Windows to the World: how much religious content?

[g1234]

I posted this question to the middle school board, but realized that there are probably more people who have experience with WttW on this board.

 

I have been researching Windows to the World on this forum and have read a lot of very positive reviews, which caused me to look into the samples on the web page. I, too, am really intrigued, after crossing curriculum after curriculum off my list of possibilities for next year.

 

I notice the web site says it "contains distinctly Christian content." Can anyone who has used it tell me how strong that content is? Does it suffuse the entire curriculum to the point where a family who is not Christian might feel frustrated using it? Do most or all of the literary works deal with Christian themes/material/characters? Or is the religious aspect of it more subtle and less frequent? I am not concerned at all with my children reading some Christian-oriented content, and of course Christianity has inspired a tremendous amount of the great art and literature of the world, which I want them to know. But if the curriculum were through-and-through steeped in a religious perspective, it might not be the best match for us.

 

I was hoping someone out there could tell me just how much "distinctly Christian content" there is, so we would know what to expect in this curriculum that I generally like the look of very much.

[bugs]

I am a Christian so you may take this as you will. I did not find this curriculum to contain "heavy Christian" material, such as BJU curriculum. Some of the short stories are The Most Dangerous Game, The Gift of the Magi, Jury of Her Peers and The Necklace (and several poems). The author discusses worldview and theme in one chapter. Another chapter contains a significant amount of Biblical Allusions work (but not exclusively); the point is that a lot of literature has Biblical Allusions. I would think non-Christians would be okay with the program (and I have been a non-Christian).

 

HTH

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I am a Christian so you may take this as you will. I did not find this curriculum to contain "heavy Christian" material, such as BJU curriculum. Some of the short stories are The Most Dangerous Game, The Gift of the Magi, Jury of Her Peers and The Necklace (and several poems). The author discusses worldview and theme in one chapter. Another chapter contains a significant amount of Biblical Allusions work (but not exclusively); the point is that a lot of literature has Biblical Allusions. I would think non-Christians would be okay with the program (and I have been a non-Christian).

 

HTH

This is a pretty fair description. There are comments early on along the lines of language being a gift of God, but there is not a Christian focus to most of the literary analysis. One of the questions later on that lead to paragraph writing is "Is there anything in the story's overall message that bothers you or with which you disagree? Does it contradict the Bible's teachings?" There is a long project on Biblical allusions. It is very similar in content to projects I've seen assigned by upper level high school English courses. Most of the allusions strike me as good to know references. I thought it was interesting how many my church based coop students were less familiar with. (Shibboleth gave them some trouble, but I love that one, because it was the basis of a West Wing episode.) One of my recommendations was to take the phrases from the allusion and put them into the Google News search. That turned out results in articles and columns, especially political articles. They were great illustrations of how the allusions could be put to use. If there are some that strike you as especially counter to what you want to discuss, you could do more of the classical allusions.

[yoyoma]

We are a secular family, and were very comfortable using the program. The intro has some decidedly "shepherd-like" tone...I thought that otherwise the material was quite secular (I think they were the same stories that I studied in an advanced English course).

 

I whited out with white-out a few sentences that I felt detracted from the teaching message (definitely in the intro, which you can skip, and maybe one or two in the actual lessons). There are a couple lessons on biblical allusions that we completed (we might have skipped one), but not many after that intial lesson.

 

If you have ever altered a curriculum to suit a secular (or other) viewpoint, I think you would find this easy to use. It really is worth trying. A very nice selection, and straighforward way of introducing analysis in bites that make sense and don't bore. My second and third dc will be using it (after trying it on the first) :-)

[Kate in Arabia]

We are using it this year, there are some parts we gloss over. This just came up the other day as ds was going over the chapter on theme and worldview, where there are sections on the "human condition" and the effects of relativism and postmodernism (for those with the student book, pp 100-103) that are a clear discussion of the Christian worldview. It's not enough to make me regret using the book, but it is a reminder that this isn't a book I would give to my ds to do independently... Well, the layout of the whole program is not one that I think is intended to be done independently anyway, so...

 

In retrospect I would have done more pre-reading, but overall it has been a good experience.

[g1234]

Thanks so much to all four of you! It helps me so much to have perspectives from several different real people who have used WttW. No final decisions yet, but I think we may well try it out, and I will definitely remember your cheers, caveats, and suggestions.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I was coming to post this exact same question, so I thought I would just bump this thread and see if anyone else had input or comments on how easy it is to use WttW secularly.  Thanks!

[g1234]

Well, I'm not someone else, but I can tell you my experience as the original poster who did buy WttW and tried to use it this year. The curriculum gets great reviews on these boards, and I'm certainly not trying to disrespect anyone's opinion or experience. I'm glad it works so well for many people.

