Literature guides enough??? What about poetry & short stories?

[xanderlily]

Hey guys!!  I have been on a month long intensive trek into switch everyone over to the classical model after 6 years of homeschooling (ds15, ds14, dd10, ds6).  I have almost everything figured out, but could really use some advice on literature, as it pertains to history before my head explodes, lol.

 

My plan for history:

 

ds15 (10th) Dave Raymond's Modernity

Biblioplan Ancients + VP cards for:

ds14 (9th)

dd10 (5th)

ds6 (1st)

 

The struggle... guides vs full curriculum.

I love the CAP British & MP guides for analysis, but my major concern is about things like poetry, short stories, etc...? I know I can use a separate poetry curriculum,  but is that enough? 

That sounds very disjointed to me.

I love a lit program that seams them together,  maybe with some worldview, but not sure how to work with the 4 year cycle without just going bare bones with a Lit guide.

 

It seems like I have 2 options:

1. Lit guides for individual books

2. Complete lit program following a traditional history cycle (i.e. World Lit/Am Lit/Brit Lit)

 

Am I wrong?

 

I do reeeeeally like the look of Stobaugh's World/Am/Brit Lit curricula,  but would need to buy all 3 & chop them up to use them in a 4 yr cycle. Well, at least 2 this first year. Ugh.

 

Any suggestions? What am I missing?

[Liza Q]

I always make a list, get some lit guides - individual or one that covered several works, read everything, and then do a different amount of discussion/analysis/writing for each work.

 

For example, once for year 3  - Early Modern - I used the Lightning Lit guides for early to mid 19th C American and British Lit. We read other books etc. that year but we only analyzed/wrote about works that were covered in the LL guides. We read other books by Austen but only *did* Pride and Prejudice. We read several short stories by Poe but only *did* The Tell Tale Heart.

 

HTH!

[Another Lynn]

I don't have any advice per se, but wanted to let you know there are guides out there for poetry and short stories if you want to utilize them.  Memorial Press has a couple and I think Total Language Plus has a short story guide.  I can't tell you how they are as I have not used them.   :)

[xanderlily]

I always make a list, get some lit guides - individual or one that covered several works, read everything, and then do a different amount of discussion/analysis/writing for each work.

 

For example, once for year 3 - Early Modern - I used the Lightning Lit guides for early to mid 19th C American and British Lit. We read other books etc. that year but we only analyzed/wrote about works that were covered in the LL guides. We read other books by Austen but only *did* Pride and Prejudice. We read several short stories by Poe but only *did* The Tell Tale Heart.

 

HTH!

Ok, that makes sense. Thank you! I was definitely wondering about that... reading more works than are analyzed. I don't want to overwhelm them, but I'm definitely nervous about striking a good balance b/w exposure to plenty of good works & going deeper.

[xanderlily]

I don't have any advice per se, but wanted to let you know there are guides out there for poetry and short stories if you want to utilize them. Memorial Press has a couple and I think Total Language Plus has a short story guide. I can't tell you how they are as I have not used them. :)

Awesome! Good to know! I really love some of the guides available out there and would love to go that route, so this definitely intrigues me. Thanks so much for the info! Off to check them out...

[Pat in MI]

Learning Language Arts Through Literature (the Gold Books)  have  Short Stories, Poetry, and Novel studies for World, American, and British History.  We are only  going to use parts of the guides.  

[Liza Q]

Another thing I have done is to use a Literature Text. We *do* lots of short stories/poems/a few essays/a few excerpts and just discuss any full length work. I don't ever want my kids to dread reading because every book has to be STUDIED, kwim?

 

I remember SWB once mentioning - maybe in the 1st ed WTM, maybe at a convention? - that she gave The Once and Future King to one of her boys and then didn't ask him anything, as she wanted him to just have a private relationship with it, the way she had had when she first read it.

 

So we read many, discuss most, analyze several, write about some. Otherwise we would read a lot less! Ideally we would write more...well, I've had each child read and write at the right level for them. It has varied with each one.

 

Of course - jmo. ymmv.

Edited July 22, 2017 by Liza Q

[xanderlily]

Learning Language Arts Through Literature (the Gold Books) have Short Stories, Poetry, and Novel studies for World, American, and British History. We are only going to use parts of the guides.

This is great. I've been so turned off to LLATL since it was our first (and very bad) experience with homeschool language arts (we are definitely not spiral learners), and I didn't realize the gold series is laid out very differently. Thank you for bringing this to my attention! I checked it out & it might be just what we need to supplement.

I'm thinking of breaking the World Lit up over the first two years, to allow for other individual book studies in line with Biblioplan. Then I could feel all warm & fuzzy inside that they got the poetry, prose, short story exposure. Thank you! ðŸ˜

 

Another thing I have done is to use a Literature Text. We *do* lots of short stories/poems/a few essays/a few excerpts and just discuss any full length work. I don't ever want my kids to dread reading because every book has to be STUDIED, kwim?

 

I remember SWB once mentioning - maybe in the 1st ed WTM, maybe at a convention? - that she gave The Once and Future King to one of her boys and then didn't ask him anything, as she wanted him to just have a private relationship with it, the way she had had when she first read it.

 

So we read many, discuss most, analyze several, write about some. Otherwise we would read a lot less! Ideally we would write more...well, I've had each child read and write at the right level for them. It has varied with each one.

 

Of course - jmo. ymmv.

Man, this is soooo good for me to hear. Such encouragement. I definitely struggle to not overschedule, then push the schedule, kill the passion. This is why I feel so much more at ease with a text or guide of some sort. I truly wish that wasn't the case.

 

I think a text of some sort is definitely the route for me to go, then I can sub-in/cut out to use other guides. Just to find one that matches the chronological study has proven a struggle. I really like Stobaugh, which can be modified to fit the rotation, but they're a bit too meaty for my reluctant writer 9th grader(they're geared toward 10-12th anyway). I'll have to look into LLATL some more, they might work.

 

 

Thank you so much for your wisdom ladies!!

Edited July 22, 2017 by xanderlily

[Liza Q]

Another thing! I never used Lit texts with my older girls. They were voracious readers, happy to analyze/discuss/write, but there wasn't enough time in a year to do it all with every book. I remember the year that we did Year 2 - Med/Ren/Ref - and my oldest decided to read some Russian lit. I had already prepared for Beowulf etc., so we studied those and she just read The Brothers K etc. for herself. But my younger two are nothing like that. The Lit texts have been marvelous for them! We still read full length works but less and I let them just read something and talk about it for 15m while we're sorting wash or something.

 

And. Lol - I'm not shutting up here! When I say we analyze, we don't overdo it. Or maybe we just don't go too deep - it depends on you pov. I choose an element of each work. I got that idea from the Lightning Lit books and it worked well. For The Scarlet Letter we focused on conflict and for Moby Dick we focused  on character development. And sometimes I'll use SparkNotes to quickly run through everything for one work.

 

After this I'm shutting up. Lori D has some marvelous posts about Literary Analysis. SWB had a lecture with notes - https://welltrainedmind.com/a/what-is-literary-analysis-and-when-to-teach-it/