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So who has used History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective (Gregory Aldrete) http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=3850 ? (Sorry not a pretty link--on ipad) Likes/dislikes? Was the course guidebook useful? Do you think the DVD option would be better than just the audio?

 

The audible.com price is very attractive, but if the visuals add to the audio lecture, I'll cross my fingers that the course goes on sale before September.

 

Thanks :)

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So who has used History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective (Gregory Aldrete) http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=3850 ? (Sorry not a pretty link--on ipad) Likes/dislikes? Was the course guidebook useful? Do you think the DVD option would be better than just the audio?

 

The audible.com price is very attractive, but if the visuals add to the audio lecture, I'll cross my fingers that the course goes on sale before September.

 

Thanks :)

It is coming through InterLibrary Loan next on the list. I can let you know what my initial thoughts are. We are planning on having it be a large part of our world history perspectives so hopefully it isn't too terrible!

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So who has used History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective (Gregory Aldrete) http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=3850 ? (Sorry not a pretty link--on ipad) Likes/dislikes? Was the course guidebook useful? Do you think the DVD option would be better than just the audio?

 

The audible.com price is very attractive, but if the visuals add to the audio lecture, I'll cross my fingers that the course goes on sale before September.

 

Thanks :)

 

We used it last year and I have been meaning to write about it. I like the course fine and it's one of the view courses available that covers the world beyond western civilization. We used the audio version and I was fairly pleased with Professor Aldrete's presentation. He's a lively speaker and has a dry sense of humor. Several of his lectures touch on common topics studied in the early portion of AP World History, for example, comparing the the Han and Roman Empires.

 

My son would be less generous. He rates Aldrete well below Vandiver, Bucholz, and Craig Benjamin (Foundations of Eastern Civilization), but he has this weird thing about how professors make their notes that go with the course guide book.  Elizabeth Vandiver's notes are in outline format like SWB teaches, while Aldrete's are somewhere between full paragraphs and a complete transcript. In his mind, I think he equates Vandiver as the pinnacle of academia.

 

I have not seen The Other side of History: The Daily Life in the Ancient World, but I have thought the two sounded like highly complimentary courses.

 

I don't know if this helps. If you have more questions the Global Perspective, just ask.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

FWIW, I have found that putting a course into my cart and not buying it for a day does bring a flood of good discounts into my email.  I just got one today for 75% off and free shipping.  (Alas, only good once per customer.)

 

I don't know if the codes are unique to the email I was sent or if they will work for others. Try priority code 100868 .

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So you have the CDs for Rome and the Barbarians? This is an older series, so there is probably not much in the way of graphics on the DVD, do you think?

 

After we left modern Europe behind, we returned to the ancients. I would like to wrap up Rome this year. If I can find Rome and the Barbarians for a good price, do you think it would be worth the time instead of trying to piece lectures together from Foundations of Western Civ. I, Crisis in Late Antiquity, and even a few from the World of Byzantium?

 

By the way, Harl's Barbarian Empires of the Steppes is really enjoyable so far. He is a bit louder than in some of his earlier lectures, but I think the material is great.

 

Crashing the thread as I've been looking at courses this afternoon.... :)

 

For the Barbarians course... What would you think about this for a younger middle schooler? DS is interested in the topic. I asked him to make a list of a few courses he'd like to get, and this one made the cut.

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Crashing the thread as I've been looking at courses this afternoon.... :)

 

For the Barbarians course... What would you think about this for a younger middle schooler? DS is interested in the topic. I asked him to make a list of a few courses he'd like to get, and this one made the cut.

My kids have all enjoyed it while on the younger end age-wise

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We used TTC courses as backbones and as supplementsĂ¢â‚¬Â¦.

As a backbone Ă¢â‚¬â€œ though not the only one, for:

Music appreciation Ă¢â‚¬â€œ Understanding musicĂ¢â‚¬Â¦.

Economics Ă¢â‚¬â€œ Economics :-)

As supplements for English, biology, history, etcĂ¢â‚¬Â¦ typically dc will read from their textbooks and if there is a topic that they want more information about, then theyĂ¢â‚¬â„¢ll find the appropriate lecture and watch that.

IĂ¢â‚¬â„¢ll update this post when I have my own laptop again Ă¢â‚¬â€œ right now I have time limits on dhĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s PCĂ¢â‚¬Â¦.

