Second guessing and making myself nuts. LLATL for high school?

[Lizzie in Ma]

I bought it for 1st grade years ago and thought it below grade level for my dd at the time.

BUT the scope and sequence looks excellent for high school. Would love opinions on the writing portion please?

[Lizzie in Ma]

I would just like more information.

[MIch elle]

LLATL Golds are bare bones literature and writing. I hated the layout of LLATL yellow and both golds. I suggest buying used copies and seeing for yourself (that's what I did).

 

You can get better literature guides/questions online for free (just takes a bit of work). IEW The Elegant Essay is an excellent choice for essay writing instruction. The Grammar of Poetry is also excellent.

 

Here is a wonderful resource that I have in my home library that may help you ( How to read fiction page 143 & Reading poetry page 272 & more : http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24857/24857-8.txt You could read it yourself & assign pages for your dc to read. (Copy the needed resources from the other free online volumes of this book).

Edited August 1, 2009 by MIch elle

[amtmcm]

I like the LLATL Gold Literature and Poetry. I think there's only 4 writing assignments (it's in the other room) so it is way too light in writing.

 

Like I wrote in my previous post, I'm doing the same thing Jean said - I'm using it as a supplement to other LA programs. You can't beat the price considering how much literature it covers. The literature selections are all very solid with open & go guidance for socratic style discussion.

[Tammyla]

I'm looking at the Gold British Literature for next year as a break from ABeka.

[Big Buckin' Longhorn]

I've used the American Literature book and actually really enjoyed it.

 

My son is more a math/science type and we have struggled with literature since the beginning of time. :tongue_smilie: This was very easy to implement, the book is basically planned out for you - Hurray for me :D - and everything is separated into bite sized chunks.

 

I found it an excellent way to actually get my reluctant reader to actively participate in real literary analysis and the thoughtful questions really led to some great discussions. It does have some light Christian content which was very easy to just skip over, but if that doesn't bother you, then just FYI it is in there. I found it to be a real solid jumping off point.

 

I actually love to read and enjoy great literature and I still enjoyed the manner in which it was presented. I like having all the planning done for me and it took a lot of stress off me. I usually can find plenty of other things to stress about, so one less thing is great.

 

I did think the amount of reading was a tad bit light, even for my reluctant reader, so I just pulled a few books off the Sonlight Core 100 (American History In-Depth) reading list and we read through them together, but didn't really do any detailed analysis on them. It really turned out to be a great year and for once I didn't feel like I'd totally failed (LOL, I realize this is totally my own issue, but still, perhaps you can relate).

 

We added more novels in and did less of the poetry. It seemed like a LOT of poetry to us. The writing instruction is sort of bare bones. In fact I'd call them writing assignments rather than writing instruction. If you don't have a good writer already, you're going to want to do something else for writing, for sure.

 

If you are used to reading lots and lots of great literature already, you may feel this is too light, although it is so clearly laid out and detailed, I think it could very easily be beefed up or thinned out, whatever your preference may be.

 

I'm tittering back and forth between doing the British literature this year and going out on our own and doing a sci-fi / fantasy reading list this year.

 

Boys! Oy!

[Peela]

Dd15 is loving Gold American Lit.. Well, as much as she can love any curriculum. It is sufficient for us, but she does plenty of writing in other areas, as well as other reading.

It's open and go, easy for us to use. I didnt want to muck around using Lit guides for various books I chose myself. I knew it wouldn't happen. This way, its getting done.

[Janet in WA]

We used LLATL Gold with our youngest son. We liked it, and found it easy to use. However, it did not come even close to providing the amount of exposure to good literature I wanted for my sons. So, though we used LLATL, they also were required to work through a more extensive reading list. We discussed their reading on this list, but that was about as formal as that got.

[Jean in Wisc]

I wrote this in an earlier thread:

 

 

 

"I use parts of the LLATL Gold books each year in high school. Their poetry is more challenging than other programs--some of it we just do together orally because we struggle with the older poems and their meanings. But they are all authors that are well-known and I think it is worthwhile to dip into their poetry and see what they are like. I use the short story unit to study literary terms--and again, the authors are well-known and classic.

 

 

 

I usually do a section from these books each year in high school. I do not do the whole book--we move on to other materials for the rest of the year. I grumble about these books when I use them, and every year I go out and look for something that does the job better. I've asked on these boards and I've gone out and purchased other materials...but I've not found anything that substitutes for these and does a better job."

 

 

Do a search on these boards for LLATL and you will find some discussion on them.

 

Jean