THIS IS A TWO-SEMESTER COURSE.

Join author Michael Clay Thompson in MCT1, the Island Level of the MCT language arts curriculum, as he introduces students to grammar, vocabulary, writing, poetics, and literature. In Sentence Island, the writing book for this level, students will be taken to a new world where they will meet the beloved Mud the Fish and a host of other creative characters. They will learn grammar in Grammar Island, as well as the building blocks of our vocabulary in Building Language and the fundamentals of poetics in The Music of the Hemispheres. During the second semester, students will read Michael’s Mud Trilogy of novels.

Students in this course will get a strong foundation in the language arts that is thorough and sophisticated and yet simple and comprehensible. Michael will provide plenty of practice, weekly online classes, and perhaps even a surprise or two! It is an experience that students will remember for years to come.

Class Meetings:* Mondays at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Fall Semester: August 18 – December 15, 2025
Spring Semester: January 12 – May 11, 2026

*NEW INTERNATIONAL SCHEDULE – Mondays at 8:00 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time: This time slot is primarily for students who live in time zones outside of the United States so that they, too, have the opportunity to learn from Michael himself. Students who take this course MUST be proficient in English. This is NOT an ESL (English as a Second Language) course. Because Michael teaches language arts at the highest academic levels, students should already be comfortable speaking and writing in English in order to participate in this course.

There will not be a class meeting every week. The core of the course is the assignments and the extensive feedback given by Michael.

Student Expectations: Students must be able to do assignments using a keyboard (no handwritten assignments). Students are expected to attend the live class meetings with their cameras turned on. Students who do not wish to turn on their cameras will need to take the audit-only version of this course instead. Students who attend class regularly but who miss a live class meeting will be able to access a recording of the class.

Student Support: Michael is available via email.

Feedback/Assessment: Michael may reply to students’ answers with comments or questions, and he will want them to answer those emails.

Materials: Students will need the Level 1 texts: Grammar Island, Practice Island, Building Language, Sentence Island, and The Music of the Hemispheres, as well as the Mud Trilogy novels: The Rescue at Fragment Crag, The Red Tide, and The Green-Face Virus.

PURCHASE THESE BOOKS AS A PACKAGE HERE.