Smarr Literature guides - Medieval & Renaissance Q's

[SS in MD]

I'm looking into literature guides for 8th grade. My dd will be studying Middle Ages/Renaissance/Reformation. I was wondering if anyone has tried the Smarr Lit guides? specifically their Medieval & Early Renaissance guides

- Is 8th grade too early to start?

- Any likes/dislikes?

- Is it a good program that teaches literary analyis? I noticed there were also writing exercies - are these good?

 

Thanks for any help you can give

 

 

 

[bugs]

:lurk5:

[Beebalm]

:lurk5::bigear:

[Musicmom]

I'm looking into literature guides for 8th grade. My dd will be studying Middle Ages/Renaissance/Reformation. I was wondering if anyone has tried the Smarr Lit guides? specifically their Medieval & Early Renaissance guides

- Is 8th grade too early to start?

- Any likes/dislikes?

- Is it a good program that teaches literary analyis? I noticed there were also writing exercies - are these good?

 

Thanks for any help you can give

 

 

 

We used Smarr Medieval along with Omnibus II (in attempt to cover literary analysis and fill in some books we wanted to do.) The guide for each book is broken down into daily lessons. Each lesson contains:

 

Vocabulary study (about 4 words from the book),

Reading assignment,

Recall questions on the reading assignment (straightforward),

One or two critical thinking questions, and

A few "bonus thoughts", which explain some things from the reading or might point out some aspect of literary analysis.

 

Writing instruction is also broken into lessons and interspersed amongst the guides, so after you finish the lessons on a book, you might do 4 days of writing exercises followed by a paper. There are about 8 papers. The instructions for each of the papers are mostly boiler plate and tend to ask for a 5-paragraph essay on some rhetorical issue in one of the books. There are also some timed essay exercises. As I recall, there were also some grammar/writing quizzes.

 

To answer your questions:

--8th grade: I think an 8th grader could do the program--although may need extra help in working with the critical thinking questions and essays.

 

--Likes: The schedule is very nicely laid out. The books are generally good choices. The poetry section is very good. The grammar/writing quizzes were in the format you find on the PSAT. The timed essays were useful.

 

--Dislikes:

1) No answers for the critical thinking questions... not that you'd be looking for the "right" answer--there isn't one--but there's nothing to help if the discussion stalls.

2) The critical thinking questions tended to be very transparent in showing the author's particular opinion or religious and political point of view--both in the topics of the questions and the way they were worded. While I think it was worthwhile to see and discuss this different perspective, we did get very tired of it...

3) Not much literary analysis. A few points here and there in the bonus thoughts, but nothing systematic or comprehensive.

4) Writing instruction was weak--it seemed okay at first, but as time went on we began to have concerns. We found numerous examples in the student guides of bad editing, poor usage and even grammar issues. As a result, ds and I lost confidence in the writing instruction and we abandoned it.

 

Well, that was our experience anyway--I wouldn't say it's a bad program or advise against it. It worked okay for us, and was easier/less stress than Omnibus. I would consider using a different writing program though, and I would look to other sources for literary analysis and more neutral discussion questions.

 

Hope this helps!

[Ellie]

Good review. :-)

 

In Smarr's defense, it is literature, not composition. It is not intended to take the place of writing instruction and assignments; IOW, I would always recommend adding another product for composition.

[SS in MD]

Musicmom,

 

Thanks for the detailed review. It was very helpful. I think we'll either do Omni II or LL 8 (I know 2 totally different programs!) LOL...

[Musicmom]

Funny you mention LL 8! :001_smile: My dd did LL 8 last year in 8th grade and I was very pleased with it. I think it gives a good gentle introduction to literary analysis. Easy to implement too--it's all scheduled out. Too bad I didn't find it early enough to use with ds (the one who did Omni II in 10th).

[SS in MD]

Thanks for the advice on LL 8... I think maybe what we'll do is use LL 8 and add in a few GB books on our own... along with essay writing. I have a friend who had done GB book studies with all her kids and said she can give me all the books and she'll be happy to critique the essays! I didn't know LL 8 was scheduled out - for LL 7 I had to do that on my own.

 

Thanks!

Sangita