This year, my gr 10 son has been going through some Shakespeare drama and the book Writing About Literature, which includes short stories, short plays, and poetry. Although he is a strong writer otherwise, lit analysis still seems to stymie him. Next year, he and my next younger son will be gr 11 and 9, and I intend to cover Canadian history and geography (de rigeur here in Ontario for high school). I'm having a hard time, though, deciding on what to cover for literature. There's not a huge amount of high quality, age-appropriate Canadian lit for high school, in my view; but Canadian history is intermingled with both British and American, so which to emphasize if I chose either of these? Would it be confusing to cover, say, British lit (post-Renaissance) for a year, then the year after, backtrack and cover American? Would it be awkward to do American and some Canadian lit before getting to their precursor, British? Or might it be better to cover a mixture in both years, along with some other world lit? I do have at hand Lori D's wonderful "literature smorgasbord" list for American, British, and World, but am uncertain whether to stick with one per year or mix them up. Also, whenever (hah!) I do decide what to cover, which guides to use (yes, my background is in lit, but I've learned that we only make progress if I have some sort of guide at hand)? Hewitt's Lightning Lit guides take semester each but still don't cover 20th C material; Progeny Press guides, which I like, tend to be lengthy enough that the PP folk suggest covering no more than four a year. Glencoe guides online are shorter but--dang it--no answers, and not very in-depth, with few writing ideas. SparkNotes online provides analysis but few ongoing questions or writing suggestions either. All this is in terms of the older son; the younger one is nowhere near able to get into lit analysis in any depth, so I would probably be working just with the older (leaving the question open of what to do with the younger....while the 9 yr old hums away in the background.....:confused:)

...for you and yours. I have two older brothers I have not seen in many years. When we were growing up (divorced family), I was the "good kid" while they were the rebellious black sheep. Both got seriously into drugs, and one was involved with another troubled teen who shot and killed a man. We were blessed that my brother was not charged. It took many years, but they did pull out of it all and as far as I know have been functioning normally for years. There is hope amidst all the pain. God bless you.

Saw your post by accident on the General Board; just wanted to reply here as well and see how you're doing (as I almost never go to that board).

I've used a couple and have been impressed with the calibre of the questions and analysis. Your daughter could use these on her own as they come with an answer key for you.

Chris, I am so sorry to hear this. I recall your posting about your son a while back--must have been on the high school board. You have been so encouraging to me over the years and I want to be there for you too--despite being miles away in Canada. How I wish I had words of wisdom beyond "hang in there" and "I'm praying." WHen things have been tough for me, I have clung tot he promise that all things work for good to those who love God. You do. Bless you all.

...that really does help! It can be tough to keep in perspective the boys' analytical abil;ities at their ages. We, too, make lots of references to visual media (movies, Star Trek ,etc) so I guess we're not totally off track :rolleyes: Re my oldest son: he came home today from school with news that he got 93% on his English Media course exam, and his mid-term was also in the 90s, so I guess he'll pass! I'm very happy for him because this experience is teaching him that he *isn't* "stupid" , as he kept saying for years. In fact, he's developing something of a reputation at this school not only for his long hair and beard (most of these nice Dutch Christian guys can only produce a few wisps on their chins) but for being *smart.* Still don't know what the future holds, but I think he's feeling more optimistic. Thanks for asking.

nn

...how do you reply to an earlier post in a thread vs replying to the last post in a thread? I can;t seem to find a way to reply to anything other than what was last posted. Re saving a post, with the old style of board, I could click on a post, then go to my menu bar and click on "save page as". Now, however, that does not work for me. Could anyone tell me how to save a single post from the new board? I have a Macintosh in case that matters. TIA.

...with the other posts. It went over well for me in a co-op class a few years ago because the LOTR movies had just come out and all the students were excited about them. Now, I'm not so sure :rolleyes: It's a good intro but lacks enough review, so I had to develop that myself (eg, revisiting literary elements throughout the books). The side units are lots of fun,though.

