Thanks for your interest in performing Shakespeare with Ryder Performing Arts! For information about our 2024 class & production of As You Like It, check out this Google Form. You don’t need to submit it until you’re ready to register for the class. Please note: SCHEDULE UPDATED OCTOBER 19, 2023.  

Here’s a montage from our first two performances.

Please reach out to me at Katrina at Katrinaryder dot com if you have any questions!

You can see our most recent production, Twelfth Night, on YouTube. 

• Once the indicated class minimums are met, you will receive an emailed invoice for payment by August 15th.
• Registration will close on July 31st. If class minimums are not met, registrants will receive an email that the class for which they have registered has been canceled. Book Club registration will take place monthly.
• If payments for the minimum number of students are not made by August 15th, the class or club will be canceled and those who have paid will be refunded.
• If second semester minimums are not met and paid by December 15th, those who have paid for the full year will be refunded the cost of the second semester.
• NO REFUNDS will be issued UNLESS a class or club is canceled. Families who withdraw from a class or club before its completion will not be refunded.

For the past two years, I’ve been directing my homeschooled students through Shakespeare performances in the Union County and South Charlotte area.

Here’s the skinny for 2023.
Ages: 13-18 homeschoolers
When: Rehearsals Fridays 12-3 PM beginning Jan 27
Where: Museum of the Waxhaw (rehearsals); Five Stones Church (performances)
Dress Rehearsals: May 17-18, 2-5 PM
Performances: May 19, 7 PM, May 20, 3 PM
The Play: Romeo & Juliet or Twelfth Night (pending numbers)
Cost: $200 or $160 each for siblings
Registration Link: HERE

Here’s a montage of our past two performances.

Our next production will be May 2023, and we’d love to have interested homeschooled teens join us.

I’ve included all the information for our 2023 production in the Google Form below. To proceed through all the sections of the form, you will need to fill them in; however, you do not need to submit the form unless you are ready to register. Additionally, you will have the option to edit your registration as well after submission. NO REGISTRATIONS WILL BE COMPLETE UNTIL PAYMENT IS RECEIVED.

Please reach out to katrina@katrinaryder.com if you have any questions!

I’m excited to be preparing FOUR classes for the Shanan Tutorials 2021-22 Schedule shown below.  Shanan is a program for homeschooled families to partner with experienced tutors for instruction in classroom settings once or twice per week. At home, parents help students and collaborate with tutors to complete instruction of course materials. All Shanan classes meet at Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church in Wesley Chapel, NC on Mondays AND/OR Wednesdays for 70 minute classes. Shanan meets for 32 weeks: 16 Fall and 16 Spring.  Here’s the full schedule of classes, updated after early registration.

For those experiencing sticker shock about the prices, check out THIS post about why Shanan is worth it.The bottom line is that our classes are LONGER and meet more frequently than most drop off classes, so you just get a lot more for your money. Compared to other drop off options, Shanan offers the best value.  I think Shanan is the perfect hybrid of a homeschool and private school experience for a fraction of the cost.

Most classes have a 5 student MINIMUM and a 16 student MAXIMUM. Classes are filling and closing or being removed from the schedule, so do not wait to apply.

As you can see, there are two English teachers at Shanan, me and Mr. Jack Gale. I have almost 10 years of classroom experience in public, private, and homeschool environments. Mr. Gale has 50+ years of classroom experience!  He was my high school English teacher in the mid 90s! He’s amazing.  Mr. Gale will teach the twice a week Honors Grammar & Composition (9th-12th). This is a great class to prepare students for Dual Enrollment at the Community College level. My class is more of an intermediate level class.

In order to be placed in MY writing courses, students must demonstrate 90% proficiency on a 4-6th grade level grammar test. My class is NOT for beginners with little to no previous writing or grammar instruction.

Essay Writing & Grammar. TWICE PER WEEK 7th-9th grade. ONLY 5 SEATS REMAINING! 

The Intro to Grammar and Composition class that I offered this year has been redesigned as a TWICE a week course in two parts. Click blue course title to see planned schedule of essays and grammar skills covered.  Most middle grade developing writers will attend both days.  Essay Writing will be covered on Mondays focusing on everyday writing, personal narrative, descriptive writing, expository writing, persuasive writing, argumentative writing, and literary analysis. Some of our essays will be paired with various readings and novels.  Grammar instruction on Wednesdays will cover 7-9th grade curriculum, covering the Get Smart Grammar program from Grammar Revolution.com and methodology from The Writing Revolution. There IS a required placement pre-test to ensure students have proficiency with 4th-6th grade grammar.

