The One Year Adventure Novel for Homeschooling

I’ve written before about homeschooling my son and how excited I was to discover his love of writing. You can read that article here. Today I want to share our experience with The One Year Adventure Novel homeschool curriculum.

Photo by Brad Neathery on Unsplash

We were looking for an elective course to fill out his senior year, and I knew he had been playing around with writing a novel for a while. When I discovered The One Year Adventure Novel course, our prayers were answered.

This is a very well organized and in-depth class on fiction writing. I think it might have been created specifically for homeschooling. The syllabus outlines the number of hours required to complete the course and indicates that it is valued as one English credit for creative writing.

The class covers the hero’s journey story structure. It comes with a textbook and 78 video lessons covering elements of story, character development, creating conflict, story structure, outline, and finally, the revision process. So basically after each lesson, there is an online quiz and then you proceed with a writing exercise. Not only does this class cover all of the elements of developing plot and story. It takes the student through the entire process of completing the first draft of a novel. Every writing assignment is related to a single story idea that comes to fruition at the end of the class. And to top it off, the very last lessons delve into the editing, formatting, and submission processes.

Another great aspect of The One Year Adventure Novel (or OYAN as we referred to it) course is the online community for students. This is a closed group where participants can discuss the lessons, bounce ideas off each other, and post their writing for feedback. It is just like any online writing community, but it is specifically for current and former students of the class. I believe it’s also only for kids. Once you reach a certain age, you can no longer participate.

Finally, there is The One Year Adventure Novel conference. There are two events each year — summer and winter — for students to attend. This is their first exposure to the world of writing conferences. It’s for the students, but parents are welcome to come along. My son attended both conferences; the summer after completing the course and then the following winter event. He loved them both. He got to meet with other writing students, as well as get feedback from authors, agents and other professionals in the industry. This was a fantastic experience for him.

Personally, my favorite part of the class was this: we completed it together.

I’ve always been a writer. Getting to participate in the learning and the process of writing a novel alongside my son is one of my greatest memories. We watched the lessons together, we both took the quizzes, and we evaluated each other’s work. So by the end of his senior year, we each had our own separate first drafts. I loved watching his imagination work and seeing the different courses that each of our projects took. My son tucked his draft away in a drawer to be rediscovered at a later date. I continued on with revisions, editors, more revisions, beta readers, and finally indie publishing.

Overall, the One Year Adventure Novel course was a wonderful experience and a great addition to our homeschool curriculum. If you want to learn more about it, check out their website at www.oneyearnovel.com.

And I would be super appreciative you take a look at the novel that came from my time in the class. It is middle-grade realistic fiction about a girl trying to overcome her fear of heights. You can find it here on Goodreads.

Andrea Cannon writes from the woods in East Texas where she lives with her husband and three furbabies. Click here to subscribe to her newsletter — no spam, just a monthly update about her writing adventures.