I know we've "talked" abut this course in the past, but I have some more questions. I did buy LL 8 this year for my gr 8 son, but it has gone so poorly with him that I decided to drop it and use just Figuratively Speaking instead for now. The problem was that he often would not read the instructions carefully enough re the work pages and therefore not do what he was asked to do; or he just would not answer adequately. He has always seemed like a bright boy who generally writes well, but he wold miss what seemed to me to be obvious answers (eg.,listing certain imagery from an excerpt). What would you do under these circumstances? Would you assume that the child is not yet ready for this type of work? Problem is, I'm now seeing the same issue using FS (eg, having trouble coming up with metaphors even though he/ we have covered such concepts a number of times over the years). And then on top of that, there's the whole problem of literary analysis discussion at home--I find that it just does not work for us one-on-one or even one-on-two (when I've tried to do it with my gr 8 and 10 sons). I find this terribly frustrating because my own field of study was literature, but I can't seem to reach these boys in this regard. SHould I just hold off and try again next year?

...for my son. He now has a cold/ cough on top of the phlegm issue, which is making his condition that much worse. Sometimes when he hacks up the phlegm, it's slightly pinkish--I assume tinged with blood. From what I've read a bout reflux and esophageal problems, this could lead to much worse conditions--ulcers,even cancer. We're in the process if getting an appointment with a GI specialist, but from what I've been told, that won't be available for 6 months. In the meantime, how doe she get any symptomatic relief? We are getting desperate here. Thanks for your help.

I posted about this problem a while back; I just posted again because I was wondering about these two possible treatments I had just come across. So far,the chiropractic does not seem to be making any difference re the reflux/ phlegm. My son was tested for allergies last summer--would that have included dairy, do you think? No allergies were detected at the time.

My 15 yr old son has been suffering from from chronic gastro-esophageal phlegm and congestion (not lung congestion) for the past 1 1/2 yrs and has (finally) been referred to a GI specialist, but likely will not get an appointment for another 6 months. He is so miserable about this and it is hard to watch someone with such a naturally upbeat personality become so discouraged. I'm wondering if anyone who has BTDT has tried either of these two approaches to managing the reflux/ phlegm problem I cam across on the web. Thanks for any input. 1) A combination of baking soda (bicarbonate) and apple cider vinegar mixed with water. (I've read both pros and cons about this). 2) Refluxadine, a (supposedly) all-natural supplement from Micronutra, containing such ingredients as licorice extract, calcium, and glycine.

...how you go about "doing lit" with your high school age students? You'd think I'd know all about this, having taught English in university, but noooo! My efforts with my first high school son were disastrous, as he could not see the point of analysing books. For gr 10, I taught LL form LOTR in a co-op class, and that's the only lit year that went well for him. Last year, after fumbling around with a few novels (and having some success with The Old Man and the Sea and Animal Farm), I finally had him use the poetry study from Progeny Press,with which he did quite well (and which I liked). In retrospect, I probably should have used more lit guides with him. Now I'm dealing with high school son #2 (gr 10) and we've been trying (trying!) to get through some Shakespeare using Brightest Heaven of Invention. That just seems to be falling flat with him. Last year I did try Lightning Lit Middle Ages, but did not care for the assignments. I just cannot seem to get a handle on how to cover lit with my own children. I keep wishing I could be that fly on the wall watching other WTMers conduct "lit study" with their kids so I could see how they do it. Do you, as the teaching parent, read the text being studied ad well as some background and/ or analysis (such as SparkNotes), and then ask your child questions? (If so, how do you make time for all that?) Or do you ask your child to tell you what he/ she thought on a given aspect of the book? Or....? In a group/ class, I seem to do well, but one on one never seems to work. Help!:eek:

...the one by Robin Finley (of AG)? I have that too, but found it too skimpy to be of real use. I also was not impressed by the sample essay produced. Didn't someone just post a link to a website re essay writing? I did bookmark it, so can find it again for you. It sounds as though your children can already write paragraphs but you want them to be able to link those together into a coherent essay. Sounds as thought hey are already more than halfway there! That book I mentioned, A Writer's Guide to Powerful Paragraphs, may be helpful in terms of coming up with different paragraph formats (eg, chronological, comparative, contrast, narrative, etc.). It ends with sections on introductory, transitional, and concluding paragraphs, so that may be all you really need to help your students see how to combine paras. into an essay. You also asked re finding topics for students to write on. If you want to link their writing to academic subject matter, then a text such as Human Odyssey will provide ample suggestions for history writing; and SparkNotes online, or Writing About Literature--or any lit text--will provide lit analysis topics. I sympathise, though! Why is it that we writing types often are stymied when it comes to passing on what we know to our kids!?:) I do have the say that the IEW/ Wordsmith combo really jump-started me so that I ended up spending several years teaching writing to different classes of hs'ed kids. Not sure what I would have done otherwise!

