Recommended lit guides for these titles?

[kangato3]

These are the core literature selections that 9th grade dd will have to read this year. Can you recommend particular literature guides that you've used for any of these titles:

 

The Diary of Anne Frank

Great Expectations

The House on Mango Street

The Odyssey

Romeo and Juiet

Their Eyes Were Watching God

 

I'm especially looking for guides with good lit. analysis and discussion questions.

Thanks!

[Lori D.]

Diary of Anne Frank

We used the Portals to Literature guide; designed for classroom use, but can be adapted for home use; a meaty guide, with a lot of background info; short chapter summaries; lots of exercises and writing assignment ideas, and your non-typical questions, which made for some interesting discussions. (BTW, I have the guide and the book I can sell used, if interested.)

 

 

The Odyssey

Hands down, go with the Garlic Press publishers' Discovering Literature guide. Very meaty; great background info on 4 different translations and page numbers for each for quick reference; summary and great discussion questions for every chapter; lots of great writing assignment ideas; a number of helpful, and detailed teaching text units on literary elements.

[kangato3]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will PM you about the Portals to Literature guide that you have.

Louise

[JennW in SoCal]

There is always Sparknotes and Pink Monkey on-line. Google is also your friend -- google for instance "Great Expectations lesson plans" and see what you find. Not every hit is good, but there are some wonderful sites out there.

 

A good route to go would be to pick up the Well Educated Mind and use the discussion questions for all the books on your list. By doing this your kids would be learning the tools needed to do literary analysis, tools which can be applied to any work they pick up in years to come.

[Michelle in AL]

Glencoe Lit guides for Great Expectations: http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature/litlibrary/#d