 

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I've appreciated TC's customer service over the last couple of weeks. 

 

I ran into some problems with changing the email associated with my account. One of their customer service reps was able to do some creative work with refunding and redelivering a digital course to force the account back into working order.

 

I had another rep who spent quite some time with me figuring out which of our family accounts had been used to order a course that I have on cassette so that I could upgrade it to CD.

 

This morning, I called because I'd been planning on making an order yesterday, but realized about 15 minutes too late that the code expiration time was based on Eastern Standard Time. The woman helping me not only was able to complete the order with the code I'd planned to use, but also was able to point me to a couple courses on the Spanish in South America (at a great price) that will scratch a curiosity itch for one of my sons.

 

Not every course has been a winner for us. But I do appreciate how helpful they have been.

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  • 2 weeks later...

We do not use the notes much. The "essential reading" parts are important for things like the guided book study courses. But those are really obvious and not the vast majority of courses. I have recently started looking at the discussion questions at the end of the chapters as a way to give writing prompts to my son if he cannot come up with anything to write. The questions are very good. Funny thing, though, Ds has had much greater success coming up with his own topics since the discussion questions entered the scene ;).

 

I'd say you aren't missing much for the cost savings.

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The lecturer we couldn't abide was Linwood Thompson of World History. This set has gotten good reviews on this forum and on the Great Courses site. The first lecture we watched was his overview of ancient Greece. He did it in an awful Southern accent. It might not bother other people, but it was an excruciating experience for Southerners. 

 

I can definitely see where this guy could get on someone's nerves.  Having said that, we listened to this series when ds and dd were in early middle school and we thought he was a hoot.  He is geeky and over-the-top, but I have to say... I still remember several of his out-of-the-main-stream stories today.  And this is from a very Southern Georgia Gal.

 

Thank you for this one. I have been on the fence about it and after hearing the same over and over, I am finally letting it go. We will check out the ancient technology lecture, the everyday life of ancients, and European history or something.

 

Thompson is certainly not for everyone, but we enjoyed him.  For us, he brought parts of World History to life that were otherwise words on a page.

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How essential/helpful are the notes for these courses? I'm considering downloading some of them from Audible, and I'm assuming they won't come with the notes.

 

I think this depends on how you use the courses. Sometimes we don't use notes, but if the lecturer is someone who expands on the notes, we'll add on to them. I also quiz from the lectures if I feel the information was pertinent to a particular class. For example, for AP European History, Professor Bucholz offered a good deal of analysis that deepened my son's understanding of certain events. For ds, having the notes was helpful for review. I use the essential reading lists for resources if we want to dig deeper.

 

You can usually pick up a guidebook on Amazon, if you decide you really want the notes for an Audible course.

 

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I just finished the first twelve lectures for The History of Science: Antiquity to 1700.  Lectures 1-12 take you through to the end of the Classical World (2000 B.C. to 500 A.D.), which is perfect if you are following the 4-year WTM Great Books plan and are working on the Ancients for 9th grade. Although there are a couple of lectures that may be a bit challenging for the younger high school student, most of it is fairly accessible.

 

The course is currently only available as an audio download, which is okay because Lawrence Principe is a fine speaker and quite easy to listen to. If you want to get an idea of his delivery, here is a

  video on another topic. So far, I have enjoyed the course and I wish we had owned it when we covered this time frame two years ago. 

 

You have to remember that science as we think of it is a relatively new concept. The early study of the natural world was called "natural philosophy," and is the primary focus of the course. Sadly, the focus is confined to the Western world, which Principe defines as the immediate heirs of Greek thought. There is some history of mathematics, medicine, and education.

 

If you are going to read Plato and Aristotle with your students, I think the lectures on those topics will provide extra depth and understanding and I wish I had known some of it before we started Plato's Republic.

 

If this is an area of interest for your student, you can easily add this to History of the Ancient World (global) or Foundations of Western Civilizations I (Western obviously) with minimal overlap of information. I am going to double-check it against FOW just to make sure. Remember that the course will take you through 1700, so you will be able to use it 2+ years unless you make it a stand-alone course. The primary text is Lindberg's The Beginnings of Western Science.

