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i.love.lucy

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    GoT fans

    in The Chat Board

    Posted · Edited by i.love.lucy

    The whole point is that he isn't Ned's son, but Ned was asked to claim his as his to protect him.

     

    He'd have an even greater following/claim to the throne if he was Targaryen + Stark. Maybe he'll marry Dani.

    Help me pick a version of Paradise Lost!

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    Uh.  I had NO IDEA.  Thank you so much for this!  With this group I can certainly NOT choose this book. Sigh...back to more searching.

     

    I have one long semester to attempt as much lit as I can.  I may have planned too long of a reading time for each so maybe I can squeeze in an extra work or two.  Time period is Fall of Rome-1800 (Tapestry year 2). So far I have:

     

    Beowulf - Heany (2 weeks)

    select Canturbury Tales (3 weeks) <-- to long for just General Prologue and 2 tales?

    Once and Future King - White     I chose this because I think exposure to the Arthurian legend is important and this is a good one.  Agree? (4 weeks)

    Paradise Lost

    Pride and Prejudice (4 weeks)  This one is slightly past the 1800 mark but is on the ToG booklist.

    I have a couple of weeks reserved for a final but can rethink that.

     

    Please tell me what you would add.  Maybe 2 more works. My mind is spinning with so many books and so little time.  This is a group of 9th/10th grade and most of them have not been challenged by difficult literature before.  Other ideas I had were possibly Robin Hood, skip OaFK and do Sir Gawain instead, Dante??, Aladdin? No Shakespeare is included because we are doing that in a separate classical theater class.

     

    I also plan to make suggestions to the parents of additional books the "honors" kids might want to read to turn this year in to a Brit Lit year. 

     

    Edited to add: I'm sorry I'm repeating myself.  I just wanted to be clear on what I have chosen and why so I can get some input and suggestions.  :thumbup1:

     

    Favorite resources for 10th-11th English Co-op class?

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    I have a mixed class of 9th/10th graders this year. We're doing Lost Tools of Writing using ancient lit and its going very well. They needed this year of very specific persuasive writing instruction.

     

    Next year I plan Windows to the World 1st semester and then 2nd semester we'll read and write using medieval-1800 lit. All British. I'm going to give the parents a list of additional titles I think would round out a solid British lit year so they could either call it literary analysis or British lit. Almost like an honors option.

     

    My understanding is that EiW doesn't have specific writing instruction so if you can provide that it's fine. I'm hoping to use EiW-American the following year as it looks good and hopefully we will be past needing specific instruction

    Help me pick a version of Paradise Lost!

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    I know the Norton is the most recommended, but it's expensive.  This is for a Year 2 Tapestry co op class.  I'm going to use WttW for the 1st semester to teach lit anal. but then do literature 2nd semester.  I'd really like to expose them to Paradise Lost and what I think I am REALLY looking for is a No Fear edition.  But to my knowledge that doesn't exist.  My kiddos will mostly be sophomores and TBH they are not the literature superstars we might hope for.  I just don't think they can handle the original version...so should I drop it?  Several of them actually have documented learning disabilities. 

     

    I planned (over 18 weeks of a 2nd semester):  Beowulf, Canturbury Tales (select), The Once and Future King (to get the Arthurian legend in), Paradise Lost, and Pride and Prejudice.  For the more capable students I plan to assign more of the Brit Lit genre and they can hopefully turn this course into a Survey of British Literature on their transcript if they would like, but for most of them they really need a Literary Analysis and Writing course.

     

    Does that look like a weird list for a co-op? I know there are SO. MANY. BOOKS. we are not covering, but there is only so much time.  I think 5-7 are good.  How would you change my arrangement and/or do you have a Paradise Lost to recommend or what would you sub for that?

     

    BTW, so as not to think we are slighting Our Friend Shakespeare, we are doing Julius Caesar this year, Midsummer Night's Dream in a drama class next year, and for the "Brit Lit" suggestion I plan to suggest several more.

    Questions about EiL

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    So Debbie or Nakia...here's my situation, maybe you can help me.

     

    Doing ToG ancients this year with a group of 12 teens, almost all freshmen.  I am using Lost Tools of Writing with ancient lit for them, so they will have a good grip on the persuasive essay by the end of the year, as well as having read Virgil, Homer, Gilgamesh, Greek myths, etc.

     

    Next year would be 10th grade, Medieval.  I am thinking that instead of LTW 2, we might all enjoy moving more in to lit analysis and nailing down what that is...but with lots of writing.  Thing is I want to use lit selections that go along with the history time period.  Should I skip that idea and just use my Medieval selection as the "honors" titles and use EiL as scheduled?  Is there enough explicit writing instruction for writing lit analysis?  In general terms I like the lit selections a lot, they just don't really line up with Medieval!  WttW is the same problem, really.  I want to schedule the books I want dangit!  But I don't know how to write it all myself.

     

    Can anyone chime in about this?

    Favorite Lit/comp

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    Just added the senior and intro materials...last year's is up there...will upload the 9th/10th when I get back from vacation :) Hope they can be of use to families! I have a blast teaching them to our students...the last assignment of the year for the Intro is kind of cryptic...I didn't want to reveal to much and do not have time to lay out ideas for each lesson, I'm a kind of go with the flow teacher. I plan on doing an Amazing Race wrap up by pairing students up and going through all the 'locales' we visited during the  year (sentence structure/vocabulary/literary devices) and having them compete for the Amazing team award :) Can't let it out or my students will be cramming for it for the competitive edge :)

     

     

    Are you back from vacation yet?!  ;) I have been stalking your website for a few days as I try to figure out what to do next year  to teach mostly 10th graders lit/comp in co-op.

