9th Grade Literature

[Grace]

Here to admit that we are 3 weeks into school and I have not started literature and writing!!! UGH!!

 

I was planning on using IEW Windows To The World/Teaching the Classics with Jill's Lesson plans...along with Elegant Essay. I am finding it difficult to adjust from the weekly class lesson plans to daily. also find the WTTW student books, Jill's student pages, TTC student pages, The Elegant Essay student pages, and all the above teachers materials, overwhelming.

 

Anyone else experience this or am I just overwhelmed in general? Would love to hear how others used these IEW programs at home.

 

Or I am thinking maybe I need a one-stop all-in-one program with daily lesson plans. Any suggestions? We did LL 7 and wasn't thrilled with it, but I could actually teach that one! Maybe I should do LL? Are the high school ones

more in-depth with more writing? Also thought about Lord of the Rings but

my girls really don't Care much for the genre.

 

Any input would be appreciated.

 

And if I am the only one who has this struggle, please feel free to tell me to

pull myself together and just-do-it!! Lol!!

 

Thanks,

Grace

Ps forgive any typos.... On the iPad.

[clementine]

We are using LL with our 9th grader this year. Early to Mid for 1st semester and Mid to Late for 2nd semester. I figured that this would be a good program to use as a starting point for Literature/Writing at the high school level. We are adding vocabulary to the program to round it out.

 

I know there are more rigorous programs out there and we can choose to ramp it up later, but this seemed to be a good fit for us this year.

[1Togo]

TtC, EE and WttW are excellent products. I've never understood why any of them needed lesson plans because TtC is taught by Adam Andrews, and the other two have teacher manuals. I would do it this way. Watch TtC and do whatever the curriculum suggests. Then, I would work through WttW. Then, I would work through EE. Or, reverse the order and do EE first. That's a year of composition.

[Guest]

You could look at oak meadow as an option for an all-in-one. It does require quite a bit of writing. LL is a good option as is Excellence in Literature. This one is more intense, I guess, then LL. I like the book choices better.

 

I know nothing about the choices you are using.

 

I will say we slugged through LL7 in less than 6 months. I was not impressed. I have heard the upper levels are much better. It is the route we most likely will go after my son does Lit Lessons from TLOTR (his favorite books).

[Grace]

TtC, EE and WttW are excellent products. I've never understood why any of them needed lesson plans because TtC is taught by Adam Andrews, and the other two have teacher manuals. I would do it this way. Watch TtC and do whatever the curriculum suggests. Then, I would work through WttW. Then, I would work through EE. Or, reverse the order and do EE first. That's a year of composition.

 

Thanks for the information! I agree they are all great and that is why I really want to do them! I thought Jill's Pike from IEW lesson plans would make it easier for me but it made me more confused. I guess using them as-is would work too.

So when you did them, did you spend 2 hours on day going over the lessons and then assign homework for the remaining days of the week? or did you break it up into daily teaching with daily lessons? I guess that is what is confusing me. The lessonplans all seem to be written with a 1-day teaching schedule, like possibly for a co-op.

[TechWife]

We haven't started an English credit this year, either. You are not alone! In our case, the program I chose ended up not being appropriate for my son, so I am creating my own course. It is very different than any other English I course I've ever seen, but it meets his needs & that's what is important. Hopefully we will get started during the next week.

[Nscribe]

After a couple of years of not starting literature "on time", I tried a different approach this year.

 

I decided to start literature with simply reading a novel a chapter or two a day for the first three weeks.

 

I read over WTW and EE and decided before we started into them fully, I would use this three weeks to generally introduce some broad concepts from each. No formal analysis, no papers, just read and point out the direction we would be going. Conversationally I highlighted something like "did you notice that allusion used? or "Isn't it interesting how the point of view the author chose worked to build suspense."

 

It bought me a bit of time to get the routine going for everything else, we enjoyed a great book. I don't feel this time like we didn't "start on time" and it gave us a chance to ease into the many changes that seem to come with the beginning of the "school year".

[1Togo]

I have not used EE or WttW as yet, but I've had them for years. I don't know if we will use EE because we are using a progym-based composition curriculum, but I do plan to use WttW at some point. In any event, I am not developing daily lesson plans. We will just work on the material for about one hour per day. I was just looking at WttW today, and that seems like the best way to go.

[kangato3]

I was planning on using IEW Windows To The World/Teaching the Classics with Jill's Lesson plans...along with Elegant Essay..

 

We did this same plan last year with dd. Jill's plans assume you're teaching once a week, and then give the student a homework sheet with the assignments due the following week. I've been taking this approach with my high schooler for all subjects. She is responsible for planning out her daily work, and I provide guidance with that.

