Veritas Press - A Guide to the Great Books et. al.

[Hoggirl]

I have switched gears and plan to start a Great Books/History study next year for my ds. I plan to use the lists/suggestions in TWTM for ancients with Omnibus for some hand-holding. I will primarily be doing this "Susan's Way," but I felt like Omnibus would be helpful for the works on her lists that Omni also includes. I own Invitation to the Classics already, but I noticed these guides in the VP catalog. The first one is $23 and is a "core" guide which also contains The Iliad which is NOT in Omni I but which I plan to cover. The other subsequent titles are only $8 each, but one must buy the first guide to get the favorable pricing on the others.

 

Has anyone used these, and did you like them? I must admit I never cared for the few elementary literature guides that I used from VP, but I thought these might be different. But, I don't want overkill.

 

TIA.

Edited July 6, 2010 by Hoggirl

[Hoggirl]

Has anyone ever seen/used these?

[PeterPan]

Since you haven't gotten any replies here, you might try with Angelina on the VP_Elementary yahoo group. The group sort of morphed to include Omnibus discussion as the kids grew. I thought she mentioned she had those guides, but I'm not sure. Omnibus 4 covers Iliad, doesn't it? So what you're wondering is whether it would be better to get O1 and O4 and mush them together or to just get these guides. No clue. I read much of O1 last year and some of O2 this summer, trying to see what I think of it, and I still don't have an opinion, lol. Have you seen the Rutherford guides? I got them when they were mentioned on here a while back.

 

In any case, try Angelina on the yahoo group. She's moderating it now, so she'll be there. :)

[Beth in Central TX]

Hi Cynthia,

 

I have all 5 of these guides. The Iliad guide is the largest and covers all 24 books with 87 questions. There is a page of 'Points for Discussion and Writing', but it only has 6 points. There is an anwer key with commentary included, but the answers are very short (when compared with the teacher key for the Omnibus series).

 

I use these guides for my own self-study and to complement the same books in the Omnibus series. The Iliad is covered in Omnibus IV.

 

I bought my set used, so it was worth the reduced cost to me. Most of the questions in the guides are similar to the generic questions found in Teaching the Classics, but they are specific to the book in question and include an answer. There are some thought provoking questions as well, and those are the ones I pick out to use in our discussions at home.

 

If you have specific questions about the other guides, I'd be happy to help you.

 

Take care,

~Beth

[Hoggirl]

Hi Cynthia,

 

I have all 5 of these guides. The Iliad guide is the largest and covers all 24 books with 87 questions. There is a page of 'Points for Discussion and Writing', but it only has 6 points. There is an anwer key with commentary included, but the answers are very short (when compared with the teacher key for the Omnibus series).

 

I use these guides for my own self-study and to complement the same books in the Omnibus series. The Iliad is covered in Omnibus IV.

 

I bought my set used, so it was worth the reduced cost to me. Most of the questions in the guides are similar to the generic questions found in Teaching the Classics, but they are specific to the book in question and include an answer. There are some thought provoking questions as well, and those are the ones I pick out to use in our discussions at home.

 

If you have specific questions about the other guides, I'd be happy to help you.

 

Take care,

~Beth

 

Beth,

 

If I had to pay full price, would it be worth it? I am considering doing as OhElizabeth wondered and buying Omni I and Omni IV and trying to "mush" them together as she said. LOL! I would NOT do all of the works in Omni I and IV, but would work off of Susan's ancient list. Not sure if this is doable in a year, but if it were to take longer that would be fine. Just trying to piece all of this together.

 

Thanks for your always valuable wisdom.

[Beth in Central TX]

I don't know about shoving Omnibus I & IV together. You're going to run into higher level thinking questions and writing assignments in Omnibus IV, so going back and forth between the two books may be frustrating. In addition, both books would be an expensive investment considering the fact that you wouldn't completely use either book. However, I'll need Omnibus IV in 2011-2012, so I'd be very interested in buying your used copy...

 

The VP guides are going to cost you about $60-65 with shipping. No, I wouldn't pay that for them, but I'm a little tight with my homeschool budget. I like the Omnibus program better because there's an introduction to the book and the reading, writing, and discussion questions are given to you in separate sessions that you can just drop into your school schedule. The teacher key is complete and even brings out points of interest that I never would have considered. Next year my oldest son is doing Omnibus III. I have 180 lessons scheduled which corresponds to 25 books. I bought Omnibus III used for $80, so for me it's a better program and a better use of our homeschool money.

 

HTH!

