If you're interested, The Teaching Company has an excellent Discrete Mathematics course which might help pull all the topics together; it's 24 half-hour lectures and it even includes a lecture on cryptography. My DH really enjoyed the course, and it has 5 out of 5 stars from all 22 reviewers. It's currently on sale ($70), and the coupon code FRTH is good for free shipping. Jackie

Lial's BCM and the Cengage version of the Aufmann Basic Math text each have one chapter on introductory algebra that isn't in the CD Basic Math text you have, but those concepts will be covered in CD's Prealgebra (also by Aufmann). In fact, about half of the Prealgebra text covers the same concepts as the Basic Math book. Jackie

He was only in 4th grade; his mom had no idea what to do with him, so he ended up playing video games for a year until they put him back in PS. I actually considered offering to school him, but he's an Aspie, as emotionally intense as he is brilliant, and I didn't feel like I could take that on, on top of educating my own kids. But it really breaks my heart to see a kid like that stuck in PS. I actually wish there were more options for homeschooling — more hybrid options or specialized coops or mentoring centers or something — for kids who really need an individualized education but whose parents just can't do it. Jackie

:iagree: I think many parents who are homeschooling now do so for very different reasons than those who were the pioneers a generation or two ago. It seems like a lot of people who would not choose to homeschool if they had a decent PS system are being forced into it because their kids have LDs or are being bullied or are being exposed to things like sex, drugs, and violence at shockingly young ages. DVD-based curricula, online courses, coops, scripted programs, etc., make it possible for a lot of people to homeschool who would not otherwise be capable of it. Maybe some parents do choose coops or online courses out of fear that they aren't capable of teaching their kids, but maybe those fears are well-founded — not everyone is cut out to be a teacher. If a parent really does not have the time/energy/personality to teach her kids at home, a coop day and a bunch of online courses may still be a much better alternative than leaving the kids in a horrible school system where they're failing or being bullied or assaulted in the bathroom. I know of several families whose kids are really not being well-served by PS, but they tried homeschooling and failed. The moms just could not make it work for a variety of different reasons — mom had to work part-time, kid wouldn't accept instruction from "mom," kid pushed too many buttons and mom didn't have the patience, kid was P/G and mom had no idea how to keep him stimulated, etc. Maybe if they'd had access to more outside resources/teachers/mentors, those kids wouldn't have ended up back in PS. I think the vast majority of homeschooling parents really do care about their kids' education and are doing the best they can, even if this new version of "homeschooling" looks very different from the way it did 20 years ago. Jackie

Do you have the publisher's version of the Aufmann BCM text, or Chalkdust's repackaging of it? My copy of Aufmann (8th ed) actually covers more than Lial's BCM (7th ed), but I wonder if the Chalkdust version drops the extra chapters? If you have the Chalkdust version and can post the main chapter titles, I can tell you how it compares to Lial. I would suspect, though, that you've already covered everything in Lial's BCM and can move on to either the Lial or Aufmann Prealgebra (or even into Algebra). ETA: CD's Prealgebra also uses an Aufmann text, so if that format worked well for your child, I'd stick with it. Jackie

This is why VSLs often struggle with the letters b, d, p and q — to a non-VSL those are four completely different letters, but a VSL sees a single shape rotated in space. For them it's not four distinct letters, it's one letter in four different positions, and it's harder to remember which position matches which sound. Jackie

:iagree: I'm not sure why someone would "feel sad" for those who choose a different path, when those people may in fact be perfectly happy with their choices. Maybe some of those "runaround schoolers" feel sad for kids stuck at home all day. ;) I think in any group as large and diverse as homeschoolers there will always be people who want to define what it means to be a "true [whatever]." I don't understand why people get so hung up on labels, or why anyone really cares what other people call themselves, but it does seem to be an issue in every large group. If people want to limit the term "homeschooling" to those who school at home with Mom doing most of the teaching, then I'd be happy to adopt another term. I quite like Nan's idea of "indy educators" because that's actually a lot more descriptive of what we do. Jackie