Writing for Muggles. ONCE per week. 7th-9th grade.  10 SEATS REMAINING!

Our text is Grammar for Middle School by Killgallon, but our major writing assignments will be creatively derived from reading the Harry Potter series. We will write letters from Hogwarts, Daily Prophet articles, fan fiction creating a sibling for Harry, and other pieces designed to energize writing from those who love the Harry Potter series. We will cover 7 types of writing in conjunction with each of the 7 novels.

Students need to have already read or be concurrently reading ALL 7 books in the series. There IS a required placement pre-test to ensure students have proficiency with 4th-6th grade grammar. Click blue course title to see planned schedule.

Literary Genres. M&W–9th-12th grade. ONLY 4 SEATS REMAINING!

Our spine text is IEW Windows to the World  by Lesha Meyers.  This survey  course covers a broad scope of American, British, and world literature, including poetry, novels, short stories, and plays in relatively equal portions.  This year our long works have included To Kill a Mockingbird, A Christmas Carol, Cry the Beloved Country, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Honors students also read Just Mercy, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, and Othello. (Next year’s selections may be slightly different based on what student’s have already read.). We have covered many short stories and poems. The course does involve writing literary analysis essays, but its primarily emphasis is literary analysis and discussion. All Literary Genres students will also be involved in DRAMA for no additional fee. (Students who cannot attend the performance will be assigned other tasks for the play.)**

**BRAND NEW** DRAMA ELECTIVE, “The Shananigans”. SPRING ONLY. TWICE per week for 12 weeks. Jan-March. 7th-12th grade.

After we determine enrollment numbers in the class, we will select a play to perform in the final week of March before Spring break. This is likely to be an abridged Shakespeare play similar to what we performed in 2021 with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I am leaning toward Romeo and Juliet. We will join with my Literary Genres students for this production. All participants MUST attend a minimum of 22 of 24 rehearsal times AND be available during production week. Registration is now open for The Shananigans! Only students committed to exceptional attendance need apply. 

ALL my classes will require students to use and submit assignments via Google Classroom. I spend the first week of each course teaching students how to utilize this platform. All my students MUST have their own email address that they check regularly.

I am including my course intro video from last year (2020-2021), in which I introduce myself and discuss some of the curriculum that I’ve used this year. It isn’t up to date, but it does have some helpful info and give a chance to see me.

Shanan follows ALL mask-wearing, social distancing, and COVID cleaning protocols followed by our church host, Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church. UPDATE MAY 30: The church is currently following a mask optional policy. Any changes to COVID and masking rules will be those initiated and allowed by the church. All policies are in deference to our stewardship there, which is to say that our policies DO NOT stem from tutor, parent, or student opinions.  We simply follow the policies of the church. All tutors and students have to sign agreement forms acknowledging adherence with these policies. 

Thankfully, with the exception of a few weeks, we  have been able to meet live.  When classes were virtual, they proceeded at their normal schedule on a digital platform; I use Zoom.

Follow THIS LINK to Shanan’s website to find out more info about my classes and others. SIGN UP SOON to ensure that you receive a seat.

In this video, Susan Wise Bauer of the Well-Trained Mind discusses why she likes this curriculum for teaching Creative Writing.

I am working on the syllabus for this class, which is linked here. You can already see some of our topics for discussion and the pace for our lessons.  Second semester WILL include some work with poetry, but I am waiting to finalize the details of that semester until I meet with students and gauge their feelings for poetry. We will also be working on writing creative non-fiction like blogposts and personal essays. Students can expect a minimum of 500-1000 words of writing per week.

Our Creative Writing sections will be small, which means that when weather permits, we can easily move outside and thereby remove our masks for sharing our writing. (Masks are required by our venue, Spirit of Joy, so we will be wearing them in compliance with church policy as long as they ask us to do so.)

For those who love writing, this class will be a wonderful experience.  At $400 for a 32 weeks, this class is truly a bargain. Students will not only learn to expand their creativity and facility with words, they will learn to share their writing, and engage in positive feedback with their peers.

