This is our catalog of courses. We will occasionally adjust the course listing to reflect the addition of new courses and the retirement of others.
Give your middle school student the mastery needed for punctuation — creating strong sentences and getting rid of the most common writing mistakes. This critical course helps your student write clearly, free of punctuation and grammar errors.
Total Classes: 6
Duration: 50 minutes per class
Prerequisite: Each course in the 6/7 series builds upon the next. Registration in the Writing Essentials 1: Punctuation & Grammar I (MS 6/7-1) and Writing Essentials 2: Excellent Sentence & Paragraph Writing I (MS 6/7-2) courses is required so that your student has all of the tools and knowledge necessary to succeed in this course. You may take the prerequisite courses LIVE or in Unlimited Access (recording) before or during this course.
Suggested Grade Level: 7th or accelerated 6th grade
Suggested Credit: One-half (½) of a semester’s credit for Writing or English. Follow with MS 6/7-4 for a full semester credit. To make a full and complete semester of middle school writing, sign up for the 6/7-4 course that follows this course.
Description
This is an essential writing course for all middle school students, to further the student’s ability and confidence in using punctuation and grammar correctly (and well!). Your student will learn to identify and use correct punctuation in longer passages of text, including additional work with the use of commas, semicolons and colons, and quotation marks. Special emphasis will be placed on using punctuation correctly in systems of testing, such as standardized tests, and increase your student’s ability to identify wrong uses of punctuation, to self-edit, and to make corrections easily.
Outline
Class 1: Correct comma use with clauses, compound sentences, and commas vs. semicolons in lists
Class 2: Odd punctuation challenges with colons, semicolons, and capitalizations
Class 3: Correct usage of quotation marks and their surrounding punctuation
Class 4: Complete Sentences vs. fragments in academic work vs. Advertisements and informal writing
Class 5: Punctuation, capitalization, and form with formal letters
Class 6: Common punctuation and grammar mistakes with pronouns, questions, compound sentences, and more
Materials and Homework
Course Materials: Course materials are included free as PDF files. Word or the ability to convert a document to a Word-compatible document is required. If you do not own Microsoft Word, you can use a system such as Google Docs that convert to Word documents FREE.
Homework: This course has weekly quizzes, requiring an estimated one to three hours per week for homework outside of class time (depending on the student’s skill level upon entering the course). Quizzes are graded automatically by the computer for instant feedback.