~Beth

[PeterPan]

Cynthia, here's info on the Rutherford guides. http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99623 Like I said, I have them. I think I got 3 (romans, greeks, and ???) They're downstairs with my Omni stuff. Anyways, they're are VERY straightforward and practical. They might do just what you're wanting and at a lower pricepoint. I had this faint idea that I could use them as the concrete part for each work before Omnibus. But I don't know, that might be too much work, lol. *I* like that concrete thing (these terms, this content, do this, check that). I don't really know how that would work, since we're not there yet. Somehow it's always easier to look BACK and know than look forward. :)

[Hoggirl]

Cynthia, here's info on the Rutherford guides. http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99623 Like I said, I have them. I think I got 3 (romans, greeks, and ???) They're downstairs with my Omni stuff. Anyways, they're are VERY straightforward and practical. They might do just what you're wanting and at a lower pricepoint. I had this faint idea that I could use them as the concrete part for each work before Omnibus. But I don't know, that might be too much work, lol. *I* like that concrete thing (these terms, this content, do this, check that). I don't really know how that would work, since we're not there yet. Somehow it's always easier to look BACK and know than look forward. :)

 

These do sound good! Could you post the site where you purchased them? I will try to google.

 

EDIT: Found them! Wow, did you mean doing these instead of Omni? They are kind of $$$, but I am willing if you think they are worth it!

Edited July 7, 2010 by Hoggirl

[PeterPan]

Well Cynthia, maybe I could scan you a couple pages so you could see what they're like? You'd need to email me and catch me on a day when my brain is in order, haha. I might even be able to use my male secretary (dh) to do that for me, let me see. I DO like the Rutherford guides and they ABSOLUTELY could stand on their own. Or they could work in conjunction with something else. Let me see if I can pick out some pages for you and scan them so you can get a feel for what the guides are like and what they would do for you. Where I'm not helpful is that my kid isn't there age-wise yet. I really don't have a clue what I'm doing. I'm just gathering resources, reading stuff and playing around with it myself, and hoping when the time comes and my dd hits 7th the right path will gel in my brain. We've talked about this history-hater thing before, so you'll remember that I like things concrete and quantified (do this, learn this, expect this), where the history lover wants just to dwell in the narrative and flow, the everlasting turmoil. I really don't know how you resolve those two sides when you go into a GB study, kwim? I think you could quantify things so much you kill the discussion and the joy. Or you could swing so toward discussion and thinking that you kind of come out wondering if they nailed any specific content and actual facts. So I was following the comments of (name escapes me at the moment) who said she does the GB study and discussion but has them do comprehension questions first to make sure they're really READY to discuss. In other words, I think there could be room for both. Or maybe not. Like I said, I've never done any of this. But to me, the Rutherford guides lean more toward that concrete side of things. And they might also do specifically what you're wanting, covering the books you want to cover in one volume, rather than needing two levels of Omnibus.

 

Well in any case, I'll go get my guides and see if I can mark some pages. Just for you. Ok, and for my own curiousity. But you'd probably get a lot more intelligent responses if you wrote Faithr or someone who has actually used them. And oh, they are catholic. I'm not catholic, but it didn't bug me to skip the few references. I liked that they came from a solidly academic viewpoint, no WEIRD theology. Guess that's not nice to say, but to me sometimes the Reformed stuff just comes out as weird (creating focuses I wouldn't have picked, tone that is just a little off, etc.). But I guess that's why I'm so iffy about Omnibus, even with owning two volumes. It comes so close to being what I want and just isn't.

 

I'll go pull those guides now. :)

[PeterPan]

Ok, I'm looking them over. I have the Rutherford guides for Greek Classics, Ancient Rome, and Old World Europe. I picked the Odyssey to compare. Omnibus is just TOTALLY different in how it approaches the material. Rutherford gives you a basic summary and has comprehension questions for each chapter. There are further thought questions that are more in the why/inference level of thinking, not terribly profound. They tend to focus on the CHARACTER (moral character, motivations) of the people, which I think is a good thing. So when I said my theory was to use Rutherford to lay the groundwork for Omnibus, it makes sense. Omnibus has very little in the way of basic comprehension checks and assumes the teacher and student are in fact reading the texts together, aloud, and dicussing. So I was thinking that, given I have a toddler in tow, it would be good if I had some tools to quantify her understanding of the material and prep her for a scheduled discussion. That way she could work independently and be ready to come together for Omnibus discussions X number of times a week. So Rutherford is comprehension questions at different levels and some vocab. That's how I see it.

 

Then you have Omnibus. It blows that out of the water, but in a totally different way. BTW, they're planning new editions someday to split up the intro and throat-shoving commentary. (It sort of spoils the effect to tell them what to believe before they even have a chance to read the work and ponder it for themselves.) What they pull up to discuss is laudatory, absolutely amazing. In the Rutherford guide you never got beyond character and a few poetry terms. In Omnibus we're talking about pagan worldviews and whether these cultures actually BELIEVED what they wrote, more detailed poetry terms, more detailed why questions, and even some of the same cultural/morality questions Rutherford asked.

 

I think the real problem I have with Omnibus is the very formal essay text. I guess that just shows I'm an uneducated hick or something, because I really don't like that style. Now that I've MET Douglas Wilson, at least I'm reading it in context and it doesn't bug me so much. However it does come across pretty strong. I think if you did ONLY Rutherford and what you WANTED was Omnibus, you'd be disappointed. But I like my idea of using Rutherford alongside Omnibus. And I can definitely see where some people might be happy with just Rutherford. It's an interesting way to get a progression going through all the basics of the Greek or Roman or Middle Ages lit. The lists overlap quite a bit, and it would get you going in a very practical way.

