Pros and Cons of Progeny Press Guides Please...

[RebeccaC]

for those of you who have used or really looked at PP guides could I get some feed back? I would like it for any of their guides but especially for;

 

• The Yearling
  
• Tom Sawyer
  
• The Giver
  
• The Hobbit
  
• Old Man and the Sea
  
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
  

 

I am looking at what books I have on my shelves and building some lit study from there.

 

TIA

[Claire in NM]

Pros:

1. I like the application of Scripture.

2. I like the vocabulary and questions and think about the story assignments. Very much age appropriate.

3. I like the pre-reading and post-reading activities.

 

Cons:

1. Depending on the book, sometimes the same question for Scripture application can appear in several of the books. My ds will see another question that appears in several of the guides.

2. Sometimes I wonder if I am missing something: parts of a story (plot, climax, etc.), type of literature (fantasy, historical fiction), etc.

 

We've completed Tom Sawyer and we are in the middle of The Giver. The Tom Sawyer guide was okay, however I wasn't sure if my ds was ready for it. He didn't get Tom Sawyer, and this is probably because he wasn't understanding the culture and the slang. However, my ds is really enjoying The Giver. The story is thought provoking and the guide follows it quite nicely without detracting from the story. And there are some really interesting questions addressing Utopian societies.

 

Claire in NM

[Kelly on the prairie]

I'm so glad you posted. I, too, am wondering if PP is a good stand alone with books I already have. I am wondering if a child will learn what they need to know about literary terms/analysis using these guides.

 

Are you considering using these in place of a literature course like Hewitt?

[Michelle in GA]

is the 8-10 weeks it takes to complete a single guide. I think my kids would go nuts having to delve that deeply into a single book!

[Laura K (NC)]

The good thing about the guides is that it did allow my sons to pick a book apart in a way we hadn't been doing, and I think that's a good intellectual exercise.

 

The bad thing is that it really disrupted our homeschool flow. The study guides were almost like a unit study. Draw maps, research history, write essays... the study guide, had we done it completely, would have taken an awfully long time. I learned with my oldest that I really had to rewrite the study guide for our own purposes. While the study questions were helpful and valuable, the time I need to adapt the program could have been spent reading the book myself and writing my own comprehension questions.

 

Most of the books done by Progeny Press were really junior high-level books, and we found that very few of them were suitable for our agenda during high school. The ones I used (Bronze Bow, for example) were used for Jr. high. I think junior high is a better time for unit study in our family because then we have a little more leeway with our schedule.

[Denise in NE]

I think you can use these guides exclusively, but I would plan to do some preparation work first. Both of my girls have worked through and are in the process of working through Lightning Literature 7 and 8. IEW just released a new course this spring which I like better - so much better that I will have both of my girls work through it next year. It is called Windows to the World: An Introduction to Literary Analysis by Lesha Myers. It is designed as a one-semester course that covers the whole enchilada!

 

BTW I have several of the middle school and high school PP guides, and have never used them "as is". Each guide has its strong points. I have always used the "pick and choose" option when making assignments. IMO doing the whole guide for every book you read would be overkill.

 

Denise in NE

[sweetbaby]

Pros:

1. I like the application of Scripture.

2. I like the vocabulary and questions and think about the story assignments. Very much age appropriate.

3. I like the pre-reading and post-reading activities.

 

Cons:

1. Depending on the book, sometimes the same question for Scripture application can appear in several of the books. My ds will see another question that appears in several of the guides.

2. Sometimes I wonder if I am missing something: parts of a story (plot, climax, etc.), type of literature (fantasy, historical fiction), etc.

 

 

:iagree: We will do the Hobbit later this year also. We have been using them this year and my son loves them so we will continue. It's hard to find literature that he actually likes to read so we will stick with these. They do have literary terms and vocabulary along with the comprehension questions. There are also Dig Deeper sections that asks a comparison to scripture type question from the story. There are also writing projects at the end of some of the sections. The chapters are broken down to sections in the guide that are filled with what I mentioned previously. For highschool, one guide per semester is suggested therefore the student will do four guides in a year = a credit of literature. The guides are broken down to British, American, Christian and World Literature on the site so that you can choose and credit your child accordingly. HTH