Lightning Lit + Rod and Staff English for 7th grade?

[TrixieB]

I am planning to have my dd use Lightning Lit 7 and Rod & Staff English 7 for seventh grade this coming fall. She has used R&S English since 3rd grade, but has never done a lit course.

 

Is this enough? Too much? Do I need to add a writing component, or will LL7 and R&S7 provide sufficient writing exercises?

Edited May 13, 2010 by TrixieB

[Cinder]

Well, I have not used R&S 7, but ds1 did LL7 with R&S 6 for 6th grade and it was not too much. We did drop the last book in LL7, though.

 

LL7 introduces the student to the basics: plot outline and devices, literary devices (similes, personification, etc.) through novels, short stories, and poetry. It has mini-lessons covering the topic of study, then some worksheets for the student to apply that knowledge. Then it offers suggested writing assignments. It doesn't give any writing instruction, though. None of these were overwhelming. The course has a weekly schedule and the assignments are spread out well enough not to be burdensome.

 

I just looked over the contents for R&S 7. The writing lessons look the same as those in R&S 6. I think this would be ok for 7th. Hopefully you'll get other input too.

 

Cinder

[Janice in NJ]

Just an FYI. There's a gal who has put together great schedules for both of the books. Might save you a bit of time.

 

http://corefoundations.wordpress.com/scheds-english-and-history/

 

:001_smile:Peace,

Janice

 

Enjoy your little people

Enjoy your journey

[May]

Looks like what my dd did for 7th grade. I used WriteShop for my writing program because it gave exactly what each composition needed to have in it. I loved LL and my dd enjoyed it also. I can't speak highly enough of Rod and Staff:) I also required my dd to have about 20 minutes of pleasure reading. We took turns on chosing the book.

[Lori D.]

I am planning to have my dd use Lightning Lit 7 and Rod & Staff English 7 for seventh grade this coming fall. She has used R&S English since 3rd grade, but has never done a lit course.

 

Is this enough? Too much? Do I need to add a writing component, or will LL7 and R&S7 provide sufficient writing exercises?

 

 

Sounds good to me! While we didn't use R&S with LL7, my understanding is that R&S has both grammar and writing -- and we did use a separate writing program and a separate grammar program when we used LL7. It worked fine! About the only compromise I made was, when we spent a week on a writing assignment at the end of a unit for LL7, we set the writing program aside (we did not double up writing). But, we also did not do all of the end of the unit longer writing assignments from LL7, either.

 

 

As far as scheduling LL7, we did all the reading/discussing aloud together (which takes a little longer than solo reading). LL7 took us about 40-50 min/day, 4 days a week, and we finished in less than the 36 weeks scheduled for the program. We would read aloud for about 25-30 minutes, then spend 10-20 minutes either reading the literary lesson or "mini writing lesson" info, doing one of the student workpages, or working on the longer writing assignment.

 

Enjoy your adventures into literature! Warmest regards, Lori D.