 

I would be happy with this course in any format because I enjoyed both the content and the delivery.  However, because I was painting while listening, there were a few lectures where I went back and read over the notes in the course guidebook. For myself, I would want the guidebook, especially for a student because the questions at the end of the lectures aren't easy questions. They require thought and a certain degree of application, not just flipping back through the notes for the answers. I know my son would be interested to hear that the well-known conflict between religion and science wasn't well-known until the 19th century and according to Principe, was a "politically motivated construction" of that time. There is a good deal of discussion-worthy material in these lectures.  If I were to rate on a scale from 1 to 5 with Vandiver and Bucholz being my favorites at a 5, I would give this course at least a 4. Have fun!

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Jen, I just wanted to say thanks for mentioning Anallysis & Critique! I'm watching it and I love this presenter.  I can definitely see building 8th grade writing around this course, with the exercises and some of the many other resources I have on my shelf.

 

I know that's breaking this thread's rule, we are only supposed to talk about courses we've actually used with kids . . . so here is my question.  I like this presenter so much (Dorsey Armstrong) that I'm looking at a couple of her other courses: anyone ever used Medieval World or Turning Points in Medieval History?  I can see plugging one or both of those into our future . . . 

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Jen, I just wanted to say thanks for mentioning Anallysis & Critique! I'm watching it and I love this presenter.  I can definitely see building 8th grade writing around this course, with the exercises and some of the many other resources I have on my shelf.

 

I know that's breaking this thread's rule, we are only supposed to talk about courses we've actually used with kids . . . so here is my question.  I like this presenter so much (Dorsey Armstrong) that I'm looking at a couple of her other courses: anyone ever used Medieval World or Turning Points in Medieval History?  I can see plugging one or both of those into our future . . . 

 

Analysis and Critique is perfect for 8th or 9th grade and you can get more mileage out of it, by combining some of the literature she discusses into your work. For example, there is a lecture that discusses honoring your audience and Charlotte Perkins's short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper." We read the story and then listened to the lecture. My son disagreed with Armstrong's hypothesis, so I made him write a rough draft of his argument to the contrary.

 

Dorsey Armstrong is not everyone's cup of tea, but we really like her and her Medieval World was the first TC lecture series my son ever watched (7th grade). I thought I mentioned this series earlier in the thread, but if you need more in-depth-coverage, I can give you that. I was happy to have spent the money on both courses.

 

Armstrong doesn't give you any ground-breaking information for Analysis and Critique, but she does give your student vivid examples that make the lessons stick.

 

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Analysis and Critique is perfect for 8th or 9th grade and you can get more mileage out of it, by combining some of the literature she discusses into your work. For example, there is a lecture that discusses honoring your audience and Charlotte Perkins's short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper." We read the story and then listened to the lecture. My son disagreed with Armstrong's hypothesis, so I made him write a rough draft of his argument to the contrary.

 

Dorsey Armstrong is not everyone's cup of tea, but we really like her and her Medieval World was the first TC lecture series my son ever watched (7th grade). I thought I mentioned this series earlier in the thread, but if you need more in-depth-coverage, I can give you that. I was happy to have spent the money on both courses.

 

Armstrong doesn't give you any ground-breaking information for Analysis and Critique, but she does give your student vivid examples that make the lessons stick.

 

 

Lisa, Thanks! That's just what I was thinking - I was jotting down all the literature she references, and thinking we would read much of that before listening to the lecture - she's got Common Sense, Civil Disobedience, A Modest Proposal for essays, some nice poetry, the St. Crispin Day speech from Henry IV, and stories like The Yellow Wallpaper.  You're right, it's nothing new or earth shattering, but I find her an engaging lecturer and I bet it would benefit my kid to hear the same stuff from someone other than Mom!

 

Thanks for pointing me to your mention of The Medieval World - somehow I missed that the first time through.  I'm glad you guys liked it.  It looks about as in-depth as I really want to go, and it will be a nice background to our reading of medieval lit, which is the part we're really excited about.  A few of the OUP books were on my radar, too, so it sounds like that combo worked well for you guys and might be just right for us!

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Thanks for starting this thread. We love The Great Courses here. Most of our favorites have already been mentioned, but my daughter recently started a new course that has not. It is Heroes and Legends, and she seems to be enjoying it. It is a lighter literature course and I think it would be perfect for someone new to TGC or for a younger student. I am going to have my sixth grader watch it next year. 

