Last year my older son was in grade nine. I designed what I thought was a cool literature course based on the theme of dystopian literature. These are sometimes taught in college. I found a number of courses in the 300 level.
Given the fact that my son now thinks he might do a college sport we are hoop jumping with the NCAA. That type of out of the box creative course is not liked by the NCAA.
To remedy the situation I am adding content that is more in line with a traditional public school grade nine English course for him to do now that we will count as grade nine work. He is using a grade nine public school textbook which I blogged about here.
Then for grade ten he will use the same public school textbook for the grade ten level as his spine and for the bulk of the work. If I want to be creative it will be supplemental to the textbook's spine.
My son has been shirking writing composition and he had medical problems in grade nine. I was worn down and didn't push the issue. This year we are focusing on writing composition. The grade nine and grade ten work he does from here forward will be heavy on writing composition so that it is a legitimate and honest statement when I say he did do writing composition in all of his high school English courses.
I like that with homeschooling there is flexibility. If you get behind due to sickness or family challenges you can do double time in the future and make up the gaps. I always knew that was an option but took it for granted since we rarely actually had to do that. Now that it is our reality, and now that I've spoken to the public school and realize how un-flexible and rigid they are, my gratitude for homeschooling is renewed and has multiplied.