 

For me to use Omnibus, I think I might end up mother birding it, chewing it up and spitting it out my own way to feed dd. :)

 

So is that helpful? Do you still want Rutherford samples? The questions are very detailed, focused on comprehension, and get into some inferences and why's. They're not going to be the earth-shattering, ponder the nature of the universe stuff Omnibus tries to do.

 

Will VP email you a small sample of the Callihan guides? It seems like they ought to be willing to. You might try calling them. I think in an insane world it would be ideal to read lots of things and then chose for yourself what topics or themes you most wanted to highlight and discuss. So you could get Rutherford AND Omnibus AND... But that would be insane. :)

 

BTW, I don't want this to sound like I don't like the Rutherford guides. I do. And in rereading the intro, R makes the comment that reading the work and then a summary with commentary is NOT the same as really thinking about the issues. That's sort of what I'm getting at with Omnibus, that, not having used it but just looking at the way it is set up, I can see you have to combat that. She gives you 25+ pages of questions for the Odyssey, so clearly that's a lot of room to make sure they ponder the plots, motives, etc. But R's questions never move into that more profound level Omnibus tries to tackle. Clear as mud?

 

Well I'll stop blathering. I feel as conspicuous as a fly in a laboratory here. If you want samples, just holler.

Edited July 8, 2010 by OhElizabeth

[Hoggirl]

Your insights into this have been very helpful. I have ordered Omni I and the Rutherford Greek Guide. There seems to be the most overlap there. I certainly don't think there is anything wrong with some plain ol' comprehension questions. And, I am too much of a hick to come up with thought-provoking questions, so I will try to blend the two. There is more overlap with the Greek than the Roman. After Beth's comments that Omni IV was going to be higher level thinking, I am just going to see about our getting our feet wet with Omni I. I tend to go crazy when I get on these history panics which serves neither my son nor my pocketbook. My ds is like you, more concrete. I am probably this way, too. While I have no issues with concrete, the retention is not there long-term. It's learn and purge, kwim. So, I am hopeful if we have some "meaningful" discussions some things will stick more. At least some of the big ideas and the general flow. There is just too much history to know it all. I just don't want him to be stopped by Jay Leno on one of his Jay-walking bits and wind up on national tv b/c he doesn't know common knowledge about history!

 

Thanks for your time investment in looking over and comparing these materials for me.

[PeterPan]

Well good for you! And I'll toss out something on the concrete but learn and purge thing. My brain does that, and I've always joked about knowing exceptionally little history. The reality is I retained much more than I care to admit from the 2 1/2 years of BJU history we did in a cs. It was very concrete, with clear expectations, and even though I balked about it at the time, YEARS LATER things from it will come to mind. So I think as long as you're working with the way his brain works and processes, you may have more long-term retention than you expect.

 

As far as your history spine with Omnibus, well the tm schedules Spiel. There are some other spines people have used, anything from Streams of Civ to Kane (Karenciavo used this, right? Hopefully I have the author right), etc. And all I'm going to toss out is you always have the option, again, to quantify it. Kane (hopefully that's the author, would have to go look up and it's in the basement) has study guides.

 

Well I'm out of time. Hope you like the stuff you ordered! It will be an adventure, and you'll find your own mix you like best. :)

[Hoggirl]

Well good for you! And I'll toss out something on the concrete but learn and purge thing. My brain does that, and I've always joked about knowing exceptionally little history. The reality is I retained much more than I care to admit from the 2 1/2 years of BJU history we did in a cs. It was very concrete, with clear expectations, and even though I balked about it at the time, YEARS LATER things from it will come to mind. So I think as long as you're working with the way his brain works and processes, you may have more long-term retention than you expect.

 

As far as your history spine with Omnibus, well the tm schedules Spiel. There are some other spines people have used, anything from Streams of Civ to Kane (Karenciavo used this, right? Hopefully I have the author right), etc. And all I'm going to toss out is you always have the option, again, to quantify it. Kane (hopefully that's the author, would have to go look up and it's in the basement) has study guides.

 

Well I'm out of time. Hope you like the stuff you ordered! It will be an adventure, and you'll find your own mix you like best. :)

 

when you have time, would you please get the title for me? Thanks!

[PeterPan]

Western Heritage by Kagan. Not sure the edition matters. There are also study guides. Can't contrast it with Spielvogel, sorry. You'll notice there are multiple versions (combined, school, AP, separate volumes). I got the combined version.

[Hoggirl]

Western Heritage by Kagan. Not sure the edition matters. There are also study guides. Can't contrast it with Spielvogel, sorry. You'll notice there are multiple versions (combined, school, AP, separate volumes). I got the combined version.

 

I own Spielvogel's HO and have decided to use that based on Lori D's suggestion.

 

But thanks for sharing!

[PeterPan]

Great! Spielvogel is what Omnibus schedules, so it's a logical choice. :)