How to Create Your Own High School Elective Course

Homeschooling through the high school years can be lots of fun, especially if your student can take courses tailored to their interests. Just follow these step-by-step instructions for creating a high school elective course unique to your teen.

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If you aren’t sure what the difference is between a high school elective course and extracurricular activities then check out this informative article from HSLDA.

Brainstorm Ideas

This is the fun part! Sit down with your teen and brainstorm ideas for possible courses. If your student is beginning high school, then you can create just about any course that your teen will enjoy. Need help with ideas? Check out this list here.

You may have a teen who is nearing graduation. This might leave you scrambling to figure out elective courses for them to take at the last minute. If there is time, you can brainstorm ideas and create courses from scratch. However, if time is limited, you might want to consider creating a few courses based off of what your student has already done in previous years.

For example, a teen who has been cooking and baking for family and friends might have enough hours to count towards a half credit in Culinary Arts. You might want to have them compile their recipes into a cookbook so that you have something to grade.

Your teen may have spent hours helping repair cars over the last few years. Have your teen put together a presentation about car maintenance and count it as a course in Automotive Repair.

Perhaps you have a teen who has spent countless hours caring for younger siblings or babysitting for others. Have them take a CPR class or read a book on child care and then write an essay on what they learned. This can be a class in Child Care 101.

You may be the parent who is creating courses before your student has even started high school or you may be scrambling at the last minute. Either way, you will want to sit down with your teen to brainstorm ideas for elective courses.

Plan Course Content

Next, pick one elective and think about what content you will include in the course. What topics will be covered? How will the student learn the information? What will be required of the student to show knowledge or growth in this area?

When I am creating content for an elective course, I try to incorporate these three areas.

1. What topics or aspects of this subject should they learn?

What topics will be covered in the course? Think about the specific things you want your teen to learn from this course. What knowledge or skills do you want them to learn and develop by the time the course is over?

For example, if I am creating a health class for my teen, then I need to think about what aspects of health I want them to cover in the course. Will the course focus on physical health and cover specifics about exercise, nutrition, and healthy habits? Or perhaps I want the health course to be broader and cover mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health. If that is the case, then I won’t be asking my teen to dive deep into each of these areas but rather get a broad understanding of each of these areas of health.

2. What methods of learning will be used?

This is a great time to take your teens learning style into consideration. We learn best when we enjoy the learning process.

Here are some possible methods of learning to help you get started.

• Reading
• Audio books, podcasts etc.
• Watching videos
• Apprenticeship or learning from someone else
• Hands on application and trial and error

3. How will they demonstrate comprehension?

The last thing to consider, when creating the content of your course, is how your student will demonstrate comprehension. What will your student be required to do to show the knowledge or skills learned. There are many different ways to do this but here are a few to get you thinking.

• Writing an essay or report
• Taking quizzes and tests
• Giving an oral presentation
• Putting together a project
• Keeping a log of hours spent on the course
• Teaching the skill to someone else
• Demonstrating improvement in a skill (like sewing, gardening, cooking etc.)

I find it helpful to write down the content that will covered in each elective course that I am creating. This helps my student know the expectations and goals he or she should have when taking the course.

Determine How to Evaluate Progress

Next, you need to determine how you will evaluate your student’s progress so you can issue a grade for their transcripts. Grades are usually based off of the following criteria:

• Participation (attitude, timely completion of assignments etc.)
• Test and quizzes
• Writing assignments
• Oral presentations
• Projects

Here are some helpful rubrics to assist you in grading your student’s work.

You can assign more points to different areas of evaluation. For example, participation points can be worth 25% of the grade, a final project or paper can be worth 50% of the grade and all other projects and assignments can be worth 25% of the final grade. For more on this, check out this article from HSLDA.

Create a Title and Course Description

You will need to have a course title for your student’s high school transcript. A course title is the name you give to the elective course you created. Examples of course titles could be Culinary Arts, Film History, Music Appreciation, Photography 100.

Course descriptions are optional but can benefit a student applying to a college. A course description is a summary of the course, similar to what is found in a course catalog from a college. Learn more about course descriptions and high school transcripts in these two posts here and here.

Log Hours and Issue Credit

It is a good idea to keep a log of hours that your student spent doing the course. This does not have to be exact, rather a rough estimate of time it took to complete the course. Knowing how much time your teen spent on the course will help you determine whether the course is worth a full (one year) credit or a half credit.

Follow these basic guidelines from HSLDA to determine how many credits an elective course is worth on your student’s transcript.

• 120-180 hours equates to one year long course. Issue 1 credit.
• 60-90 hours equates to a half year course. Issue 1/2 credit.

Let Your Teen Offer Input

Bring your teen in on the process of creating elective courses for them. They will be more motivated to complete the course if they had input into what they were taking and how the course is set up.

Your teen can help you brainstorm ideas for elective courses, help plan out the content of the course and even offer up ideas on how they would like to be graded. This is a great way to make learning fun and meaningful for your teen.