 

Jilly, we just got this on Audible as a supplement for 9th grade English. Thanks for the recommendation!

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  • 1 year later...

There was another general Great Courses question today.  There have been other threads, but this is the most recent one I could find, so I'm bumping it and adding a few notes on some of our experiences:

 

  • Agree that anything by Vandiver is great
  • DS 9th grade and I enjoyed Aldrete's Ancient World History (Global Perspective) and recommend it
  • I haven't seen this one mentioned and DS hasn't used it yet, but I previewed the beginning of "Early Middle Ages" (referring to Europe) and think it's excellent and worth considering for most high schoolers as part of a history class unless DC really prefers books or a class setting.
  • History of the English Language is excellent.

ETA: all work fine with audio only, but Aldrete slightly worth getting in video, if not too expensive, for a few short parts.

Edited by Brad S
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For literature:

 

Heroes and Legends is a hit here as well, to the extent that DS has watched it twice from start to finish and is very eager to watch it again. He has a very soft spot for Prof Tom Shippey ever since he got to ask him a question online during a Mythgard Tolkien class and Prof Shippey answered him with much thoughtfulness.

 

How to Read and Understand Shakespeare was excellent in my opinion for providing a very useful list of tools to analyze Shakespeare's plays.

 

The English Novel was an experimental listen as we haven't read all the novels covered. Mixed feelings but mostly positive. DS didn't like Prof Spurgin going on and on about James Joyce (DS thinks Joyce over-rated) and I was disappointed that Prof Spurgin spent too brief a time on EM Forster but otherwise the lectures went by too fast because we were enjoying them.

 

Writing Great Fiction gave us a lot to think and talk about and introduced writers we hadn't previously heard of (e.g. Eudora Welty).

 

Can't wait to jump into the new science fiction title.

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  • 10 months later...

If your library has Hoopla, check out their GC listings. They have a bunch of videos. The only drawback is that each episode counts as a check out and I only get 8 per month per card. For us this is fine since we have 5 cards, but it could be a limitation if you only have one family card.

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History - ( time frames are from TWTM, may need adjusting)

 

Ancient - BC 5000 to 400 AD

War and World History, (Lectures 1-15) Posts #9,12

The History of Science: Antiquity to 1700 (Lectures 1-12) Posts #78

 

Medieval/Early Renaissance - 400-1600 AD

War and World History, (Lectures 16 - 26) Posts #9,12

 

Late Renaissance/Early Modern - 1600-1850 AD

War and World History, (Lectures 27 - 36) Posts #9,12

Foundations of Western Civilization II, (Lectures 1-27) Posts 14

 

Modern Times - 1850 to present

War and World History, (Lectures 37-48) Posts #9,12

Foundations of Western Civilization II (Lectures 28-48) Posts # 14

 

Advanced Placement History - World (W), European (E), and U.S. (US)

High School Level - World History: The Fertile Crescent to the American Revolution (W) Posts #6

Foundations of Western Civilization II (E) Posts #14

 

 

Literature

 

Ancient

The Iliad of Homer - Posts #7

The Odyssey of Homer - Posts #7

The Aeneid - Posts #13

 

Medieval

Early Modern

Modern

 

Composition

 

 

Can anyone fill in more suggestions literature?
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If your library has Hoopla, check out their GC listings. They have a bunch of videos. The only drawback is that each episode counts as a check out and I only get 8 per month per card. For us this is fine since we have 5 cards, but it could be a limitation if you only have one family card.

This varies by library (Hoopla charges the library per item checked out). We have cards in two library districts. One only allows 6 per month and only on Adult cards, the other allows 10. And no guides, but most available that I see don't really need the guides.

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Can anyone fill in more suggestions literature?

 

What would you like to know?