Oh Nan, don't feel small! I don't think that Karen was even disagreeing with you — just expanding on what you said. I think she was just trying to make a distinction (which others in this thread have also pointed out) between saying "this curriculum didn't work for my kids for these reasons..." or "I compared this to 3 other biology programs and felt this was the least comprehensive of the three" versus posts that say "This is a completely useless program and anyone who uses it is doing their child a terrible disservice." Because of posts of the second type, people sometimes get overly defensive and respond to posts of the first type as if they're attacks, when they're not. And I think that is actually the reason why people are so reluctant to "name names" or compare curricula — they're afraid that no matter how diplomatically they word something, any criticism of someone's favorite program will be treated as if it's an attack. For example, I've noticed that threads about certain math programs, which used to engender heated debates, now generate almost exclusively positive reviews, because those who are critical of them simply aren't willing to post about it anymore, because they know they'll be dogpiled by people defending the program. And that's a shame really, because it means newbies don't get the full spectrum of opinions, just the positive ones. Are those defenders over-reacting, or being too sensitive, or whatever? Yes — but they may have been primed to feel that way by multiple other posts that were tactless and offensive and implied that only an idiot (or someone who doesn't care if their child receives a completely inadequate education) would use a certain curriculum or teach a subject in a certain way or drop a subject, or whatever. So I think it goes both ways: yes people should be less sensitive and not take every criticism of their favorite program as a personal attack — but I think those people probably wouldn't be so hypersensitive if it weren't for the posts that do imply that anyone who does things differently from the poster is an idiot. Jackie

:iagree: These are wonderful books, don't chuck them just because they don't lend themselves to multi-level paragraph-by-paragraph outlining. They're so much richer and more engaging than an encyclopedia. :iagree: You can do a 1-level paragraph-by-paragraph outline (finding the main idea in each paragraph), or do a multi-level outline of a section or chapter as a whole, but IMHO it doesn't make much sense to try to do a multi-level outline of each paragraph in books like this. The reason books like the Kingfisher Encyclopedia lend themselves to multi-level outlining is because the information is so condensed the entries are basically just an outline in paragraph form — the student can just "unpack" the outline that's already there. Use Kingfisher or online articles (or a science textbook!) to teach outlining if you like, but use the Oxford books to teach history. Jackie

Given that he's also a budding engineer, I'd say the odds are high that he's a visual/spatial thinker. My DS used to build the most incredibly elaborate and complex 3D constructions even as a toddler, and at four he drew a picture of an octopus — with perspective and foreshortening and tentacles that curled behind each other — after watching an episode of Blue Planet. He said he just "played the video back" in his head when he wanted to draw the octopus. Many people think that VSLs just think in "pictures" instead of words, but actually they tend to think in 3D moving images — more like a 3D film than a slide show. Visualspatial.org has some useful information about teaching VSLs. Jackie

When DS was younger, he did expect the world to bend to him, and he still sometimes tends to blame others for things he needs to take responsibility for; I've worked very hard to make him see the world from another perspective — by first showing him that I understand things from his — and he has gotten much better about this over time. Even DH, when he gets particularly wound up about something, tends to revert to "blame everyone else and refuse all responsibility" mode. I've learned that aknowledging how he feels, and then gently getting him to look at things from my perspective, rather than telling him how pigheaded, selfish and unreasonable he's being, has been a lot more effective in dealing with him. And frankly he struggles with this even more than DS does, because his parents basically did tell him how pigheaded, selfish and unreasonable he was being, without attempting to see his side of things, so that pattern was well set before I met him. I don't have as many kids as you and Aime do, but DS is not an only child. I also have a 9 yo DD and have to deal with their sometimes volatile relationship, plus in many ways DH functions as a 3rd child, lol. I don't think the approach I've taken with DS (and DH) would necessarily work with every kid, and the dynamic would be more complex if I had more kids, but I don't think that necessarily means the basic approach is flawed, or impossible to implement in a larger family. What is the alternative? Jackie

