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Please tell me what to do for 5th grade literature.


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I am so at a loss. Researching. Looking at samples. Researching more. I even went to the homeschool bookstore in Michigan while here visiting family and looked at different curriculum in person. I don't know what to do. After learning to read we don't do a "reading curriculum" for a while. Dd is ready for more now though. What do I mean by more? I don't know. She is ready for deeper understanding of what she reads. Does that make sense? I had decided to do lit guides with books but I can't find any good non fluff guides. She will be doing ancients and biology. I want her lit to correlate with that and a good list of classics but more than just reading them. (have I said that yet? :lol:) I just don't know what I want. I want something like Excellene in Lit for logic stage kids that follows history and science schedules plus good books.

 

 

So, what do I want for dd? She tested at a lexile reading level of 969 2 months ago. Looking at this chart that is anywhere from 5th grade though high school (how do you make sense of these charts with such a big range?)

 

So. Tell me what to use :D

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Here is my ds's 5th grade reading list. I like to give him some choice, so he did not read all of these. I read a lot of the ones that he read and then we discussed them. These discussions included literary elements like flashbacks or allusions, comparison between books, and societal context. My favourite discussion was about Henty's Victorian overlay on top of Egyptian history in the Cat of the Bubasties.

HTH

 

Ruth in NZ

 

Ancients, Grade 5

 

Egypt

Tales of Ancient Egypt, Green

Golden Goblet

Mara, Daughter of the Nile

Cat of Bubastes, Henty

Pyramid, McCaulay

India

Tales from India, Gray or Green?

Myths and Legends Horowitz

Greece

Black Ships Before Troy, Sutcliff

The Wanderings of Odysseus, Sutcliff

Story of the Greeks (history, online)

Tales of Greek Heroes, Green

Heroes of Greece and Troy, Green, 1st ½ same as above, 2nd ½ on Troy)

 

Rome

Lantern Bearers series, Sutcliff

Eagle of the Ninth

The silver Branch

Frontier Wolf

Outcast

For the Temple, Henty

Young Carthaginian, Henty

Age of Fable

Story of the Romans

The last Days of Socrates, Plato

Aenid for children

Aesop's Fables

City, MacCaulay

 

Myans

Well of Sacrifice

Secrets of the Stone

Lady of Palenque (modern from diary series)

Heart of Jaguar (modern, violent 1200's)

 

Britian

Warrior Scarlet , Sutcliff

Beric the Briton, Henty

China

Lady of Ch'lao Kuo (modern from diary series)

The left-handed Spirit

Science and Religion

Encyclopedia of ideas that changed the world

August Caesar's world

Archimedes and the Door of Science

Edited by lewelma
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First list is for my ds to read (he will not read all of these. He likes choice). Second list is for my dh to read to both boys (ages 11 and 8 at the time).

 

History: Middle Ages and Early Renaissance (ds to read for 6th grade literature and history)

400-1000 Early Middle ages: Knights and Castles, Feudalism, Vikings

Beowulf the Warrior , Sutcliff ,

The story of Rolf and the Viking Bow French ,

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ,Tolkien

Conn Yankee in King Arthur's Court ,

The Once and Future King, White, (trilogy)

Tales from Arabian Nights Lang,

 

1000-1400 High Middle ages: Crusades, Holy Roman Empire Byzantium, Plague

Ivanho

Crispin: Cross of Lead, Avi

Catherine Called Birdy, Cushman

Mary, bloody Mary Meyer

Sir Nigel, Doyle

The White Company, Doyle

Canturbury Tales, Original, just a few stories,

Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, (trilogy)

 

Eastern China, India, Japan, Africa (Mali), Khmer Empire

A Single Shard, Park

Lady of Ch'lao Kuo diary series

 

South America Incas, Aztecs, Conquistadors

Lady of Palenque diary series

The Left-handed Spirit

The captive O'Dell

 

Early Rennaissance Apr, May, June

Joan of Arc, Twain,

Black Arrow, Stephenson

Trumpeter of Krakow

Dante's divine comedy Chwast (graphic novel),

 

Optional by Sutcliff

Outcast- Britain under roman rule, focus on celts and picts

Sutcliff has a series on Arthur

Mark of the horse lord – brtian under roman rul, N tribes

Shining Company – britain, fuedal chiefs, saxons

Blood Fued , Sutcliff , britain, constantinople

Sword Song – vikings

 

 

Read alouds

 

400-1000 Early Middle ages: Knights and Castles, Feudalism, Vikings

British, White Stag (Attila the Hun)

Vikings, Beowolf

Castles, feudalism,Castle, City Macaulay

King Arthur and His Knights, Pyle

Arabian, Islam, One Thousand and One Nights, McCaughrean

 

1000-1400 High Middle ages: Crusades, Holy Roman Empire Byzentine empire, Plague

High middle ages

Adventures of Robin Hood, Pyle

Midwife's apprentice

Adam of the Road, Gray

Shadow of a bull – Bull fighting

Canturburly tales McCaughrean

 