 

I have the following literature courses:

 

Modern British Drama

The Soul and the City

Iliad of Homer

Classics of American Literature

Understanding Literature and Life: Drama, Poetry and Narrative

Odyssey of Homer

Shakespeare: Tragedies, Comedies, and Histories

Aeneid of Virgil

Classical Mythology

Greek Tragedy

Herodotus: Father of History

Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition

Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition

Classics of Russian Literature

Representing Justice" Stories of Law and Literature

Masterpieces of Ancient Greek Literature

The English Novel

History of World Literature

Classics of British Literature

Classic Novels: Meeting the Challenges of Great Literature

Art of Reading

A Day's Read

Western Literary Canon in Context

Life and Writings of John Milton

Dante's Divine Comedy

Great minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition

the Art of War

Tocqueville and the American Experiment

Joyce's Ulysses

St. Augustine's Confessions

Masterworks of Early 20th Century Literature

The Skeptic's Guide to the Great Books

Life and Writings of C.S. Lewis

How to Read and Understand Poetry

Masterpieces of Short Fiction

Great Mythologies of the World

How to read and Understand Shakespeare

Heroes and Legends: The Most Influential Characters of Literature

Plato's Republic

 

:blush: :blush: :blush: I am a lit freak. You don't need even a fraction of what is here. I have favorite "plug and play" courses that offer a lot of flexibility if you have a student like mine who is constantly changing directions.

 

Anyway, what are you looking for?

 

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What would you like to know?

 

I have the following literature courses:

 

Modern British Drama

The Soul and the City

Iliad of Homer

Classics of American Literature

Understanding Literature and Life: Drama, Poetry and Narrative

Odyssey of Homer

Shakespeare: Tragedies, Comedies, and Histories

Aeneid of Virgil

Classical Mythology

Greek Tragedy

Herodotus: Father of History

Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition

Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition

Classics of Russian Literature

Representing Justice" Stories of Law and Literature

Masterpieces of Ancient Greek Literature

The English Novel

History of World Literature

Classics of British Literature

Classic Novels: Meeting the Challenges of Great Literature

Art of Reading

A Day's Read

Western Literary Canon in Context

Life and Writings of John Milton

Dante's Divine Comedy

Great minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition

the Art of War

Tocqueville and the American Experiment

Joyce's Ulysses

St. Augustine's Confessions

Masterworks of Early 20th Century Literature

The Skeptic's Guide to the Great Books

Life and Writings of C.S. Lewis

How to Read and Understand Poetry

Masterpieces of Short Fiction

Great Mythologies of the World

How to read and Understand Shakespeare

Heroes and Legends: The Most Influential Characters of Literature

Plato's Republic

 

:blush: :blush: :blush: I am a lit freak. You don't need even a fraction of what is here. I have favorite "plug and play" courses that offer a lot of flexibility if you have a student like mine who is constantly changing directions.

 

Anyway, what are you looking for?

 

I think "plug and play" is mostly what we are looking for, LOL. I'm roughly looking at possibly putting together a quasi-sequential great books sequence I can pair with related history/ social studies/ rhetoric without too much graphic content or religion. Tall order, eh?

 

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Don't know if this has been mentioned but Prof. Mark O'Connor is a pleasure to listen and watch. He teaches "How to Read and Understand Shakespeare ", as well as "The Irish Identity" which uses history and lit together. Both excellent.

Listened and watched the Shakespeare one. Can do both, but the visuals were helpful in note-taking and remembering.

"Irish" can be either, too

 

 

Also, "King Arthur: History and Legend" with Prof Armstrong. She is exuberant and loves her subject matter. Listened to it.

 

I also enjoy Prof. Levine.

Edited by historymatters
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I think "plug and play" is mostly what we are looking for, LOL. I'm roughly looking at possibly putting together a quasi-sequential great books sequence I can pair with related history/ social studies/ rhetoric without too much graphic content or religion. Tall order, eh?

 

 

If you are going to do a chronological Great Books program that pairs with the 4-year history cycle, then, in my opinion, the most practical "plug and play" Great Courses lecture series is Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition. The 84 lecture courses used to really bite your budget, but these days you can pick up a used set of DVDs on Amazon for cheap or the audio from Audible.

 

If I use the same time frame that Susan Wise Bauer uses in TWTM (pp. 494-497, 3rd ed.), to organize the GAWLT lectures , your 4-year schedule would look something like this:

 

Ninth Grade - Ancient History

GAWLT - Lectures 1 (Foundations) through 22 (Petronius and Apuleius)

 

Tenth Grade - Medieval History

GAWLT - Lectures 23 (The Gospels) through Lecture 44 (William Shakespeare - Hamlet)

 

Eleventh Grade - Early Modern

Lecture 45 (Lope de Vega) through Lecture 64 (Herman Melville)

 

Twelfth Grade - Modern

Lecture 65 (Walt Whitman) through Lecture 83 (Samuel Beckett) and 84 (Conclusion)

 

That's only 21 or so lectures per year, but you will build off of that. I can break those out separately in the morning.