Could you be a little more specific re what you're looking for? Do you want a writing "program" which tells the student what topics to write about after giving instruction on a certain aspect of style or structure? Or do you just want the style or structure instruction? Do you need to start with paragraph writing or go right into essay writing? Are you looking for instruction in literary analysis papers as well, or research writing for, say, history? Depending on what you want, there are (far, far!) too many options out there. LIke you, I have always been a "natural writer" yet was paralyzed at the thought of *teaching* writing to my children. Way back when, I opted for IEW because the student learned structure and style based on given source texts (our writing has always been tied to history, geography, science, or literature; never used a "stand-alone" composition program). Mind you, I never followed IEW exactly as it was laid out, and combined its approach with material from Wordsmith and some other sources. Extra practice in sentence styles and construction has come from the Sentence Composing series. That combination worked well for my older sons. Now,however, I have an 8 yr old who is cannot remain indefinitely at the narration stage, and a 13 yr old who, although writing well-crafted sentences, doesn't quite seem to have a grasp on paragraphing. For him, I thought I would try PTIW but the sheer volume of the tome has oppressed me and we never got off the ground with it. Also, since we have been using Analytical Grammar, I really did not want to wade through the grammar review in PTIW. Lo and behold, I found on my shelves a slim IEW publication, A Writer's Guide to Powerful Paragraphs, along with a syllabus of suggested assignments (Also from IEW). WGTPP presents 30 different types of paragraphs with analysis of them in bite-sized chapters. We will zip through that before moving on to real essay writing for that son. As for son #4-- as my Last Great Homeschooling Hope, he will (I can only pray) receive the benefit of my learning from all previous mistakes!

To the left of the thread titles are two columns of icons. At the bottom of the page, the "envelope"-type icons are explained (though I'm wondering just how a "hot" thread is differentiated from a plain old ordinary thread...)--the icons on the far left column. But what about those in the nearer left column--how do they appear there and what do they mean? And good heavens--now we have the option of *rating* threads? Do we get prizes if one of ours is picked?? ;)

...that some have mentioned? All I can find on my screen (below the list of thread/ post titles) is a button reading "Display Options"--but the options are periods of time covered, etc. Still trying to like this new forum style (but having a hard time of it....):confused:

Heather, your daughters are still very young. To get you started, I'd suggest perhaps Teaching the Classics (DVD and syllabus) which demonstrates textual analysis covering the basic literary elements. A fun "put it in action" book (for you) is Deconstructing Penguins, which approaches lit analysis with young children like yours.That will show you ways of incorporating Socratic-style questioning to bring out the elements of a text. If your middle-school children like fill-in-the-blank style workbooks, you might supplement with Figuratively Speaking, which defines terms and provides workpages using excerpts from age-appropriate literature. I haven't used Omnibus but have taught LLLOTR in a co-op class. Although it does cover many literary terms and elements, it tends not to revisit any of them once introduced--I found that disappointing and ended up having to guide students towards ongoing analysis myself. You can certainly save that course for high school. Once there, a very helpful book is Writing About Literature, by Edgar V. Roberts (available used in many editions). This is a combination lit analysis text and anthology, so all the texts (short stories, poetry, drama) analysed in the text are also included there, along with sample essays to show the student how to construct an argumentative/ analytical paper. (Thanks, by the way, to Janice in NJ and Kathleen for pointing me towards DP and WAL, respectively).

I've come to see over the years that I cannot fit my boybarians into the classical mold. Now I think of myself no longer as a "classical" (or "neo-classical") hs'er; I've altered my "label" to "resigned classical"--as in, classical in inclination,but resigned to real-life with boys :rolleyes:. BTW, Janice, I wanted to thank you for your recommendation of Deconstructing Penguins. Lots of fun and puts a face on what Teaching the Classics outlines.

Maybe it's because I'm so technologically challenged...but I loved the "old-fashioned" style of board, where you could just scroll down to see what was new in any given thread. The length of time it takes me to browse around the board now will most likely cause me to give up my "virtual support group" most of the time. I do understand the reason behind the switch, but oh, for the good old days...:rolleyes:

...if you would like me to send it to you, e-mail me privately as I don't think I'll be using these new boards much--much less user-friendly to me than the old style!

...edition of Sound and Sense (the one from Sonlight) and could loan it to you for the cost of postage if you'd like.