I agree. Regarding the bolded, I swing too much in the other direction - I have neglected the demands of my children because of books:). I just asked my kid to hold off on showing me all his newly learned magic tricks because I just want to finish this chapter!!! Your first paragraph is encouraging.

I have taught parody from Covid parody songs. And from Weird Al's version of American Pie.

I just got Blending Structure and Style in Composition (BSSC) by James Webster (a 300pg spiral bound book + instruction manual) that IEW TWSS is based off of, according to them. I have not seen IEW's stuff, so take this assessment with a grain of salt. This manual walks you through 9 units of teaching writing, with Unit 2 being all about their dress-ups. Throughout the manual, examples are given of how to systematically edit a student's writing. I found it helpful to have the instruction spelled out so thoroughly, with actual student examples at different levels and stages of writing. My thoughts (I am only up to Unit 3 in reading). The dress-ups are a lot of Killgallon techniques, just with the non-grammar names for the most part. But BSSC (and IEW, I assume) puts them all into a checklist of what should be included in writing. This is where some people chafe and where some people find IEW really helpful. A lot of the paragraph instruction I thought was similar to The Writing Revolution instruction, but again, BSSC got much more in the weeds with how to do it. With my kids, I do say things like, "put an appositive phrase here", or "change these three verbs to be stronger." I do like having different techniques for sentence variety all in one place. I did find the ideas of how to extract key information and then re-write from that to be helpful. It seems like the half-step before the traditional Roman numeral outline as taught in WWS and adjusted for far lower reading levels as needed. It also teaches how to take an outline of 9 items and turning that into 2-3 separate paragraphs and then expanding it. This will probably be the most helpful for my "I don't know how to get out the information and write more than a sentence" child. Another thing about grammar. James Webster began teaching in the 1940s in Canada, when it was apparently strongly frowned upon to teach actual grammar. So his method of sneaking in grammar without upsetting the administration was to introduce techniques without the names. Hence, "-ly words" and "who/which".

The bolded is tragic. I would get a maternity test.🤣 I have a 1000 piece JA book puzzle and we make this puzzle about 5-6 times a year (we love puzzles and this is a great one). I am hoping that early indoctrination prevents such a fate. Gustave Dore!!! That is a great idea! I have been salivating over his Dante! My natural inclination is to save the money for future use, but my mother knows me too well and banned that😁. My childrens' stipulation was that it cannot be used on writing or grammar instruction. Fair enough.

I think this is more the way I am inclined to go- thank you for putting it in words for me. But this bumps up against my desire for minimalish living, but also needing to educate and having resources. I like the idea of owning the books needed for high school to remove the burden of having to remember library deadlines. Plus, if I own them, it is easier to remember to use them...

The bolded is only somewhat the case, I think. While there are technically more places to go in LA than most other places, LA is under phase one of the governor's orders:https://covid19.lacounty.gov/recovery/ I think those phases are some of the strictest in the nation. I know that many people are privately not following the rules and having small gatherings, but in public there is very little to do because almost everything in closed. The beaches are open, thank God, but most LA beaches do not get crowded as compared to beaches on the east coast. (Yes, we have all seen the photos of Huntington Beach in May being crowded). It is not hard to go to most beaches here and not get within 20 feet of another family.

Thanks! This is so helpful, and it is good news to me. Up until about a year ago, I read almost exclusively non-fiction, thanks to AP lit in high school🤐. But in the past year, I have been rapidly trying to make up for lost time. And for several years I have been doing loads of read-alouds with my kids. My hope is that through exposure to lots of well-written books with interesting conversations around said books, that they can start to think about books more deeply than I did.

Yes, but I would also watch the last lecture. He gets into the nitty-gritty a bit more in the last lecture and I found it very helpful. Or, read the stories for each lecture and then watch the second half of each one where he digs into them more.

Oh, I agree completely. Sorry, my original post that you quoted was more just ruminating on that concept and I don't totally know how I feel about it, but it has provided me with lots to think about. Why I am spending my time thinking about the BMV is justification for questioning my sanity... What fascinates me about the BMV is why the wait times are so long, especially in urban areas. So much can be done online now, that you would think this would have eliminated some of the burden. But it is as though the number of buildings and staff have not been increased since the invention of cars. And that one can have an appointment and still wait half a day. I think it is a fabulous case for no one there having any incentive to make the process any better. Now, I recently had a surprisingly good experience at the DMV with very friendly people who were understanding and helpful. But the actual system that they are working in was a big pain.

@Lori D. Your first paragraph is kind of what I was wondering. I think that ultimately, it will be better just to own the books rather than deal with the library.

We own The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls with we have read aloud through. Off to check out the others...

Thanks for the book rec! Just placed a library hold on it.

Several different streams in my homeschooling life have just intersected. I have been wrestling with what to do for writing for my 5th grader. I just finished the last lecture and am like, "This is what I want to teach him to write about!!!" And I know I have the tools for how to lead this. Man, I am getting all verklempt just thinking about it.

I heard on a philosophy podcast (Philosophize This perhaps?) the podcaster talking about how we all want equal treatment (this argument is in no way connected to race relations), which ultimately results in being treated like a number. (I am going to butcher the argument, but the salient point remains). His point was this, we say that, but we really want specialized treatment regarding our circumstances. The place where treatment tends to be the most equal, is the BMV. At the BMV (this has been my experience in several states), everyone, simply everyone is treated as a number. There is no individual consideration for anyone's circumstances. There is no incentive to treat anyone human, but instead as a number. The BMV is the ultimate in "equal treatment" and it tends to completely infuriate everyone who is forced to go there.

Sorry I keep replying in my own thread. Something else I really like about TTC is that I don't feel like I have to eat an elephant in order to "do literature correctly" with my kids. There is no expectation of reading half the Western canon by graduation. I have no intention of slacking, but a weight lifted off my shoulders when I realized that.