 

Edited by swimmermom3
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I think "plug and play" is mostly what we are looking for, LOL. I'm roughly looking at possibly putting together a quasi-sequential great books sequence I can pair with related history/ social studies/ rhetoric without too much graphic content or religion. Tall order, eh?

 

 

I'll have one of what she's having.

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If you are going to do a chronological Great Books program that pairs with the 4-year history cycle, then, in my opinion, the most practical "plug and play" Great Courses lecture series is Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition. The 84 lecture courses used to really bite your budget, but these days you can pick up a used set of DVDs on Amazon for cheap or the audio from Audible.

 

If I use the same time frame that Susan Wise Bauer uses in THTM (pp. 494-497, 3rd ed.), to organize the GAWLT lectures , your 4-year schedule would look something like this:

 

Ninth Grade - Ancient History

GAWLT - Lectures 1 (Foundations) through 22 (Petronius and Apuleius)

 

Tenth Grade - Medieval History

GAWLT - Lectures 23 (The Gospels) through Lecture 44 (William Shakespeare - Hamlet)

 

Eleventh Grade - Early Modern

Lecture 45 (Lope de Vega) through Lecture 64 (Herman Melville)

 

Twelfth Grade - Modern

Lecture 65 (Walt Whitman) through Lecture 83 (Samuel Beckett) and 84 (Conclusion)

 

That's only 21 or so lectures per year, but you will build off of that. I can break those out separately in the morning.

 

Oh, hey, that's pretty straight forward. Did you like this series? I almost bought it the other day.
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Since this thread is a couple years old, I assume it's a recent development, but FYI course notes come on PDF when you buy GC on Audible.

 

Thanks for reminding us about this. I avoided GC Audible purchases because I do use the notes and the bibliographies. I think they added the PDFs a couple of years ago.

 

To access Audible PDFs, go into your "library," look under "titles," and there should be a link labeled "PDFs."

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Oh, hey, that's pretty straight forward. Did you like this series? I almost bought it the other day.

 

I do really like it. 

 

Professor Elizabeth Vandiver delivers the first 24 lectures up to Saint Augustine. Several of the Great Courses addicts here routinely praise Vandiver as a favorite. A word of warning, it took me a few lectures to warm up to her and I now love all of her lecture series. You will definitely want to use her courses on the Iliad and the Odyssey if you are going to read the entire texts, but we can talk about that more in a separate reply on ancient literature.

 

Professor Noble, who handles lectures 25 - 36 on Literature in the Middle Ages, is another one of my favorite lecturers. His Foundations of Western Civilization is very good as is his series on Late Antiquity, but that one is probably too detailed for a general history study.

 

Literature of the Renaissance (37-48) is presented by Prof. Herzman, who is also a speaker on the Dante series. From what I remember, his lectures were fine - not outstanding in quality or lack there of.

 

Professor Susan Sage Heinzelman covers Neoclassical Literature and the 18th Century (lectures 49-60). Her delivery is similar to Thomas Noble's in that she is competent, with a slightly dry and ironic delivery. She's not quite as "twinkly" as Noble.  I personally like Heinzelman and have another one of her courses where I've used individual lectures to drop into our studies, but I will admit that occasionally her commentary is over my head and I have to back track to figure out what she means.

 

Prof. James Heffernan rocks the last portion of the course modern, lectures 61-84). In my opinion, he's the kind of professor that holds his students captive in a good way. He's competent, dapper, dramatic, and obviously passionate about his subject matter without going over the top..

 

You really can't go wrong with using Great Authors of the Western Tradition as a spine for a 4-year Great Books study.  You won't read every work listed here on on SWB's list. With time and practice, you'll figure out how to tailor a "spine" series like this or the 2-part series on the Foundations of Western Civilization for history to meet yours and your student's needs.

 

Elladarcy, a couple of things for you to consider: 1) is your focus going to be on the Western tradition or are you going to expand to world literature? 2) Rethinking and defining your requirement of "not too graphic" or too much religion.