 

We gave it a good try for a few months, which is a few more months than we should have tried it, for two reasons. The first, which is most relevant to your question, is that we were so turned off by the religious aspects. (And we are religious, just not that kind of religious!) This is not to disagree with people who wrote in answer to my question that it can be used secularly. I do agree with what they said. It can. If you bring the Biblical allusions sections more into balance with looking for other kinds of allusions (Shakespearean, historical, etc.), and if you ignore one chapter--I can't remember which right now, but it's on “worldview,†which is a word I'm only just beginning to understand as it is applied in a religious sense--then it works pretty well.

 

There are some comments throughout the book that I didn't really like, and it kind of irked me that I kept having to stop the lesson and discuss those with my kid, helping her see why those came from a viewpoint that is very different from ours. This need not have bugged me much, but I'll admit that in the end it really did. I felt more and more annoyed and alienated from the authorial voice, which is not a nice way to feel when you're just trying to learn to discuss and enjoy and analyze literature. It really turned me off.

 

Then, when we got to the “worldview†lesson, I got really mad. Yes, we looked at it together and I talked with my kid about what was going on there and why I personally found it so distasteful and antithetical to many of our values, which maybe was a good lesson, but it was weird to tell her how much I disliked that section, and then to ask her to respect the other sections and accept the guidance she was being offered. That just didn't feel right.

 

So that's for my reaction to the religous aspects: Agreement with previous respondents, yet it was more of an “issue†for me than for some.

 

My other critique is that I just didn't find it all that good. It follows a kind of approach that I've also seen in other IEW and TTC materials (we do not use either, but I've looked into them a lot because I see them mentioned so much), which does not do what I am hoping to do for my kids in terms of literature analysis and expository writing. It was a bit more formulaic than we like. I'm not quite sure how to say why it didn't quite work for us. But it didn't. Far more successful has been reading How to Read Litearture Like a Professor for Kids and then reading tons, talking tons, analyzing how authors do what they are doing and how successful they are at it--with anything from editorials to essays to novels--and then trying to do it ourselves and talking about how successful we were at doing that. Then more of the same.

 

Of course this is kind of a more nebulous approach, and I am only in the early stages of getting a handle on it. I know, though, that the WttW approach was killing my kid's love of analyzing literature (and she does love to analyze literature) before my eyes. Once we went away from it, read a few books “just for fun†to recover, and then started on this new path, the excitement and interest have returned.

 

I can definitely see why WttW would be great for lots of people, and I don't think it is an objectively bad curriculum. It just was not a good match for us, and I tried here to verbalize why. Not sure if I did an adequate job, but I hope that helps a little!

[Lori D.]

So sorry to hear how irksome it was for your family! :(   :grouphug:

 

For future readers of this thread: I just wanted to throw in there that in the introduction to Windows to the World, the author specifically lays out her worldview so users will know what to expect. Perhaps it would be a good idea for anyone thinking of using WttW to first read the introduction to have a good idea of the tone and author's view to expect, to know if you can work with the program or not...

 

And, agreeing with g1234: the chapter on Worldview could easily be skipped without any loss of content to literary analysis -- it is the most obviously Christian content material in the program. I think the author was trying to draw a comparison between theme and worldview/perspective there, but it is definitely supplementary.

 

 

Our DSs do not like writing and in high school, had a very hard time coming up with a thesis and then how to support it with their examples AND with the commentary sentence (explanation of how/why the examples support your point), so the "formula" for creating a thesis and the explanation and examples of "commentary" in the chapter in WttW on how to write a literary analysis essay has been a huge and helpful lightbulb for them. They still find those formulas helpful for getting started with their college papers. But I can definitely see how natural writers and creative writers would NOT connect with formulas! :)

 

Also, we found the first section on requiring annotation to be very useful in learning how to slow down and read reflectively and carefully -- that is the ONLY time we have done a more formal approach to analysis, and like G1234, we have always done Literature through discussion and enjoyment. However, I will say that it was VERY good to have learned that annotation process, as, even though we did not use it in our high school Literature, it was very helpful to DSs when they took their college Writing 101 and 102 courses, which require a much more close and formal reading (i.e., annotation style) of the Literature for the class discussions and the essays written about the Literature. So, a good technique to learn as a preparatory skill -- but don't use like a "drill and kill" skill… ;)

 

Because those sections were so helpful to us, I tend to cheerlead for this program, and I apologize if I have misled anyone into using something that was not helpful for your family. And g1234, hope the rest of your family's homeschool Literature experiences are wonderful! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

 

ETA: Two additional posts on using Windows to the World secularly:

What lit analysis do you recommend? (posts #6 thru #14 address secular/religious concerns about WttW)

Windows to the World: how much religious content? (same title as this thread, but it is g1234's middle school board post with a few different responses)

[Chrysalis Academy]

Well, I'm not someone else, but I can tell you my experience as the original poster who did buy WttW and tried to use it this year. The curriculum gets great reviews on these boards, and I'm certainly not trying to disrespect anyone's opinion or experience. I'm glad it works so well for many people.