     

    For anyone:   This year I am using LTW 1 but with ancient lit.  I think it will work pretty well and I have slowed the pace to add in some time for book discussion.  I will be using questions from Teaching the Classics and will try to get my hands on TWEM to give me more helps in discussion.  But this is not a lit analysis course, it's really just literature of the ancients and writing the persuasive essay.

     

    These kids have all had at least one year of IEW, and probably various other misc writing.  Now they'll have a solid year of the persuasive essay.  I would love to just continue with lit that corresponds to our history rotation (medieval) but all the lit analysis and comp  guides seem to use very specific lit that doesn't translate well to me using my own selections.  It seems WttW would be perfect except for that, and EiL doesn't have enough specific instruction maybe for kids very new to literary analysis and writing about it.  Anyone have any thoughts on that or other suggestions? Or is lit analysis critical enough to forget trying to tie in the corresponding lit (just assign some of those titles as pure reading for their history class).

     

    Ok, no more rambling... :willy_nilly:

    Starting a co-op any books you suggest I should read first?

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    I thought this was a good read:  http://www.expandingwisdom.com/p/starting-classical-co-op.html

     

    A friend and I are teaching a small group of high schoolers this year. I'm teaching writing/lit using LToW, and she's using ToG to teach Ancients.  Our goal is to get this group (which includes our two eldest kids) through the 4 year history cycle through high school.  Then we eventually had 12 other kids join us!  We also had to have a plan for younger siblings, so this is now explanding to planning a full out co-op for next year.  I'm on the hunt for resources and discussion. 

     

    Those that teach HS writing in a co-op setting, may I ask what you use for writing?  We are using LToW, which I love, but I am not sure all the parents or kids would want to do LToW 2 for sophomore year.  They may want to have a year with guided instruction for different types of essays/research papers, however I still hope to combine it with literature.  Unsure what direction to take.

    Question About Aeneid (Church), Tales From Shakespeare (Lamb), Canterbury Tales (McCaughrean)

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    What is CHOLL??

     

    Church's Aeneid: yes, an average homeschooled 4th grader (meaning one who has a habit of reading something other than graphic novels ;)) should have no problems with this. CHOLL even has (FREE!) notes/questions to go with this.

     

    Lamb's Shakespeare: my very literate 6th grader balked the first time he read Lamb's. We had to narrate paragraph by paragraph, draw some "flowcharts" to keep the characters straight, and look some words up in the dictionary. It was good for him. After a few sessions of this, he could do it all on his own, and even admitted to liking it. The fifth grader needed me to hold his hand all year with Lamb's...different boys.

     

    McCaughrean's Canterbury Tales: even though it is a modern retelling, I wouldn't do the whole book with a 4th grader, maybe just selected tales that are a little less, earthy....

    I may have found what I'm looking for in a program that truly uses literature to study LA skills.

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    If he's reading well, you might not want to do reading instruction with RLTL.  I'm one of several people using RLTL as a spelling program.  My daughter is a solid reader, but we're working through the phonograms and then doing the spelling lists.  It totally works just for that.  I'm considering pulling out the reading part so that she can practice reading aloud (since that's a slightly different skill and we haven't been doing it since finishing OPGTR) but our focus will still be on spelling.  Kathy Jo recommends starting with RLTL1 if the child hasn't ever done an OG program before, but suggests going at a faster pace with older kids working through RLTL1.  There are a lot of phonograms to learn, and if the child hasn't learned them before it would be really overwhelming to jump in at level 2.

     

    My dd hasn't had any handwriting instruction before, so we're using HLTL.  If your son is fine copying the sample, and forms the letters correctly, I'm guessing that you wouldn't need to do HLTL.  But yes, if he needs samples, you'll want the workbook.

     

    HTH!

    :)

     

    Anabel, this is very very helpful!

     

    After looking through the samples more I think I'll just back up on ELtL to level one too.  We have not done that literature and it's too good to skip.  Plus the copywork is more challenging in level 2 and that's where he needs some work.

     

    Can anyone tell me... hardcopy vs ebook?  I see the paper version of 1&2 combined for like $33 on Amazon.  Seems like quite a savings to me.  I recall a complaint or something earlier in the thread that it's too big?  Would it not be pretty easy to split it yourself into 2 parts and spiral?

     

    I'm going to get the ebook of RLtL 1 and skip the reader.  I hope to move really quickly through the spelling.  I wonder if anyone can tell me a few words on the last couple of spelling lists from level 1?

     

    Still super undecided on handwriting and buy/not buy a workbook for ELtL.  He's been working through the first cursive book of HWT, but he goes sooooooo slllllooooooowwww forming each and every letter attempting perfection.  And I notice it seems like he has to try too hard to make his letters vertical when his natural tendency seems to slant.  So I think I might have to drop it and find a more traditional slant cursive.  But I would hate to get the HLtL and start him that far over with forming all the phonograms.  He will really and truly look at me like "you have got to be kidding me".  Anyone have additional advice?

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