 

Most literature in the Western culture sits on the three-legged stool of mythology, the Bible, and Shakespeare. Exposure to those three areas means you have an easier time accessing literature, music, art, politics, history, government and jokes in Western culture.  You really don't want to be me standing in the National Gallery staring up at the enormous, brilliant Ruebens' canvas and have your youngest son say in a voice loud enough to carry through three galleries, "Mom, who's Daniel?" :tongue_smilie:I have a somewhat pain-free suggestion for you on this point if you are interested.

 

What kind of "graphic" are you concerned with? We had a very heated discussion here a few years ago about the part on Gilgamesh in SWB's The History of the Ancient World. I think a boardie objected to direct quotes referring to "plowing her field" and Enkidu's interaction with a temple prostitute. She didn't think this was appropriate for her young teen son (if I am remembering this right.)  You know your student best. Preread the works if you can and ask here if you can't. The ancient period has a lot of sex and violence. Aristophanes has a potty mouth; Achilles and his fellow warriors sleep with concubines; and then of course, you have the source for Freud's Oedipal Complex.

 

Homeschooling the high school student is bound to have some awkward moments. The key is to find the balance between the teachable and the traumatic.

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Elladarcy, a couple of things for you to consider: 1) is your focus going to be on the Western tradition or are you going to expand to world literature? 2) Rethinking and defining your requirement of "not too graphic" or too much religion.

 

I previewed another series of "lectures" before doing a great books co-op this year, and found the Gilgamesh to dwell (expand?) on the sensational parts of it in a very adult sort of way. Trying avoid over the top- not for me, but because I also teach Other People's Children.

 

Religion is fine to some extent, and certainly as it applies to history, but I don't want theology included. I wouldn't be comfortable with Omnibus, for example (never mind the plagiarism.)

 

 

 

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Elladarcy, a couple of things for you to consider: 1) is your focus going to be on the Western tradition or are you going to expand to world literature? 2) Rethinking and defining your requirement of "not too graphic" or too much religion.

 

I previewed another series of "lectures" before doing a great books co-op this year, and found the Gilgamesh to dwell (expand?) on the sensational parts of it in a very adult sort of way. Trying avoid over the top- not for me, but because I also teach Other People's Children.

 

Religion is fine to some extent, and certainly as it applies to history, but I don't want theology included. I wouldn't be comfortable with Omnibus, for example (never mind the plagiarism.)

 

"Other People's Children!" Rats! That leaves you so much less leeway. Can I ask which series you were looking at?

 

I am working with a friend who brought her dd home for 8th grade and who loves it so much that she has decided to do high school at home.  My friend is the STEM type and her dd is more into the liberal arts, which is my gain now that I have no children at home to teach.  We are working on making her freshman year English class different from what I did with my youngest. One thing I noticed in researching AP English Lit materials several years ago was one teacher's summer work that heavily focused on mythology and the Bible as literature.  I am seeing way more AP teachers doing that now and with good reason. A friend of my daughter's took a class at the public high school that used the book, The Bible and It's Influence. Ds and I used part of it, but ran out of time. I really liked it and found it helpful from a secular viewpoint.

 

Anyway, I caught the crud from ds when he was home for spring break so I think I will lie down and rewatch a couple of the Gilgamesh lectures and see if they are problematic.    Which translation of Gilgamesh are you going to use?

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"Other People's Children!" Rats! That leaves you so much less leeway. Can I ask which series you were looking at?

 

I am working with a friend who brought her dd home for 8th grade and who loves it so much that she has decided to do high school at home. My friend is the STEM type and her dd is more into the liberal arts, which is my gain now that I have no children at home to teach. We are working on making her freshman year English class different from what I did with my youngest. One thing I noticed in researching AP English Lit materials several years ago was one teacher's summer work that heavily focused on mythology and the Bible as literature. I am seeing way more AP teachers doing that now and with good reason. A friend of my daughter's took a class at the public high school that used the book, The Bible and It's Influence. Ds and I used part of it, but ran out of time. I really liked it and found it helpful from a secular viewpoint.

 

Anyway, I caught the crud from ds when he was home for spring break so I think I will lie down and rewatch a couple of the Gilgamesh lectures and see if they are problematic. Which translation of Gilgamesh are you going to use?

Sorry about the crud! It's been through our house already.

 

The course I decided against was a Modern Scholar. I've liked some of their other stuff, but not the great books series.

