Bostonian Posted July 12, 2010 Share Posted July 12, 2010 Does anyone use the Junior Great Books http://www.greatbooks.org/ literature anthologies? I bought one volume at a used book store and it looked good, so I am considering getting others in the series. Many of the books are available inexpensively on Amazon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 Does anyone use the Junior Great Books http://www.greatbooks.org/ literature anthologies? I bought one volume at a used book store and it looked good, so I am considering getting others in the series. Many of the books are available inexpensively on Amazon. Can anyone give a review of these? Are they abridgements or just chapters? Do you need a teacher guide or are they relatively easy to work through? I noticed that there are several of these on Paperback Swap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hathersage Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 (edited) For the longer works they are excerpts. not abridgements. It also includes short stories and poetry. I'm working through the K-1 Books, and for those no you don't need the teacher books. I have a book from series 5, and it doesn't have any questions to ask. The one I have from series 9, does have about 3 disscussion question per work. They all seem to mention the shared inquiry apporach, writing down ideas as your reading, questions, etc for the later discussions. ETA: The teacher books seem to be more along the lines of classroom work. Edited July 15, 2010 by Hathersage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 For the longer works they are excerpts. not abridgements. It also includes short stories and poetry. I'm working through the K-1 Books, and for those no you don't need the teacher books. I have a book from series 5, and it doesn't have any questions to ask. The one I have from series 9, does have about 3 disscussion question per work. They all seem to mention the shared inquiry apporach, writing down ideas as your reading, questions, etc for the later discussions. ETA: The teacher books seem to be more along the lines of classroom work. So do you read aloud or have the kids read them? Is this the center of what you use or a supplement? Would you try to place kids in a certain level, start at the beginning or just use whichever books you can lay hands on? Do you know if there is somewhere with tables of contents? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hathersage Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 (edited) The K-1 books are meant as read-alouds. That said, my daughter is already reading on her own. For the shared inquiry method/socractic dialogue to take place at least one other person needs to have to read the selections. So using them as read-alouds beyond the K-1 level makes sense. You can start with any year. The K-1 books have Grimm's fairy tales, folktales from around the world, and poets I didn't see until I got to college. It basically meant to get a discussion going about the works. It was started as a "book club" I think certainly I wouldn't be tied to grade level. Even if you didn't use them as "school time" if you can find them cheaply enough the selections are worthwhile for free reading. And if they like the excerpts of books enough, you can always find it in the library for further reading. For now it is the center of what I use. I supplement it with other Great Book Lists. I do want to make sure novels are being read, but the Junior Great Books are great for short stories, essays, poetry. But again, I'm only at the K-1 level. You look at the table of contents as follows in the link below, however most of the used copies out there will be previous editions, and they tend move stuff to other years, take stuff out, add new stuff in. (So yes you can jump around with the different levels to some extent.) You don't need to start at the beginning. I am because I started at the beginning. But I've also used stuff from series 5 as a read-aloud to my 6 year old. K-2 reading list http://www.greatbooks.org/programs-for-all-ages/junior/jgbseries/grades-k-2/reading-list.html 3-5 reading list http://www.greatbooks.org/programs-for-all-ages/junior/jgbseries/grades-3-5/reading-list.html 6-8 reading list http://www.greatbooks.org/programs-for-all-ages/junior/jgbseries/jgb2006/roundtable-reading-list.html Heather Edited July 15, 2010 by Hathersage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hathersage Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 I tagged some previous discussions about the JGB series so you read through more feedback. HTH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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