We're pretty interest-led, although I wouldn't call us unschoolers. I choose the "required" subjects (math, history, science, foreign language, and reading) and the kids choose the focus and the materials. Here is DS's schedule for next fall: MATH: I have an entire shelf of texts and other resources for these and DS can choose the ones he likes best. I do give the assignments, though (e.g., one chapter, or one lesson and all odd problems, or whatever). Math usually takes about an hour. FOREIGN LANGUAGE. DS asked a few months ago to switch to Attic Greek — not an easy choice for a dyslexic! But he really wants to be able to read Greek literature and history in Greek, so he's very motivated and is working much harder than he ever did with Spanish. He's currently doing at least 30 minutes/day, 6 days/wk, which will ramp up to at least an hour/day, probably more, when his online course starts in August. HISTORY. We're moving through history chronologically, but DS chooses the pace, the focus, and the materials. He's still obsessed with all things Greek and has watched most of the Teaching Co courses and read lots of books. He's particularly interested in warfare and weapons and the history of science, so we have a lot of specialist books in those areas, as well as a shelf full of general reference works on the classical world. He also pursues lots of mini-research projects, like researching the Persian Empire when he was watching the TC course on the Greek & Persian Wars. He'll probably still be doing Rome when fall semester starts, but I think we'll be starting the Middle Ages by spring. I don't require written work for history but we have extensive discussions. (I posted about about using TC courses to model the analysis, organization, and synthesis of information here.) He does an hour/day of history, which might be 2 TC lectures, or one lecture and 30 minutes of reading, or an hour of reading. He often spends more than that, by his own choice. He also does some projects (he's currently designing and trying to build a specific type of Greek ballista, and he and DH are building a model of a Roman warship), but these are his own choice and not anything I've assigned. SCIENCE. This spring he was really into freshwater organisms and ecosystems, and we still have a aquarium full of critters he's caught in the river and likes to study, ranging from algae and protists to fish and crayfish. He knows more about planarians than anyone really needs to know, lol. He's even the "proud owner" (his words) of three different species of leeches! He has also set up a self-sustaining vivarium with a toad, plants, and reproducing populations of insects like woodlice and darkling beetles. He does lots of microscope work, specimen sketching, experiments, online and book research, virtual dissections with Froguts, etc. This summer he's doing geology & paleontology, including a few weeks on a paleo dig in July and an intensive field geology course he begged me to sign him up for in September. He's also just started watching the first of two TC courses on geology and we have a ton of geology documentaries on DVD or the DVR. In the fall he wants to do physics, so he'll watch some TC physics courses & documentaries, read his choice of "living books," and do experiments — I bought him a bunch of Supercharged Science kits, which come with DVD instructions in case DH doesn't get as involved as he's promised, lol. For science I pretty much let him do his thing; he loves science and doesn't need to be pushed or reminded. He generally spends at least 5 hrs/wk on science, although that may be two 3-hr days, or a long weekend, or something other than 1 hr/day. LANGUAGE ARTS. This is the heretical part, lol: we don't really "do" LA, although DS is currently taking an awesome intensive grammar course with Lukeion in preparation for the Greek course this fall. It's funny, engaging, and very visual, and DS is not only "getting" it, he's actually enjoying it. Generally DS reads what he wants to read, which currently averages about 500 pages/wk of fiction and anywhere from 50-100 pages or so of nonfiction. It took a long time to undo the damage from PS, which turned him from a reluctant reader into a nonreader, so I'm thrilled that he's now such an avid reader and I don't want to ruin that. For "literature" we have a stack of classical books that he can choose from; he's currently rereading the Iliad. We've done the Odyssey and some Aristophanes as a read-aloud, and he's read some of Pliny's Natural History, and bits of Herodotus and Thucydides whenever there's a reference to them in a TC history course. In the fall, I'll add a spelling program because his spelling stinks (dyslexia), and we'll drop grammar. As for writing... he just told me a couple of weeks ago that he wants to write a novel. :svengo: He used to love making up stories and illustrating them and when he was in 3rd grade he wrote and illustrated an amazing story called The Prince of Amphibia. But the never-ending narration and dictation in school made him hate writing, so he stopped. He's written about 10 pages of his "novel" so far, and has thought through a lot of the plot/characters/setting. I would love for him to do NaNoWriMo this fall, but if he's not up for it I won't push it. However he wants to record his story, whether it ends up being a novel, a graphic novel, a short story, a storyboard for a video, or whatever, is fine with me — he can learn about plot, characterization, organization, sentence structure, etc., no matter what format it's in. ART/OTHER: One of the things he did last year, completely on his own, was invent a "civilization" — complete with an alphabet and number system, mythology & religion, clothing, housing, weapons, a map of their settlements, etc. He has a sketchbook filled with his ideas, and he's even "evolving" them from forest-based hunter/gatherers to beginning agriculturalists (complete with changes to their mythology, social structure, etc.) This has actually led to other projects, including the novel described above (which is set in his fictitious civilization), and an interest in programming (see below). PROGRAMMING. DH mentioned to him one day, when he was drawing in his civilization sketchbook, that he could use those ideas to create an interactive 3D world, which DS thought was a fantastic idea. So he plans to use Alice 3.0 (which now includes lots of SIMS figures and environments, allows programming directly in Java, and allows output to youtube), plus DH wants him to learn Maya and 3D StudioMax in order to create customized characters and environments. There won't be any particular assignments or time requirements for art or programming, he can just do those when he wants. I've found that when he's allowed to pursue his interests, I don't really need to nag him or try to keep him on task; he's really into what he's doing and does it because he's wants to, not because I require it. Win/win. Jackie