 

I've got time on Gilgamesh- I ended up dropping it since it was an overview course. I'm doing Modern Literature next year, and that's a breeze.

 

I'll have a group for just Ancients the year after next. We'll probably use the Sanders version because it's in an anthology I already have with mostly decent translations. If I can find a single great course to cover most of it for the families, maybe they can get it very inexpensively through Audible. Dd and I might dig deeper, but I know from this year's course that ancients require more framework for the other students than I can provide in a once a week class.

 

I'll look at the bible as lit book. I took a college class on the subject and loved it. Dd has read a children's bible- DK. I do recommend it for basics. We're not atheists, but find some homeschool curricula to be ... eye-opening.

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...

 

Most literature in the Western culture sits on the three-legged stool of mythology, the Bible, and Shakespeare. Exposure to those three areas means you have an easier time accessing literature, music, art, politics, history, government and jokes in Western culture.  You really don't want to be me standing in the National Gallery staring up at the enormous, brilliant Ruebens' canvas and have your youngest son say in a voice loud enough to carry through three galleries, "Mom, who's Daniel?" :tongue_smilie:I have a somewhat pain-free suggestion for you on this point if you are interested.

.

 

.

 

 

I am interested.  We are not religious but obviously need the cultural knowledge.  Right now I think DD knows more Norse, Greek, Native American, etc. mythology than she knows about Bible characters and stories.

 

It was a real weakness in my humanities education (I have an English degree) and I never managed to remediate it all that well myself.  I am only vaguely familiar with who Daniel is.  Maybe he was eaten by a lion?  Why or when or with whom I have no idea.

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From perspective of Bible as Lit., I highly recommend anything by Prof. Amy-Jill Levine (her enthusiasm is infectious, she loves her subject) and Bart D. Eherman (not engaging like Levine, but has interesting points).

 

There are courses entitled "Biblical Wisdom Literature",and "Story of the Bible" and the historical, "The World of Biblical Israel": but I'm not familiar with the professors.

 

On a personal note, I don't think all lectures are for those less firm in their faith, or going through a difficult time. So, I recommend previewing. Of cpurse, none of these courses replace the reading of the Bible yourself and have both Jewish and Christian study Bibles, commentaries, and maps to read alongside.

 

Amy-Jill Levine was actually in charge of bringing together Jewish scholars to put forth their commentary on 'The Jewish Annotated New Testament'.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Annotated-New-Testament/dp/0195297709

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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't think it's been suggested yet, but I'm enjoying, and will likely have my young adults listen to or watch, "The Skeptics Guide to American History."

 

I'm on lecture 12 of 24. So far, I only have one major disagreement. We'll see if I have to come back after I finish to un-recommend it!

 

I downloaded the audio from Audible and have watched it on GCPlus. Either one is fine, IMO.

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If you are going to do a chronological Great Books program that pairs with the 4-year history cycle, then, in my opinion, the most practical "plug and play" Great Courses lecture series is Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition. The 84 lecture courses used to really bite your budget, but these days you can pick up a used set of DVDs on Amazon for cheap or the audio from Audible.

 

If I use the same time frame that Susan Wise Bauer uses in TWTM (pp. 494-497, 3rd ed.), to organize the GAWLT lectures , your 4-year schedule would look something like this:

 

Ninth Grade - Ancient History

GAWLT - Lectures 1 (Foundations) through 22 (Petronius and Apuleius)

 

Tenth Grade - Medieval History

GAWLT - Lectures 23 (The Gospels) through Lecture 44 (William Shakespeare - Hamlet)

 

Eleventh Grade - Early Modern

Lecture 45 (Lope de Vega) through Lecture 64 (Herman Melville)

 

Twelfth Grade - Modern

Lecture 65 (Walt Whitman) through Lecture 83 (Samuel Beckett) and 84 (Conclusion)

 

That's only 21 or so lectures per year, but you will build off of that. I can break those out separately in the morning.

 

Hey- I bought this for $48 when GC had their employee pricing.

 

I think it will do exactly what I need. I'm going to use an Anthology of World Lit set and a few stand alone novels. I have the TEs for the Anthologies and both EIL British and World. I think I can build nice flexible courses around these with plenty of discussion and writing. The course book looks handy for background info, but the questions are pretty light.

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