Please reach out if you have any questions about this Creative Writing class.  My email is katrina@katrinaryder.com. I also have a FEW spots remaining in Introduction to Grammar and Composition (Wed –10:30-11:45/ $400) and Literary Genres (Mon & Wed–12:15-1:30/ $580). Registration costs to enroll at Shanan** increase after July 25th, so don’t wait.

To read about my other classes, check out this post.  

To read about why I chose Shanan Tutorials for my family, click here.

**Shanan has a standing policy that students need to have been homeschooled for one year prior to attending Shanan. This is not reactionary to the fact that there are many new homeschoolers due to CoVid; it has been a policy for many years. Shanan is primarily for 8th-12th graders, but 7th graders can be accepted with tutor approval.  There are many excellent courses still open for enrollment with Shanan

This year, I am offering three classes, Creative Writing (8th-12th grades), Intro to Grammar and Composition (8th-10th grades), and Literary Genres (8th-12th grades). Mr. Gale, the other Shanan English tutor, is teaching Honors Grammar and Composition (9th-12th grades) and British Literature (10th-12th grades). Both of us are experienced English teachers and will work with you to help select the correct class for your student. (See note at bottom re: 7th graders.)

To give registered and interested parents a chance to ask me questions about classes, I am hosting a casual  Zoom “Meet Mrs. Ryder: Virtual Q & A” session just to help undecided parents find out more information. A Zoom session will give us a chance to talk through concerns.   I’ll share any info that I have about Shanan’s operational plans. In this way, you can meet me and ask questions before plunking down any deposit money.

This video gives a bit of background on me and the curriculum, but our Zoom session will just be a casual conversation. Click HERE to get the Zoom code for our session. It will be Wednesday, July 22nd at 11 AM.

Shanan’s current schedule is here. More information about Shanan can be found at their website. For those of us prone to sticker shock (I KNOW it seems expensive), please check out my post HERE about why I chose Shanan and think it’s the best deal. If you know me, you know I am extraordinarily frugal and do not pay for things that aren’t worth it.

The benefits of quality LIVE classes with experienced educators who you can meet in advance cannot be overstated. MOREOVER, Shanan tutors are prepared and experienced with seamlessly converting classes to an online format. In the Spring, this happened with ZERO delay. I was very impressed.

Please comment or email me if you have a question even if it’s not about my class. I would LOVE to talk you into attending Shanan or help you find a good fit for your student elsewhere.

***Advanced 7th graders are sometimes allowed at Shanan if approved by the tutor. I currently have a few 7th graders registered and am happy to talk to you about whether your student is ready for my class.

Shanan is committed to LIVE on site classes as long as we are permitted. All classes will be adjusted to virtual if our venue requires it. Here are some answers to Co-Vid related questions. Understandably, we cannot guarantee which format we will be permitted to offer; however, as a homeschool parent myself, I can say that, for my own children, LIVE LOCAL classes, even when combined with virtual, are preferable to only online offerings with teachers and classmates they’ve never met. Additionally, Shanan is open to families who have already homeschooled AT LEAST one year. This means that Shanan families are those who are accustomed to the homeschool environment and not freshly joining it due to Co-Vid. I anticipate this will make a big difference in the quality of the environment.

The following video shows me describing my classes. A concise description with times, prices, and current enrollment is described below the video.

All families who have taken any course with me in the past will be given a 10% discount off of tuition. 

Location:Shanan Tutorials at Spirit of Joy Lutheran 8900 Potter Road, Weddington

32 Weeks: 15 Fall, 17 Spring

Shanan offers many courses for 8th-12th grade homeschoolers. Some advanced 7th graders are accepted to my classes and others. I’ve linked their schedule for this year for your convenience.

**Registration at Shanan is $125/student or $250/family regardless of number of classes taken. This covers building insurance and administrative costs. They offer free study halls where students can work between classes. I would like to point out that, even though Shanan courses may seem expensive when compared to some other drop-off classes or online courses, the value for each contact hour is better for Shanan than almost any other local option. I invite you to check out this post regarding that topic. My children have really enjoyed math and science there, which is why I looked into teaching there. Especially if parents are not providing supplemental instruction, please consider the fact that students SHOULD receive at least 75 minutes per week of quality instruction at minimum to really consider the class sufficient for HSC (HIGH SCHOOL CREDIT). 