I think this is a really important point, and a POV that is rarely represented here. Some kids may need years of formal grammar and years of writing weekly essays in order to learn to write well — but there are other kids for whom this may be totally unnecessary. Some kids need tons of repetition and review to learn math and for other kids that approach would make them hate math forever. Sometimes I see people post things like "Well, all those years of Writing Tales and WWE and [whatever] have finally paid off, because now in 7th grade my DS can write a decent paragraph." It's just assumed that all those years of struggle are what created the success, when it's quite possible that the child would have had exactly the same result simply by waiting until he was ready. The same applies to learning to use a textbook, or take notes, or tolerate a boring class. Maybe some kids really do need to start practicing those skills in 6th grade in order to be ready for college, but many (like Jenn's son) don't, and for some kids it will just end up totally turning them off. Jackie

I had similar issues with my son, and chose a similar approach to what you describe, and the changes in him have been dramatic, to say the least. I posted about it in this thread, posts 16, 18, 27. There are lots of other great posts in there, from JennW and others. There are many ways to learn the skills that kids need for college (and adult life). Kids can learn logic and critical thinking without a Logic text; learning the skills that produce good writing (e.g., analyzing, organizing, and synthesizing information) doesn't necessarily require a writing curriculum, etc. This is a good age to experiment with finding what works best for your son, before he completely loses interest. Jackie

