As I mentioned in my New Year Reflections, I agreed to help write a homeschool curriculum this year. Today, I’d like to go into a little more detail about what I’m doing and share some of the enjoyable and challenging aspects of writing a curriculum.
The curriculum a few other authors and I are working on is a Christian English/Language Arts (ELA) curriculum. I am responsible for writing the seventh grade lessons. Instead of a textbook with short stories, we are using books from the press that is publishing the curriculum as our primary reading material. One positive about being involved in this project is that I was given electronic copies of the three books I am basing my lessons on for free. Who doesn’t like free books, right?
I enjoyed reading all three of these YA Christian books, especially since I like writing that genre. I also enjoy thinking about homeschool parents using my lessons with their children. Picturing the children reading the books and doing the activities I plan makes my hard work feel worthwhile.
As someone with a background in education, I knew before I started that writing so many lesson plans would require a lot of work, but I have encountered two unexpected challenges. The first is that I have never before had a deadline for my writing. With my other published works, I wrote them in my own time and then submitted them to publishers and literary magazines.
This time, I signed a contract that I will complete all of the lessons by June 1st. That means I have to work on the lessons consistently if I want to get them done. Although this has sometimes been difficult, I think in the end it will help me become more disciplined as a writer.
The other unexpected challenge I have faced is that I have to create all supplementary materials myself. As most teachers can testify, there are a lot of worksheets, rubrics, and assessments available online, and when planning a lesson for my own classroom, I frequently utilized them.
Since this curriculum is being published, that is not an option. If I decide that a lesson requires a Theme Worksheet, I have to open a Word document, title it “Theme,” and create a worksheet. When I finish, I immediately create an answer key. Then, I can move on with my lesson. Of the total time I have worked on my lessons so far, I estimate that over half of it has been spent creating supplementary materials.
As of right now, I have completed 44 of the 120 lessons I need to finish by June. I am a little behind schedule, but I am hoping to catch up over spring break. Though writing this seventh-grade ELA curriculum has been enjoyable and beneficial, I know I will also breathe a huge sigh of relief when it is complete.
What are you currently working on? Let me know in the comments. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to see more like it.