Literary Genres with Honors Option – Tutor: M&W 12:15-1:30: 80 contact hours

This class is a survey of literature, covering in equal parts novels, short stories, plays, and poetry. Major cannonical authors such as Shakespeare, Dickens, Lee, Poe, Sophicles, Ibsen, Homer, Hughes, and Dickinson are just a FEW that we may cover. The course will emphasize relevant features of each genre and cover a general understanding of literary devices such as symbolism, irony, foreshadowing, poetic language, etc. Reading comprehension will be a major emphasis of this class as we analyze and discuss our readings. ​While this is primarily a literature class, students will write paragraph and essay responses to literature selections. Diversity WILL be an emphasis.

Text: Windows to the World: An Introduction to Literary Analysis by Lesha Myers (samples available at links), To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Other novels and plays will be determined second semester based on what students have already read. For what it’s worth, we WILL be discussing white saviorism within To Kill a Mockingbird.  

Annual Tuition: $580/80 Contact hours 

Recommended: 9th/10th grade 

Credit: 1 credit of English

Class Maximum: 15 (Currently 11 enrolled)

Introduction to Grammar and Composition: Wed 10:30-1:45: 40 Contact Hours 

Introduction to Grammar and Composition is a beginning grammar and essay writing course. During the Fall semester, we will emphasize grammar, sentence construction, and paragraph formation. Using the Michael Clay Thompson and Killgallon methodology, we will learn sentence analysis and combination methods. During spring semester we will introduce the five paragraph essay in three parts, learning how to format and construct a basic 5-paragraph essay. 

Text: Grammar for Middle School  and Paragraphs for Middle School by Don and Jenny Killgallon. Workbooks MUST be consumable. High school aged students should not feel belittled by “Middle School” texts. This simply means that the texts that we will imitate are more those read by middle school aged students (Rowling, Lewis, Collins) rather than upper level high school texts. (Free downloadable sample chapters from the worktexts are available at that website.)

Course Credit: 1 HSC of English

Available: 8th-10th (Students not ready for Pre-College Writing)

Annual Tuition: $400/ 40 contact hours 

Class Maximum: 15 (8 enrolled)

Creative Writing — Wednesday ONLY: 9:15-10: 30 AND 1:30-2:45  40 contact hours

This writing elective class will give interested writers encouragement and feedback for a wide for variety of writing styles, including poetry, personal essays, and stories. We will hone skills of description, dialogue, characterization, and plot development. We will share and peer edit on a regular basis, developing our skills with positive constructive criticism. Designed as an elective rather than a core language arts class, this course will have limited homework beyond developing a daily habit of creative writing for class review.

Text:We will use The Creative Writer Level 3  by Boris Fishman. Here’s a video description of the series from Susan Wise Bauer from The Well Trained Mind.

Annual Tuition: $400/ 40 Contact hours 

Recommended: 8th-12th

Credit: 1 elective credit

Class Minimums: 5 (The morning class currently has 2 students enrolled. The afternoon class has 4. If minimums are not met, I will attempt to combine the sections.)

Please email katrina@katrinaryder.com with any questions. Further information can be found at Shanan Classical Tutorials.

***For better or for worse, there is nothing explicitly “classical” about my courses. I neither eschew or embrace this philosophy wholeheartedly, nor does the curriculum that I use. I think that both students WITH and WITHOUT a classical background can thrive in my classroom.

Here’s a video that should help explain my classes.

Shanan’s current schedule is here. As you can see, there is an Early Bird discount on Shanan registration through the end of May.  More information about Shanan can be found at their website. For those of us prone to sticker shock (I KNOW it seems expensive), please check out my post HERE about why I chose Shanan. If you know me, you know I am extraordinarily frugal and do not pay for things that aren’t worth it.

The benefits of quality LIVE classes with experienced educators who you can meet in advance cannot be overstated. 

Please comment or email me if you have a question even if it’s not about my class. I would LOVE to talk you into attending Shanan or help you find a good fit for your student elsewhere.

**All families of my prior students receive 10% off discount of payment to me. That can be deducted from the total, if paying in full, or off the final payment if making 3 payments.

***Advanced 7th graders are sometimes allowed at Shanan if approved by the tutor.

Lawmakers are freaking out about how to manage the money  to pay for schools. School admins want to help teachers get paid, so they keep funneling constantly changing information about how to work from home and get paid.  Teachers certainly want to get paid, so they do their due diligence, funneling parents the constant changing information about how to engage students. Parents want to create a semblance of schedule and normalcy so they keep funneling students the constantly changing optional/mandatory/graded/ungraded/online/offline opportunities. Students want everything to feel okay again so they respond how immature people respond to constant change. Some are okay; some are not okay.