I've learned a lot from VisualSpatial.org and from the Eides (both their book and the blog), as well as other books, but I've also talked a lot to DS and DH and asked them to explain things to me, explained what I thought the issue might be and asked if that made sense to them, etc. And a lot of it (in terms of seeing what works and what doesn't) is just plain trial and error. I've made a lot of mistakes in homeschooling, especially in trying to fit DS into a certain structure (WTM) that seemed appropriately rigorous and challenging for a gifted kid, without taking into account that the way he really thinks and learns looks nothing like that. I've found that the more I let him lead the way academically, the better he does. The more he follows his interests, the broader those interests grow and the deeper he pursues them. I think getting out of his way academically, while also coming alongside him emotionally, has made a big difference. (I posted a few months ago what he was doing for "school" these days: see posts 16 & 18.) With kids who tend to see things in very black-&-white terms, battling over academics can set up an adversarial relationship that can be hard to break through when you are trying to help them in other ways (emotionally, functionally). Having a hypersensitive, ADD/VSL kid who is also very strong-willed can seem like the "perfect storm" for a parenting nightmare, but the fact that she's so strong-willed may be a real asset when she's an adult, because she will not let her "differences" stop her from achieving her goals and getting what she wants in life. You just need to survive the next 5-7 years or so! Jackie

The ISBN on my 2006 Teacher's Edition is 0132508834. There is one newer edition (which is sadly the last edition Pearson will ever issue), and the rep at Pearson told me the only changes were updated links and such (no text changes). There are copies of the 2006 TE on Amazon priced from $8 used to $20 new. Jackie

Aime, I have a similar kiddo (and DH!), and I was a bit like this myself as a kid (at least in terms of being strong-willed), and I would encourage you to not take her behavior personally or see it as a character flaw. As hard as it is to parent these kids, I believe it's actually a lot harder to BE them, and as Peela said, they really need all the love and patience we can possibly muster. They often grow up to be really wonderful, tenacious, successful people. I'll address some of the behaviors individually: Honestly I don't believe this is manipulation; some people just see things in black & white — either everything is right with the world, or there's a ripple in the space/time continuum and we're all gonna diiiiiiiieeeeee! Both my DH and my DS (who are VSL/ADD/intense people like your DD) react this way to criticism. No matter how mild, constructive, or well-intentioned the criticism may be, they hear it as "you're a totally worthless, defective human being." I have had many conversations where I make a comment which is met with... DS/DH: "Yes, I know, I'm a stupid idiot who doesn't deserve to live!!!" Me: "Um, no, I just said you left your socks on the living room floor again." :confused: One of the biggest epiphanies for me, in dealing with both DS and DH, was that I was only looking at half of the VSL thing — the visual part. With VSLs like your DD and my DS, we focus on the visual part because it's easy to conceptualize the "verbal vs visual" part, and to tailor their education accordingly. But the other half of being a VSL — the sequential vs spatial part — is IMO what has the biggest impact on daily life. The epiphany for me was in realizing that the difference in "wiring" is not just thinking in images vs words, it's that the way their lives and thoughts are organized is spatial not sequential or linear or temporal. They live very much in the "here and now" and they don't organize their thoughts or actions into lists or sequences, with links between past and present and future actions. If my alarm goes off and I'm tired, I can think through a whole sequence of events: if I sleep for an extra 20 minutes, it means I will have to skip either the shower or breakfast (are there any muffins left that I could grab on the way out?), and I'll have to get the kids ready quickly (do I know where everyone's shoes and coats are?), etc. Then I can decide how much extra time I can stay in bed or whether I need to get up now. My DS and DH simply can. not. think that way. Almost everyone I know who is like DS and DH has maybe 3 "time units" they recognize: "5 minutes" (which can actually be anything from 5 minutes to an hour), "an hour or so" (which equals anywhere from 1-3 hours) and "later" (which might mean tonight or next year). Anything that takes less than an hour falls into the "5 minutes" category, even if it has taken half an hour every. single. time. they've ever taken a shower / gotten dressed / driven to the post office / whatever. My DH is 40 and I cannot tell him "be ready in an hour" because he will leave everything until 5 minutes before we need to be in the car — and then he will be upset that I'm mad at him for making us late, as if he couldn't possibly have known that getting ready would take more than 5 minutes! DH and DS both need checklists and/or reminders at each step of a multi-step process. They have no sense of time or ability to prioritize. This is actually part of the same problem — there is no past or future, just how they feel right now this minute. She wants to know about her friend right now; asking her to wait a few days is like asking her to wait until she's 20 — that's how it feels to her. The fact that all the kids had the same number of tokens half an hour ago is irrelevant — everyone has more than her right now and that feels unfair. I'm not saying that it's rational or reasonable — but that is how it feels to these kids. Telling them that their feelings are wrong doesn't work, telling them that they're being selfish or unreasonable just gets translated into "you're a terrible person for feeling what you feel," which immediately puts them into defensive mode. When DS feels something is unfair, I say "OK, I can understand why you might feel that way if you just look at what's happening this minute, but let's look at the big picture..." With the Chuck E. Cheese tokens, I would explain that I can understand why she would feel bad that everyone else is still playing when she has no more tokens, but since she played her games more quickly than the others, it isn't really unfair, just unfortunate. So how can we solve this? Maybe next time you can divide your tokens into four piles and only use one pile every 15 minutes, so they will last an hour. Or maybe you could choose games that cost fewer tokens or that provide longer play per token. Etc. Sometimes I feel like DS and DH live on a separate planet — and I know they live in their own private time zones! I've found that it works much better if I try to see things from the perspective of their planet first, and then explain to them how things work here on Earth, lol. Validating how they feel, even if it seems totally irrational to me, helps prevent that spiral of defensiveness and resentment. Jackie

