Learning writing online in a supportive, collegial environment.

Writing can be an utterly jubilant activity, but a significant level of creative ecstasy is rarely encountered by highschool-aged students and is very nearly impossible to achieve in the traditional school environment.

My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school. -Margaret Mead

Experience in most high school classrooms (using the mass-production educational model and presided over by often well-meaning but uninspired pedants) so often prompts one to conclude that essay writing is always something decidedly distasteful. The essay, however, can be an eye-opening opportunity for endless creativity and variation, whose flexibility and expressive potential is limited only by the writer's ability to weave cogent content into a dazzling fabric of felicitous diction -- well, perhaps it needn't always go that far, but the point stands: essay writing is what one makes of it and the more one does, the better one gets and the easier and more enjoyable it becomes. This is the philosophy that our online English classes espouse and implement.

Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. - Oscar Wilde

It is very hard to generate enthusiasm for writing when one's labor results only in an ephemeral entity whose sole purpose for existence is to be the subject of a cursory critical evaluation and a single mark in a grade book. Essay writing is often much more exciting and interesting when one is writing for an audience and not just for a teacher who will glance over the paper quickly, make a few red marks, and return it (though this option is open to those not yet ready to share their work). In our online and hybrid classes everyone has the opportunity to write for an audience -- for the class as a whole, the teacher, and ultimately, after some honing and revision, for a larger audience of fellow students and parents, for the public in web and print media, and for inclusion in individual student portfolios.

Trying to get more learning out of the present system is like trying to get the Pony express to compete with the telegraph by breeding faster ponies. - Edward Fiske

A class grade in an accredited highschool is certainly of some value, but it becomes somewhat feeble when placed next to a portfolio of published works whose message and mastery are directly evident to the observer. Such a tangible record of student achievement is far more compelling than a simple letter on a piece of paper reflecting a perfunctory perusal and a possibly skewed evaluation by an only marginally interested and probably harried and preoccupied instructor.

For nearly ten years, our English class has been held largely online, with all handouts and assignment submission taking place in an online classroom but with a weekly traditional classroom meeting in which corrected papers, grammar, writing style, and spoken language were analyzed and discussed. Now with full online application sharing, together with full audio and video, online students may participate equally with classroom students.

The class follows an open enrollment policy whereby students may join at any point during the semester and stay as long or as briefly as they choose. The one-room schoolhouse paradigm is used with students of multiple ages and abilities working and studying together.

Individual tutoring in English and Mathematics using full-motion video is a good way to study when a class is unavailable or otherwise undesirable.

Online education is not for the person who must follow a leader. It is not for the person who needs to be told to study, what to study and when. But if learning is your thing, the online class is one way to give your mind what it craves most.

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. - Robert M. Hutchins

Learning English Online

Learning writing online in a supportive, collegial environment.