Boomerang 2026-2027

Essay training made simple

Finally, a program written for teens, to teens!

Delivered in our private, easy-to-use online classroom space!

Help for High School: Year One is a self-directed academic writing program.

This year-long program teaches rhetorical thinking and the essay formats most commonly assigned in high school and college.

Included in this program:

• Nine month-long modules of writing instruction
• Exercises that build critical thinking and argumentative writing skills
• Semester projects featuring two key essay formats
  • Narrative Essay 
  • Informative Essay
• Instruction in examining multiple perspectives and conducting research
• Lessons on how to incorporate various rhetorical techniques
• Samples and models for feedback are included

Modules are released once a month, beginning with Module One, available on August 15, 2026. 

Help for High School: Year One teaches teens how to think, argue, and create their own powerful writing style at the same time.

Your teen will build the following skills:

• developing a command of language
• adapting writing for particular audiences
• utilizing persuasive techniques in arguments
• creating a supported argument
• fostering a rhetorical imagination
• comparing and contrasting viewpoints
• discovering the role of narrative writing in academic formats
  
• conducting research using credible sources
  
• understanding viewpoint, bias, perspective, and facts
• creating in-line citations and works cited
• editing and revising for clarity and impact

This program is great for kids who are no longer struggling with writing. If your student has not written a report or finds it difficult to freewrite, start with the Building Confidence program. Learning those skills first will make Help for High School a much more successful experience.

Available in our custom-designed classroom. Students access each module in our online classroom where they move through the material at their own pace, independently. They can post writing in the classroom and comment on the posts of other students working through the program alongside them. 

Watch a quick walk-through of the Help for High School classroom space and how it works here.

There is no live instructor associated with the Help for High School classroom. Your teens move at their own pace and set deadlines that work for them!

Note: Help for High School: Year One is one part of the High School Writers Bundle. 

Here's an overview of what we will address in each month of this course.

You'll see nine months of material summarized below, but remember that this self-paced class is designed to be flexible. You can follow our suggested schedule or slow things down and/or reschedule tasks to fit your situation.

Module One: Writing Voice

To begin, you'll work on finding and molding your writing voice to serve varied writing situations and audiences.

Module Two: Find the Angles

Uncover the ways your identity and worldview impact how you perceive and interact with the world and how the perspective of others can influence what you read and write.

Module Three: Vivid Detail

Zoom in on particular experiences, memories, and scenes to engage and orient the reader using vivid detail and in-the-moment descriptions. 

Module Four:  Narrative Writing—Semester Project

You'll apply the skills practiced in earlier Modules to analyze narrative writing techniques and then draft, revise, and edit an original work. 

Module Five: Curious Research

Follow the spark of your curiosity as you research a complex topic. You'll use the strategies employed by professional fact-checkers as you widen the net to find credible sources and multiple perspectives on your topic.

Module Six: Level up Language

Utilize precise language, domain-specific vocabulary, and rhetorical devices to engage readers and make ideas memorable. You'll practice these skills in argumentative writing.

Module Seven: Surprise!

You'll dive into the most overlooked yet most powerful literary device: the element of surprise in writing. You'll discover the impact of surprise as a way to engage a reader and subvert expectations. 

Module Eight: Hooks and Clinchers

Effectively introduce a topic to compel a reader to read more, and examine the role of the conclusion as a call to action, solution to a problem, or statement of relevance of the topic. 

Module Nine: Informative Writing—Semester Project

You'll apply the skills practiced in earlier Modules to analyze informational writing techniques and then draft, revise, and edit an original work. 

Help for High School: Year One contains some material from the former Help for High School manual, but has been revised and expanded into a year-long program with new content. 

Bring Literature to Life with Literary Devices 

If your kids have ever

• pictured a vivid world while reading . . .
• felt a poem hum like music . . .
• watched a character change and grow . . .

. . . they’ve already experienced literary devices in action—whether they knew it or not! 

The A–Z Guide to Literary Devices helps your family make sense of those sparks of literary magic. 

What’s Inside the A–Z Guide?

This guide is both comprehensive and kid-friendly—an engaging companion to our literature guides! 

You’ll find:

• Easy-to-understand definitions for common (and some uncommon) literary devices

• Passage examples from beloved books (many of them from our Literature Singles)

• Try It! prompts to help your kids use each device in tiny writing bursts

Use it as a reference on the fly—or settle in and explore one device at a time. There’s no right way to use it.

A Guide You’ll Use for Years

Some literary devices will tickle your youngest readers.
Others won’t fully land until the teen years, when deeper thinking blooms.

This guide grows with your family.

Why Learn Literary Devices?

Literary devices are the tools writers use to make language come alive. 

When kids learn to spot these devices in action:

• Reading becomes richer.
  They will have "Aha!" moments when they notice the "Easter-eggs" authors hide in plain sight.

• Writing becomes more expressive.
  They gain strategies and confidence to build characters, shape scenes, and develop their voice.

• Conversations get deeper and more engaging.
  They will become insiders and enter the “Great Conversation” about literature.

Track Your Literary Discoveries with the My Literary Life Log

Included inside is a delightful tool: My Literary Life Log—a place for each family member to collect their own “Aha!” moments. 

Use it to track: 

• Quotes you love that feature a device

• Book titles where you spotted a device

• Surprise discoveries—like foreshadowing you totally missed the first time

• Favorite examples you want to return to again and again

It’s part reading journal, part keepsake—a record of your child’s growing literary life.

Print a copy for everyone in the house (grown-ups too!).

See the sample pages below, and come along on this A-Z literary adventure! 

High school requirements don’t have to box you in. You can embrace a unique homeschool education and create a transcript colleges will want to see!

Join us for a three-way conversation between veteran homeschoolers whose students have made it to college!     

Here’s what live attendees have said about this tutorial:

I found the webinar to be so helpful. It was exactly what I needed! I have attended a few different transcript/high school planning webinars outside of Brave Writer, and they have all just increased my anxiety. This was the first webinar on this topic that really fit my kid and gave me creative ways to think about navigating high school with my neurodiverse, twice-exceptional teen. - Meredith A

"I agree with what others have said about leaving this seminar with so much hope and inspiration for the future." - April Dawn

With this purchase, you’ll get: 

Webinar: Creating High School Transcripts

A conversation between Julie Bogart, Dawn Smith, and Heather Hitchcock.

Eighty minutes of hope and inspiration for the high school years!

• A variety of approaches to high school
  
• Creating a transcript, even from delight-directed learning
  
• Applying to college, including Ivy League universities

PDF Download: Transcripts 101

All the information you need to create transcripts: recordkeeping, credits, course descriptions, grades, and transcript templates.

Purchase the webinar replay for only $15.00

Upon purchase, you’ll have direct access to the webinar and PDF in your Brave Writer account.