The ADHD and SPD may just be two different labels for the same thing: ADHD describes the behavior ("has trouble paying attention and moves around a lot") and SPD describes the reason behind the behavior. My understanding of proprioceptive SPD is that the feedback loop between the brain and body does not work well — the brain has trouble registering where the body is in space, so there's this constant neurological "chatter" going on in the background where the brain is asking all the body parts "where are you?" and the parts are saying "over here" — sort of like a neurological game of Marco Polo. This is why sensory-seeking SPD kids are constantly fiddling with things, wiggling their feet, bouncing up and down, chewing on things, etc. — their brain needs that constant feedback. Unfortunately, that uses up a ton of "bandwidth," which can make it extremely difficult to focus on other things — sort of like trying to have an important phone conversation while half a dozen kids are running around yelling and being crazy! The need for control is very common in SPD kids. One of the books I read described having proprioceptive SPD as always feeling as if you're about to fall off the earth, with no sense of being stable or grounded, so it's not surprising that anxiety tends to be a big problem in these kids. Bouncing, wrestling, bear hugs, and other activities that involve compression often make them feel more contained and secure. The lack of eye contact in kids with SPD may not be a social aversion so much as an attempt to limit sensory input — if they are trying to listen to something or think about something, they may need to close down other "input ports" in order to concentrate the limited bandwidth they have on just one thing — just as I might close my eyes if I'm trying to listen to a faint sound in order to better process it. Some of the traits you listed may be Aspie traits, but they may also be characteristic of other issues. I tend to think that most kids end up with one or two big labels that do little more than describe a behavior problem, when if you really look closely and try to tease the issues apart, you find a constellation of more specific labels* that may be better at explaining the behavior. If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend The Mislabeled Child by Brock and Fernette Eide. They are neurologists who specialize in teasing apart the complicated components of quirky kids — in a way that makes it much easier to address and improve the specific problems — rather that just slapping a big old "doesn't pay attention" or "is somewhere on the autistic spectrum but we don't know where" type label. *ETA: In my son's case, this includes SPD and a combination of LDs that are often characteristic of extreme visual/spatial learners: dyslexia, slow [verbal] processing speed, and poor [verbal] working memory. When he was young (before 7 or so), he was slow to talk (and mumbled a lot when he did start speaking), was socially awkward, fiddled/jumped/moved incessantly, had boundary issues (liked to bump into kids and wrestle), didn't know how to "play normally," had frequent (HUGE) meltdowns from sensory overload, and probably would have been diagnosed as somewhere on the spectrum, had he been in PS. He's 13 now — he has no problems with social appropriateness or boundary issues; he's still highly sensitive and perfectionist (very common in gifted kids) but he's learned to control the meltdowns; he has a number of really good friends and is very popular in any group he's a member of (and is often a leader); and he's very empathetic and compassionate (i.e., no trouble putting himself in "someone else's shoes" or understanding things from someone else's perspective). He has SPD and assorted LDs, but he's not an Aspie, even though his behavior may have looked like that at the age of 6. Jackie

