Hello, I am confused. On [my daughter's] "overview of courses" in her Academic Packet it says she is registered for CM1-B and CM2-B. Then, under the "course and book notes," under "required texts," it lists the US studies study guide. [I originally placed an order for the US studies guides and the European B guides, but you cancelled and refunded the US guides before my guide order went to the printer for production and shipping.] Is she simply not taking those classes (CM1-B and CM2-B) this year after all? If not, then what is her English for this year? If she is, why doesn't she need the study guides as they seem to be required? Thank you for the clarification.


Your daughter is still taking CM1-B and CM2-B this year. When we recommended ordering only the European B guides and not the U.S. Studies guides, we were not removing her writing plan from the school year; we were just recommending the versions of the guides that she needs.  There are several versions of the study guide sets to make it easier to personalize the plans for individual students.  They are designed with "this size fits many" instead of "one size fits all" in mind, so sometimes we have to sift through the options to find the best fit.


It might be easier to visualize this if you refer to the course list on the study guide pages. Here are the two guides that are on the way to you:

  1. European Studies IB Study Guide • Semester 1 • 2025-26 Edition • Version 1 (Composition IB; Church History IIB; European History IB; American Literature)
  2. European Studies IIB Study Guide • Semester 2 • 2025-26 Edition • Version 2 (Composition IIB; European History IIB)


All the course plans your daughter needs for the plan your advisor put in her Academic Packet are in those two guides. Among them you will find the Composition I and Composition II (CM1-B, CM2-B) courses. Those two courses are typically part of the U.S. Studies track, but they are also used frequently when students study European History IB and IIB (EH1-B, EH2-B), so they are included in the European Studies B Track guides as well. The same is true of American Literature (AL1-B).


The guides are much easier to explore when they are in your hands in the preferred printed and spiral-bound form, but we do have online copies of the guides for each course on the STAA Student Zone. Parents and students can view the online copies at any time throughout the school year. Sign in to the site and click on the "STAA Study Guides" link on the Main Menu (the vertical menu on the right side of the site). The courses that are associated with each high school cycle are on each page of this "STAA Study Guides" resource. If you visit the European Studies, B Track page and the U.S. Studies, B Track page, you will see they share some courses. CM1-B, CM2-B, and AL1-B are among the shared courses.


You might like to flip through CM1-B or CM2-B now to see how those guides consistently specify that students work out of the student text they have: U.S. History-based Writing Lessons or Medieval History-based Writing Lessons. In your daughter's case, she will work out of the Medieval History-based Writing Lessons student text, which aligns with her European history studies.