, as well as learned a lot of the dictionary for dramas. This helped get me used to the style of play scripts such as this.
Week 28 had me reading “Macbeth” again by Shakespeare, though this one was quite dark and had a much more philosophical theme. I spent the lesson part of the lessons learning more dramatic and poetic vocabulary.
In weeks 29 and 30 I read “Idylls of the king” by Alfred Tennyson, which is a collection of poetic styled stories about King Arthur’s knights of the round table. These stories were also dark at the end of the book, though the first ones were lighthearted.
I read the important part of the “Odyssey” by Homer in week 31. By important, I mean the major and famous part with the monsters, none of the parts with his family or him reclaiming his home, which I had to find elsewhere. I learned a lot of the poetic dictionary as well.
In week 32 I read assorted poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Frost (my favorite), and Robert Sandburg, as well as “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe.
Week 33 had me reading assorted short stories by Edgar Allen Poe (The Purloined Letter), O. Henry (The Gift of the Magi), Jack London (To Build a Fire), and Mark Twain (The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County).
Week 34 and week 35 have had me reviewing everything I have learned in this class and writing this end-of-year report, which has been quite the hurdle, as you may tell.
The last week has me taking vocabulary practice tests that are at a college level, using all of the many, many vocabulary words from this year.
School Essays 