Oh I agree that there needn't be any conflict at all between formalist analysis and other approaches. To me, formalist analysis is one of many tools in the larger "literary analysis tool box," each of which contributes to the understanding and appreciation of literature as a whole (just as dissection contributes to, but is not sufficient for, an understanding of amphibians). Limiting one's analytical "tool box" to a single tool, IMO, would be like having a tool box at home that included nothing but screwdrivers; suggesting that hammers, wrenches, saws, and drills are also useful is in no way a criticism of screwdrivers. I especially agree with what you said about discussion: "The discussion that surrounds that taking of positions is what connects reading history and literature to real life." I attended an LAC where Socratic questioning and small, seminar-style discussions formed the core of my undergraduate education. It's precisely those sorts of discussions, where kids are forced to find and defend their positions and think deeply about literature, history, and philosophy, as well as the connections between them and the connections to the student's own lives, that I try to emulate in homeschooling. To me, that is the real essence of a classical education. What matters in the long run isn't what curriculum someone uses or which Great Books list they read or exactly how they approach literary analysis; what matters is all that questioning, discussion, and analysis. Jackie

What a wonderful post, Andrew! I particularly like this: It summarizes perfectly the problem I have with trying to limit literary analysis to a purely formalist approach. E.g.: IMO, this "scientific" approach to literature will only take you so far, as you pointed out: Jackie

Thank you for posting that! Even in a frazzled, stress-out state you are apparently thinking more clearly than I — the quote from the College Board summarizes in a clear, succinct, and objective way, what some of us have been inefficiently rambling on about for the last 7 pages. :tongue_smilie: It also directs the discussion back to what is probably the key point here: even if a parent believes that literary analyses involving "experience," "interpretation," "reaction," "artistic judgements," and "social and cultural values," are complete BS, those things are an integral component of literary analysis as it is taught and defined in college and AP courses here. Therefore, even if a parent considers "focused analyses of language and structure" to be the only approach worthy of the name, IMHO students should ideally be exposed to all aspects of analysis, not just one. Jackie

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Oh I wasn't disagreeing with you, or even directing my comments specifically at you — I was just responding to the links you posted, because I do think they are representative of the way most American colleges (and high schools for that matter) approach literary analysis. FWIW, I never had a literature class that was purely a "form and mechanics class" or that required that approach in all writing assignments; IME that is not how either composition classes or 100-200 level lit courses are taught here. In fact, most composition classes that I have seen (in researching current Gen Ed requirements at various colleges) do not focus purely on literary analysis, let alone a very narrow formalist approach to literary analysis, but rather incorporate many types of research and writing (as Karen pointed out earlier). I would imagine that, at an American university, a class in strict formal/structural literary analysis would be an upper level or graduate course, in which case students would have already taken a number of introductory literature classes and would therefore have the necessary foundational skills to tackle it. I think that analysis of content, meaning, context, etc., is actually more accessible to younger students and that very detailed formalist analyses require more advanced background and training (IOW, the reverse of the order Ester Maria recommends). And that does in fact seem to be the order in which these things are taught in American universities. Jackie

I print and comb-bind one book at a time (3A, 3B, etc). Printing in color on the "fast draft" setting results in slightly more pastel colors but saves a ton of ink. I print single-sided because (1) it's faster and (2) when the workbook is open flat, the blank back of the previous page serves as scratch paper. Jackie