Smarr or Lighting Lit?

[Suzybearybake]

Well, now I am in the process of throughly changing direction for child #2. We ended up going with Truthquest Middle Ages for history and Literary lessons in Lord of the Rings for 7th grade. If we decide to stick with Truthquest for the duration throughout high school, will lack of documented grades be a problem or should we be using something with tests, quizzes, and comprehension questions? This would also change the rotation of literature. Would I be better off with Smarr or Lightening Lit? What is the difference? What is the group's preference? Would the Lightning Lit Shakespere be too difficult for an eight grader studying that time period?

[Barb_]

We tried Smaar a few years ago and didn't care for it. I think I remember too many typos and the discussion questions really weren't good fodder for discussion. They were mostly factual questions rather than interpretation questions. I'm sure someone who has used these programs more recently can offer a better critique, but I saw your post hadn't received any responses yet and I wanted to give it a little nudge to the top ;)

 

Documented grades haven't been a problem here as long as we had a booklist and course descriptions. Big universities didn't even want that much.

 

Barb

 

Well, now I am in the process of throughly changing direction for child #2. We ended up going with Truthquest Middle Ages for history and Literary lessons in Lord of the Rings for 7th grade. If we decide to stick with Truthquest for the duration throughout high school, will lack of documented grades be a problem or should we be using something with tests, quizzes, and comprehension questions? This would also change the rotation of literature. Would I be better off with Smarr or Lightening Lit? What is the difference? What is the group's preference? Would the Lightning Lit Shakespere be too difficult for an eight grader studying that time period?

[Lori D.]

Only have experience with SMARR's study guide for The Epic of Gilgamesh, not their full literature program. However, it was only 4 pieces of paper folded over to make 8 pages. The questions were more comprehension based (who did this, what happened after that), with only about 8 real discussion questions. The vocabulary list was based on their particular translation. Not much in the way of extra activities or writing assignments.

 

We were pleased with the middle school levels with Lightning Lit. Haven't used one of the high school levels yet to comment, but I would expect it to be somewhat similar: good teaching text, vocabulary, discussion questions, variety of writing assignments.

 

If you're willing to use individual study guides for some of the works you want to go over, I'm really impressed with the high school level study guides put out by Garlic Press publishers. (http://garlicpress.com/cgi-bin/shop_gp.cgi?product=LITERATURE) We're using the one to go along with The Odyssey right now -- meaty!

 

No personal experience yet, but a lot of people here and said the free Spark Notes guides (http://www.sparknotes.com/) are good, as well as the (not free) Progeny Press guides. (http://www.progenypress.com/) And "Brightest Heaven of Invention" has been mentioned here before as a good resource for doing Shakespeare. (http://www.amazon.com/Brightest-Heaven-Invention-Christian-Shakespeare/dp/1885767234/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205649609&sr=8-1)

 

 

Best of luck -- and enjoy your literature journey! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[Kelli in TN]

I did not answer last night because I have never used Lightning Lit so I cannot compare the two.

 

I did, however, use the full Smarr program for 2 years. With my next high schooler I will probably use it for all 4 years of high school.

 

It is as the others have said, mostly factual questions. The student is given a certain number of pages to read, vocabulary to learn, factual questions to answer, and then what is called the critical thinking questions. There are suggested writing assignments for each piece of literature. Sometimes we used these and sometimes I assigned my own.

 

If you are pressed for time, the simplicity of Smarr can be a blessing. If you are treading into waters that you have never swum in before because your education did not include these works of literature, Smarr can be a big help.

 

I have heard that the earlier editions were full of typos and spelling errors. The editions I have are not so.

[vmsurbat]

It *is* more "factually" based; the other posters are quite correct in their assessment that is not into deep literary analysis. However, it is a great way for students to get familiar with many great works and the vocabulary work is better than LL (we have LL7 and 2 of the High School sets: speech, Christian British Authors). Some of my children would *struggle* with LL, they don't "see" deep meanings and symbolism and all that. The kinds of deeper (even if not "too" deep) questions in Smarr (compare Character X with Character Y) seem to be enough of a stretch for them. The other thing we have appreciated with Smarr is the *daily* format of the lesson--it keeps us all on track.

 

I think *both* programs have their strengths and weaknesses; the trick is to determine which blend is going to be the best match for this teacher, this student, this year. Thus, my assortment of homeschool-friendly high school lit. programs!

 

HTH,

[Sandy in Indy]

Just chiming in to say that I use the SMARR lists to guide our literature. I purchased the Intro to Lit guides, but ds wasn't all that interested in doing the basic comprehension work. I do like the works covered, for the most part, so I've printed up the lists and make my own writing/discussion assignments.

[Veronica in VA]

I am using Lightning Lit for American Literature this year. I really like it, and it is flexible. However, their high school courses don't include vocabulary. Another option (that is free) is Glencoe lit guides.

The website is: http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature/litlibrary

 

Hope that helps!

 

Veronica