Here's another perspective--I've ordered from Rainbow Resource for years and never had anything come late. Maybe it's geography? I'm in California.

Thanks for so much detail Eliana. It's great to get different opinions so I can weigh them all and then decide what's best for my situation. I'm afraid it reinforces though a friend's reaction after reviewing my very long list when I first started the process of preparing for this class. She said. "You just have to come to the realization that you can't cover all the highlights of British Literature in one year." So true! What I love about homeschooling however is that we can each take our philosophy of education and the temperaments and interests of our kids and tailor fit a course like this to our needs. Since the public school kids (in my area anyway) aren't even offered British Lit in high school, any fairly decent list of classics will put them miles ahead of where they'd be otherwise.:thumbup:

Thanks for all the ideas and especially specifics from recent experience from Amanda. It helped me realize that I always teach literature in an historical context because I don't think literature should be read and discussed and analyzed in a vacuum. History influences literature and literature influences history (ever heard of John Locke?). So even though Sonlight arranged the books somewhat randomly, I had fun tonight arranging the choices I've made from their list (and a few favorites of my own) chronologically and categorizing them into several historical periods. It'll help me remind the class what was going on socially, politically, spiritually and economically as we delve into a novel. And since my son (who will be in the class) is studying British history this year as well, it'll be a double bonus for him. Thanks again to everyone. And if anyone has any additional thoughts, I'll take any and all ideas/advice. :grouphug:

Amanda Thanks for your info. Is very helpful. A couple more questions. Sonlight didn't arrange their literature chronologically or by genre but it seemed to be organized in order to provide variety. When I checked with SL curriculum advisor to confirm that, she said yes, SL felt best to follow difficult bk w/ easy one. But, she said, I could rearrange book order no problem. Questions: 1- Did you follow the Sonlight book order and how did that work? Do you think reading the books chronologically would have worked better? 2- Do you agree with advisor that each work is stand alone and the student pages don't build one on another so I can rearrange book list order?

My kids had a great time in the teen program at our homeschool conference because the entire weekend was a mock legislative session put on by "Generation Joshua." They're a group run by former homeschooled kids--now young adults--who have an organization that encourages teenagers to get more involved in the political process. I had never heard of them before but was so impressed I paid $25 to get free access to their online classes for a year. I thought it would be a cheap and easy way for my senior this fall to get his civics out of the way. Anyone used this organization's online courses?

I too love Sonlight and I too found I needed to take a break. In my case, I was a die hard Sonlighter for 7 years. Found as my oldest entered high school he needed his history more time efficiently packed. Sonlight had done its job--he loved history and saw the big picture. So his freshman year we started with Stobaugh's "For such a time as this" World Lit/World History, Rhetoric his sophomore year and American Lit/American history this past year as a junior. The literature and history curriculum complement and refer to one another. Very reasonably priced. Critical thinking questions are great. But there are some weaknesses. In the three programs of Stobaugh's that I've used he provides student examples that would be typical of a college graduate student's writing so the student really can't relate. And the amount of work he asks of the student seems to assume this is the student's only subject. So you the mom need to go through and pick and choose what your student will do. World Lit/history was great. I cannot recommend the rhetoric course. Some good ideas. But the teacher's manual was useless. American Lit/history had great focus on world views and good critical thinking questions but found many of the writers he chose were obscure and to the student often cryptic. In hindsight I should have skipped some of his chapters and I think it would have been much better. I had forgotten one of Sonlight's guidelines I'm sure you know--you control the curriculum, don't let the curriculum control you. I too am new to the forum and started a thread the day before you joined asking for feedback on Sonlight's British Lit because I'm coming back to Sonlight for my son's senior year and want some ideas of what to keep, what to pare down etc. If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. If you want to respond, the thread started 7/8/08, 10:41pm.

Just did Poe this last year with American Lit. Ok curriculum with Stobaugh. Liked his focus on world views. Did you know Poe was an existentialist? I love that with homeschooling--no matter how good an education we moms got--we're always learning along with our kids.

Anyone know of British history curriculum to go with the British Lit class I'm teaching my son this fall? Ideally literature based but even a textbook would be helpful that I can use to hang historical fiction on. All I'm finding is European with British thrown in.

Eliana great list! any ideas for high school curriculum focusing on British history to go with my senior's British Lit course?

This is one of those classes that many moms find difficult to teach and/or find an unwilling high schooler. I've been homeschooling for 15 years and have had my struggles in various subjects. Conveniently, I have also been a college communications teacher for 20+ years so when it came time to teach "rhetoric" (a fancy term for public speaking and critical thinking and writing skills) which is in fact a state requirement in California, (hence California univ. & colleges expect to see it on a transcript) I taught 10 other kids along with mine since it's really not the same to give a speech to your younger siblings and mom as it is to a "real" audience--all of whom will be up there in turn and know it. However, I've known of other moms in my area who have done this just fine without my academic credentials--just a personal interest in public speaking or perhaps learned the ropes through an older child's interest in debate and/or public speaking. So if you don't think you're the one to teach, put it out to your network to see who would be. Or create a more traditional co-op where each mom takes a "group" oriented subject like public speaking, science etc. However, in my area high school level classes are typically paid classes due to the prep time needed to make it a "real" class. Re; curriculum, I used Stobaugh and though he had some good ideas, teacher's manual wasn't useful and I ended up creating most of the course.

I'm teaching a class using Sonlight's British Literature. Sonlight recommends 24 titles plus "Sound and Sense" for the poetry unit. I have three issues related to the titles Sonlight recommends plus a few titles I've added. See titles below.* 1- I'm trying to minimize the cost of buying books since they're already buying the Sonlight copyright fees for the student pages from my teacher's manual. I've already given the moms all the typical advice--ie buy discount, used, borrow or library. Do you recommend any of the titles be studied as excerpts vs entire text? (I always like entire text but I'm trying to consider the needs of all of my students.) 2-Some of my students have the ability and time to read and write about all 24 titles, some don't. I've decided to teach 18 titles to everyone. Whoever wants to can do the "Advanced track" and read additional titles with accompanying writing assignments. Any thoughts which titles should be for everyone, which more advanced? 3- Sonlight recommends "Sound and Sense" for the poetry unit for $80. I found it in Rainbow Resource for $65 but it's still to much for my moms to pay. Anyone used this? Can I just buy it and use it as a teacher's manual and have students get poetry from Gutenberg Press or some such place? Rainbow Resource recommends a poetry unit by Progeny Press for about $20 they said is almost as good. Anyone used it? Thanks for any feedback you can give me whether you've used Sonlight British Lit or some other curriculum. *18 Titles for "standard" class: Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Canterbury Quintet, The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Hamlet, The Importance of Being Earnest, Peter Pan, Frankenstein, A Tale of Two Cities, Gulliver's Travels, A Midsummer's Night Dream, Pride and Prejudice, The Hobbit, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass, Mere Christianity, Murder on the Orient Express, Passage to India, Right Ho, Jeeves 12 Titles for "advanced" track: Emma, Wuthering Heights, Dubliners, The Great Divorce, Lord of the Flies, Paradise Lost, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Jane Eyre, Ivanhoe, Pygmalion, The Best of Father Brown, The Secret Sharer & other stories