 

We gave it a good try for a few months, which is a few more months than we should have tried it, for two reasons. The first, which is most relevant to your question, is that we were so turned off by the religious aspects. (And we are religious, just not that kind of religious!) This is not to disagree with people who wrote in answer to my question that it can be used secularly. I do agree with what they said. It can. If you bring the Biblical allusions sections more into balance with looking for other kinds of allusions (Shakespearean, historical, etc.), and if you ignore one chapter--I can't remember which right now, but it's on “worldview,†which is a word I'm only just beginning to understand as it is applied in a religious sense--then it works pretty well.

 

There are some comments throughout the book that I didn't really like, and it kind of irked me that I kept having to stop the lesson and discuss those with my kid, helping her see why those came from a viewpoint that is very different from ours. This need not have bugged me much, but I'll admit that in the end it really did. I felt more and more annoyed and alienated from the authorial voice, which is not a nice way to feel when you're just trying to learn to discuss and enjoy and analyze literature. It really turned me off.

 

Then, when we got to the “worldview†lesson, I got really mad. Yes, we looked at it together and I talked with my kid about what was going on there and why I personally found it so distasteful and antithetical to many of our values, which maybe was a good lesson, but it was weird to tell her how much I disliked that section, and then to ask her to respect the other sections and accept the guidance she was being offered. That just didn't feel right.

 

So that's for my reaction to the religous aspects: Agreement with previous respondents, yet it was more of an “issue†for me than for some.

 

My other critique is that I just didn't find it all that good. It follows a kind of approach that I've also seen in other IEW and TTC materials (we do not use either, but I've looked into them a lot because I see them mentioned so much), which does not do what I am hoping to do for my kids in terms of literature analysis and expository writing. It was a bit more formulaic than we like. I'm not quite sure how to say why it didn't quite work for us. But it didn't. Far more successful has been reading How to Read Litearture Like a Professor for Kids and then reading tons, talking tons, analyzing how authors do what they are doing and how successful they are at it--with anything from editorials to essays to novels--and then trying to do it ourselves and talking about how successful we were at doing that. Then more of the same.

 

Of course this is kind of a more nebulous approach, and I am only in the early stages of getting a handle on it. I know, though, that the WttW approach was killing my kid's love of analyzing literature (and she does love to analyze literature) before my eyes. Once we went away from it, read a few books “just for fun†to recover, and then started on this new path, the excitement and interest have returned.

 

I can definitely see why WttW would be great for lots of people, and I don't think it is an objectively bad curriculum. It just was not a good match for us, and I tried here to verbalize why. Not sure if I did an adequate job, but I hope that helps a little!

 

 

Thanks for responding, I really appreciate it, and your comments are very helpful to me in deciding whether this will work for us.  What drew me most were the chapters on annotation and developing a thesis statement, and my concern was whether the worldview stuff spilled over into the rest of the book - one chapter I can skip, but I don't want to have to be constantly addressing it throughout.  The biblical allusions section was actually a selling point for me - I do think understanding biblical allusions is critical to understanding a lot of western art and literature, and since my kids aren't exposed to it via practicing a religion, I have to be sure that they are exposed to it in other ways, (which I try to do).  Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks because you comments were exactly spot on the topics I was wondering about.

[g1234]

So glad it was helpful, CA!

 

Also, agreeing with you, Lori D., that the author is perfectly up-front about her approach, so no complaints there. I also agree that the instruction on annotation and on thesis statements can provide a good, well-structured introduction to those topics, and they are certainly important ones.

 

CA--have you considered getting collections of Bible stories for children to familiarize your kids with the well-known stories and characters? I bet even simple stories aimed at kids younger than yours would be a fun, quick way to help them catch Biblical allusions in literature. Or maybe they already have that basic familiarity. Just a thought.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Yes, we just finished reading through Selena Hasting's Illustrated Children's Bible.  So now whenever we run into these allusions I can point out to them the source of the stories or characters.  There are also a few parables, proverbs, or biblical stories in CAP W&R Fable - we read a blurb on Samson and Delilah today, and my 7 yo remembered reading about them in the Children's Bible.  So that's good, I think we'll probably be ok just working off that.  I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian denomination, and I've actually read the Bible cover to cover several times myself, as well as sitting through 6 years of bible classes in parochial school, so I feel pretty well qualified to find and point out the allusions in our reading.