Eastern China, India, Japan, Africa, Khmer Empire

Samurai's Tale, Haugaard

 

South America Incas, Aztecs, Conquistadors

Secret of the Andes

Around the World's Rim

 

Early Rennaissance

Shakespeare Macbeth, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream;

Taming of the Shrew; Much Ado About

Master Cronhhill – Plague in 1654, London fire

 

Eyewitness: Vikings, Knights, Midevial Life, Castle, Arms and Armor,

Edited by lewelma
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Here is next year's list for Early Modern in 7th grade

 

Early modern: Europe

Three Muskateers, Dumas

Twenty Years After, Dumas

Man in the Iron Mask, Dumas

Rob Roy, Scott

Mutiny on the Bounty, Nordhoff

Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas

The Scarlett Pimpernel, Orczy

Tale of Two Cities, Dickens

Coral Island, Ballantyne

 

Early modern: America

The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne

Autobiography of Ben Franklin

Autobiography of Fredrick Douglas

Red Badge of Courage, Crane

Gone with the Wind, Mitchell

Huck Fin, Twain

Pudd'nhead Wilson, Twain

Innocents Abroad, Twain

 

Late Modern

Travels with Charley, Steinbeck

Gift of the Magi (and others), O Henry

To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee

 

Distopian

Iron Heel, London, 1908

Anthem by Ayn Rand, 1937

Walden 2, Skinner, 1948

Farenheit 451, Bradbury, 1953

Chrysalids, Windham, 1955

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? PK Dick, 1968

Running Man, Bachman (King), 1982

House of Scorpian, N Farmer, 2002

Uglies, Westerfield, 2005

Hunger Games, Collins, 2011

 

Classic Sci Fi

Invisible Man, Wells

Mysterious Island, Verne

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein

Lost World, Doyle

The Star Diaries, Lem

A Perfect Vacuum, Lem

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Have you checked out Moving Beyond The Page? The lit guides include doing projects and research on character setting. For example, The Giver has them looking for allegory and metaphors as well as creating things like posters of the 12 stages/years. My Side Of The Mountain has them doing research into the mountain range, animal relationships, and learning different styles of questions. You can buy individual guides to correspond to what you're studying rather than staying with the suggested grade level and buying an entire package.

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Have you checked out Moving Beyond The Page? The lit guides include doing projects and research on character setting. For example, The Giver has them looking for allegory and metaphors as well as creating things like posters of the 12 stages/years. My Side Of The Mountain has them doing research into the mountain range, animal relationships, and learning different styles of questions. You can buy individual guides to correspond to what you're studying rather than staying with the suggested grade level and buying an entire package.

 

 

 

So I am looking at their website and I have a question. Is the reading lumped in with the Language Arts? Would that be what I bought? Is there somewhere I am missing that specifically talks about the reading alone?

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So I am looking at their website and I have a question. Is the reading lumped in with the Language Arts? Would that be what I bought? Is there somewhere I am missing that specifically talks about the reading alone?

 

Right, it's lumped into Language Arts. Each of the guides cover one book with questions, projects, and light language arts tied in. Rainbow Resource sells them independently, too, and you get a sample for each guide.

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I am going to go w/CHOLL for next year. After rereading logic reading, I have decided that will be enough. WTM only has you asking some questions and discussing more in depth in logic and gives a few lit. guide suggestions if you need them.

 

CHOLL will give me the schedule of books for dd to read and my library carries most of them. It will give her assignments and vocab and lead us in discussion. I am hoping it will be a good year.

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I'm in the same boat as you, OP, except I'm wondering what to do for my to-be 6th grader. This year (5th gr.) was hit-and-miss for literature. I would love a set of guides, meaty in real literary study - no fluff, all put together into a year-long curriculum that is part of an organized, multi-grade, well-planned scope & sequence. That way the progression of skills and the review would have some rhyme & reason, rather than just running through random guides and completely missing some things while overlapping others. I don't think that's too much to ask, is it? ;) If you know the name of such a thing, please do tell.

 

I can't wait to get through TWEM. I need more confidence & knowledge for both teaching literature and discernment in choosing literature curricula.

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I'm in the same boat as you, OP, except I'm wondering what to do for my to-be 6th grader. This year (5th gr.) was hit-and-miss for literature. I would love a set of guides, meaty in real literary study - no fluff, all put together into a year-long curriculum that is part of an organized, multi-grade, well-planned scope & sequence. That way the progression of skills and the review would have some rhyme & reason, rather than just running through random guides and completely missing some things while overlapping others. I don't think that's too much to ask, is it? ;) If you know the name of such a thing, please do tell.

 

Well, if you want a basic scope and sequence to make sure you aren't missing anything fundamental, you could try looking for that, and seeing what state guidelines have to say, whether yours or others.