Y’all, some of us are not okay.

(If you are just fine and are trucking along with homeschool and victory gardening like a homesteading pioneer from days of yore, you can just ignore the rest of this.)

Almost 20 years ago, I received the best advice I’ve ever had in my life.  I was in an exhausted emotional state, but needed to make some big decisions. In a conversation with one of my old college professors, I laid out the options before me and bemoaned my anxious state of affairs. I was scared and overwhelmed with trying to figure out what to do.

He asked me which of my options was the easiest one to implement. There were downsides to all the options, but one clearly least taxing. He said, “Do the easiest thing.”

That was it. Do the easiest thing. You guys, this is brilliant advice. When life is hard, when emotions are raw, when fear is palpable, when shopping, and cooking, and obtaining toilet paper take longer, do the easiest thing.

What does that mean with Quarantine Homeschooling or Crisis Schooling? Well, that depends on you and what is easiest for you.  Maybe that is implementing the teachers’ lessons. Maybe that is watching museum tours. Maybe that is unenrolling them from their public school and just doing your own relaxed homeschool. Maybe the easiest thing is doing nothing at all. 

“Wait,” you say. “I can’t do the easiest thing. I can’t do nothing. That would be irresponsible, bad parenting. My child’s education would suffer and they would forget everything. I have to figure this out and manage something and control something.”

Hmmm? Do ya, now?

Attempting to control our kid’s education DOES give us something to do, but it might come at the expense of our sanity and our relationship with our kids. It’s not worth it. It’s just not.

Our kids’ ability to learn new things will not evaporate in 1, or 2, or 6 months. No one is going to judge you for not doing Co-Vid education right. (And if they do, they’ve got to go. Unfriend.) In the midst of one of the hardest things we may have to do as a culture, when it comes to schooling, do the easiest thing. I give you permission.

Most of us retain learning by diving deep into a topic and spending time with it. We don’t absorb the “scope and sequence” or the breadth of a subject over a LONG period. It’s too much. (All of World History anyone??)

I had an excellent public education and was a highly motivated student, but I can’t tell you much about the day to day learning I had. I remember a big senior project on the jury system. I created my own guidebook to all the kinds of trees in my town in 8th grade. I still remember my water cycle science fair project from elementary school. I can still recite the prologue to the Canterbury Tales that I had to memorize. Places where my teachers enabled us to linger and go deep are the things that I retained and enjoyed. (Sorry math, I only liked how you helped me in Physics, so that’s all I’ve got.)

While traditional classroom education must, out of necessity, have breadth of scope and sequence to accommodate many different students, homeschool gives us the luxury to truly individualize learning.  Now is a chance to DEEPLY explore what our students care about and will retain in the long run. Thank goodness, there is no test. This is now a QUALITY over QUANTITY learning experience. HOORAY!

• Find what your students are interested in and GO DEEP into that.
• Don’t worry about what you aren’t covering. Nope. Stop. I said don’t worry. DO. NOT. WORRY. Covering everything isn’t a thing. There is no scenario for “covering everything” or even coming close to it. Just throw that one RIGHT away.
• Try to include as many disciplines as you can into your one topic, but see above. DO NOT WORRY. (At least for this week.)
• Focus on these three stages of learning during the week.
  • Explore–Read, research, watch. (Surface absorption.)
  • Digest–Interact with the topic. Basically retell, write, cook, collect, draw, list, practice, sing, dance, experience. (Deeper dive)
  • Produce–Recreate their learning in some kind of project, presentation, paper, test or retelling. (Demonstrate retention of knowledge in a way they will enjoy.)

This approach (called “Unit Study” in the homeschool world) is awesome for people with various age groups in the same home.

I’ll give you one example.

My daughter studied the Middle East. There are ENDLESS avenues of geography, history, religion, culture, mathematics, geology, science, literature, etc that we could have approached. We did a TINY few of those, but she picked ONE area in which to dive deep into and created a project on Middle Eastern Women’s fashion. She may not remember much of anything else about the Middle East, but her deep dive into this project will likely stick with her in understanding some of history, culture, and religion of this region.

I hope these tips are helpful. Please feel free to share with friends and ask any questions that you might have. I’ll try to post a new small tip every few days or so.