One mom’s plans to use SOS as a homeschool tool

Last week in California I met an energetic entrepreneur and savvy businesswoman—who also happens to be a single mom of two. Jil is homeschooling her daughters, who are ages 12 and 14.
Homeschoolers have been a part of mainstream life for some time now. (Once upon a time, I dreamed of homeschooling my brood. I couldn’t have begun to pull it off, and didn’t even try. Well, except for that brief time when my teenage son came carting all his books home, and casually announced that he told his teachers I was going to homeschool him. Knowing how miserable he was in public school, I decided to follow his lead. It lasted less than a month.) The parents who homeschool use a variety of lesson plans for their curriculum. Whether they come up with their own or use one that’s already “board of education certified,” homeschooling seems to be a growing trend.
Jil now plans to use Sister of Silence in her curriculum, and this is how she’s going to do it: first of all, Jil’s going to use it for their English and health classes. She said she wants her daughters to write an English report composed of six paragraphs for each chapter of the book, that will highlight such things as punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, and so forth.
I would have questioned that, had I not already gotten word that a college professor is using it in her English 101 class this fall. “It’s really well-written,” she told me.
Jil says Sister of Silence will also work well in her daughters’ health class, by opening the way for discussions (and other assignments) about such topics as teen pregnancy, mental health, and domestic violence. When she told me this, I thought it was perfect, as these are topics not covered well, or deeply enough, within the public schools.
So there it is—one more positive outcome from my travels to California, and perhaps a way for you to help your own children.
Editor’s note: If you are an educator, consider using Sister of Silence, in your classroom–traditional or otherwise. You can buy it here: Nellie Bly Books