 

Here, for instance, is the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools' (North Carolina) idea of what should be taught in each grade, K through 5th; it's followed up by 6th through 8th. (Links are to the Google Quick View versions of the PDF files.) This is honestly the first thing Google pops up on a search for "English language arts scope and sequence" (although my first search term was "scope and sequence literary terms"), and it seems pretty comprehensible and comprehensive. If you used this, you wouldn't have to worry about having missed something vital for your children's knowledge in elementary or junior high.

 

The first few pages of each list linked above, after the one-page introduction, are the "READING" section, which is what you are most interested in, right? (I'm just ignoring the "WRITING," etc., sections.) In this, the "THEMES" section is one I would be most tempted to ignore, since that's the most "classroomy" thing there. You could look through the entire list of themes to get an idea what to talk about for your current book, though. The "GENRE" and particularly the "LITERARY TERMS" sections are much more useful, while the "READING PROCESS" section is kind of vaguely interesting but not terribly helpful.

 

But since the "LITERARY TERMS" section is the one that I think most people are discussing here, let's talk about it. You could use it to evaluate any more "piecemeal" program, such as individual guides for your books. Do they cover everything listed?

 

You could also use it to create your own LA program, or at least customize one that you already have. What should your student know cold by the end of the year? In this particular scope and sequence, these are the "Define and identify" items, which they should have been working on for several years already. Make sure you hit this for every book possible, and move toward not needing to ask leading questions. For fifth grade (the subject of this post, right?) these would be:

 

Characters

Setting

Plot

Sequence of events

Conflict

Resolution

Main Idea/Details

 

Note that this is somewhat genre-specific: while "who" (characters) and "where" (setting), fits practically any genre, whether "what" is "main idea/details" or "plot/sequence of events" (which includes "conflict" and "resolution") depends upon whether it's a news article or a novel.

 

Anyhow, the next bit of the "LiTERARY TERMS" section--"Continue to develop" is stuff that your child would have been exposed to already, if you'd used this scope and sequence in previous years, but that are still "works in progress." This is a pretty lengthy list, for the fifth grade, but you can see how it's even more genre-specific:

 

Point of View

Fact and opinion

Cause & Effect

Italicized Words

Rhyme

Rhythm

Repetition

Figurative Language:

Simile

Metaphor

Imagery

Author’s choice of words

Stanza

Verse

Dialogue

Personification

Exaggeration

 

I'd like to point out that a good half of the list is either poetry-specific or very, very easy to teach with poetry. Rhyme, rhythm, repetition, simile, metaphor, imagery, stanza, verse, personification: I'd definitely use poetry (which is all ABOUT an author's choice of words) for many of these. Some people like to do a poetry unit; some like to do "tea and poetry for Tuesday"; some (like me, so far, since I use Sonlight) like to read poetry a few times a week.

 

So, talk about poems you like, and why you like them. Are there a lot of "crunchy," "whistly," etc. sounds, (which is one kind of repetition)? For "author's choice of words," how would the sound of the poem change if you substituted a synonym or two? (I still remember an exercise from my high school AP class that did just that to an Ogden Nash poem. I also still remember the Ogden Nash poem.) Can your child look at poetry and try to determine its rhyme scheme? Try to introduce each of the above terms (the ones your child doesn't already know) in depth with a poem, and then every time you read a new poem for the week (or whatever), see if your kid(s) can spot the already-learned literary devices used.

 

It's not like it'd be impossible to cover point of view, dialogue, and exaggeration with poetry, either, though it'd probably be more simple to do so with novels. Italicized words should actually be covered in grammar, in my opinion, although you can certainly talk about why things are italicized when you come across them in literature; cause and effect should probably be introduced in logic (or maybe science), and discussed in history and science, but you could talk about what motivates people to act in a particular way in a story, or why the heavy flooding in the story causes certain kinds of problems, etc., I guess. Separating fact and opinion (as opposed to fact and fiction), again, is something that is probably more suited to nonfiction, much like the "main idea/details" above.

 

And then the last category in the scope and sequence, "Become aware of," has concepts you're supposed to introduce this year. For fifth grade, these are:

 

Idioms

Onomatopoeia

 

I leave introducing these as an exercise to the reader. :p

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Wow, thanks for taking the time to type out such a detailed response, Morosophe! Hopefully it's as helpful to the OP, wy_kid_wrangler.

 

I still wish there were somthing that didn't assume I know what all these things are and where to find excellent examples of them in literature without spending hours online and at the library. IOW, something that teaches literature with student & teacher books (that reference real, whole books for the selections) like Saxon or Abeka or even Singapore teaches math. It would tell me *how* to teach it. I'm starting to think this thing doesn't exist.

 

That's not to say your idea isn't pretty darn awesome, Morosophe, because it is. It will just take me a bit more prep time than I had hoped, if I pull it all together myself.

 

OK, I have a bad habit of doing this and need to just make new threads for my own questions. Sorry for the hijack, OP. I hope you found my rabbit trail at least somewhat helpful.

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