Overview of ProCom Classes

Proficient Communicators classes have been underway for the last 7+ years, providing over a hundred Lansing homeschoolers with the opportunity to grow as communicators in a vibrant community with a one-of-a-kind writing and speaking curriculum!

This curriculum (included in the cost of the class) is designed by Andrea Larsen (a previous college writing instructor) and Andrea Tello (a veteran classroom teacher).

From young communicators who need lots of support to high schoolers, students build skills to become confident, FLEXIBLE communicators who can adapt to various types of writing and speaking situations.

Students will practice writing in several different genres (often including a research project, literary analysis, and creative writing). These genres are designed to prepare students for college and workplace writing as well as writing for pleasure.

Students will also learn how to be active participants in a writing community through structured peer review assignments. These assignments are designed to reinforce writing skills that will benefit both the students giving and receiving feedback.

Students also learn to develop the content and visual aids for simple presentations and practice giving these presentations in front of the class.

Facilitators provide individual feedback on writing projects to help guide and encourage students.

ProCom classes focus on teaching students how to generate content for writing before delving into grammar and mechanics.

The class culminates in an oral presentation and celebration of the student’s final writing project. For more information, a sample syllabus, and a sample schedule, please visit: proficientcommunicators.wordpress.com.

Cost of ProCom

The cost of the class is:

• $100 for the curriculum and teacher feedback (paid directly to the facilitator)
• $80 for the class period (paid to Capital Christian)
• $40 insurance fee (only paid once for the year regardless of how many periods your family attends)

The $220 is the total annual fee. This translates into less than $8 per lesson for a core class, with curriculum and teacher feedback provided.

ProCom Through the Years

As new families join the ProCom writing community, it’s helpful to have some background on why the curriculum was developed and how it progresses through the years for returning students.

As a college writing instructor, Andrea Larsen saw many students enter their first year of college poorly prepared for the challenge and rigors of academic writing. She didn’t want that for her own children or the children in our homeschool community.

She began developing a curriculum that worked backward from the end goal – having students graduating ready for the challenges of both academic and workplace writing as well as the joys of writing for pleasure.

The primary learning objectives for ProCom students that will prepare them for the future are listed below. Some of these objectives mirror state requirements for high school classes because those also have college and workplace communication in mind. Our hope is that all students exiting ProCom can meet the objectives below:

Writing

• Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
• Understand how to analyze a genre of writing and how to recreate that genre.
• Know how language functions in different contexts and make effective choices for meaning or style.
• Write arguments to support claims in an analysis and use valid reasoning.
• Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas.
• Write narratives to develop real or imagined experience.
• Work on a writing project over a period of time.
• Demonstrate good use of vocabulary and the understanding of figurative language.
• Demonstrate command of conventions in English grammar and usage in writing and speaking.
• Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support the analysis.
• Determine the central idea of a text.
• Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas.
• Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas or claims are developed.
• Determine the author’s point of view or purpose in a text.

Speaking

• Develop effective speech organization.
• Learn to use visual aids.
• Develop confidence and composure as a speaker.

To achieve these objectives, Andrea Tello and Andrea Larsen use their combined 15 years of classroom teaching experience and nearly a decade now of working with ProCom students to guide them in creating an entirely new and unique curriculum each year.

While the assignments across the grade levels may be in the same genre (everyone writing a fiction story), the specific requirements are usually NOT the same. To match grade level objectives, we increase the difficulty and the number of requirements for each grade level.

As students move through the program, they not only learn brand new genres that teach and build on writing skills; they will also dig deeper into writing techniques and analysis of previous years.

Students will not master a genre or learn all skills presented the first time…or second or third time. And that’s okay! With time and repeated exposure, students grow more confident writing in each genre. More often than not, they also learn to enjoy writing in these genres as they gain experience.

With ProCom, we build on previous knowledge and review skills taught, but we provide fresh new assignments in which to explore those concepts.

Whether a student is brand new to ProCom writing or has been with us for a decade, our goal is to meet students where they are at in their writing journey and move them forward. We do this by providing unique assignments, individualized feedback, and guided direction on what to work on next.

Our hope is to help all our students become confident and flexible communicators who can easily share their ideas in whatever future God has for them.