 

There is quite a bit of flipping around, but I found that if I previewed the lesson each week, I could get a good handle on it. We did EE simultaneously with TTC/WTTW because initially there isn't much writing with TTC/WTTW. When we got to an essay in WTTW, I would hold up with EE for awhile.

 

I wish I could find something more streamlined and complete, and I have searched far and wide, but nothing else had what I was looking for, including LL. In the end, I'm very pleased with dd's learning last year from the IEW programs and believe it will give her a great foundation.

[mom31257]

Here is what dd is using for her English Literature credit this year. I'm saving Windows to the World until next year.

 

CLE English 1 (1/2) & CLE 807 (this will include a research paper and a speech, both will be between March and May; a LU takes 3 weeks, so she'll take breaks in between)

 

Starting Points (she is going to complete the first 3 units spread through the year, includes reading some literature and essay writing; this will be some of her Bible credit as well)

 

Teaching the Classics using Jill's 6 week plan on the Yahoo Group, we will finish this up next week; we're only doing this once a week

 

The Elegant Essay (she'll do this in Oct & Nov)

 

MFW Ancient Literature book (using this for 3 of the 8 books she'll read of her historical fiction and includes essay writing for each; she just finished reading Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey will be between Thanksgiving & Christmas, Greek & Roman Myths will be in January)

 

I schedule the whole year at one time on spread sheets denoting big writing assignments. This way I can spread them out and make sure there aren't too many at one time.

[mom31257]

We are using LL with our 9th grader this year. Early to Mid for 1st semester and Mid to Late for 2nd semester. I figured that this would be a good program to use as a starting point for Literature/Writing at the high school level. We are adding vocabulary to the program to round it out.

 

I know there are more rigorous programs out there and we can choose to ramp it up later, but this seemed to be a good fit for us this year.

 

I was thinking of using the Medieval British pack and a Shakespear pack next year. If I liked them, I was going to consider the remaining American and British for her last two years. We are doing a four year history cycle, so those would fit.

 

After seeing this, I'm wondering if they will be too easy by the upper grades. Do you think so?

[Grace]

We did this same plan last year with dd. Jill's plans assume you're teaching once a week, and then give the student a homework sheet with the assignments due the following week. I've been taking this approach with my high schooler for all subjects. She is responsible for planning out her daily work, and I provide guidance with that.

 

There is quite a bit of flipping around, but I found that if I previewed the lesson each week, I could get a good handle on it. We did EE simultaneously with TTC/WTTW because initially there isn't much writing with TTC/WTTW. When we got to an essay in WTTW, I would hold up with EE for awhile.

 

I wish I could find something more streamlined and complete, and I have searched far and wide, but nothing else had what I was looking for, including LL. In the end, I'm very pleased with dd's learning last year from the IEW programs and believe it will give her a great foundation.

 

Thank you so much! This did help alot! And it was nice to hear that it isn't only me who thinks you have to flip back and forth alot through the different lesson books. I think I will do it like you, and teach once a week.... as written.

 

Did you just do EE as written? or did you use the lesson plans from the IEW Yahoo group that has them writing essays day 1? I have the 2nd edition. Do you have the revised 3rd edition? Not sure if I should invest in that one?

 

Thanks again!! It was nice to hear from someone who has taught all 3!!

 

Grace

[Grace]

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions! I have a few programs to look up, and some teaching strategies to implement!

 

It was nice to hear that I am not the only person who has not yet started Literature. Makes me feel that maybe I am not so far behind!

 

Grace

[clementine]

I was thinking of using the Medieval British pack and a Shakespear pack next year. If I liked them, I was going to consider the remaining American and British for her last two years. We are doing a four year history cycle, so those would fit.

 

After seeing this, I'm wondering if they will be too easy by the upper grades. Do you think so?

 

British Medieval is one semester for 11-12th grades and Shakespeare has 2 semesters for 11-12th grades. The reading selections look grade appropriate, not as rigorous as other sources out there, but well chosen in my opinion.

 

Honestly, LL is perfect for us right now. My dd is reading the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - the syllabus schedules quite a bit of reading on any given day....she has 'homework' in order to complete our daily plan in other subjects. I haven't seen the 2 levels you are looking at, but we are happy with our decision to use it this year & I could see us continuing with it for the next 3 years.

 

Hope that helps. :001_smile:

[Lori D.]

A lot of people do Literature for one semester and the Writing for the other semester. You could easily do that with WttW, as it is set up as a one semester course, and then focus on Elegant Essay in the second semester. And then just watch some of TtC with your DC once a week, discuss to absorb the info, and then put it into practice with the next short story in WttW.

 

re: All the material

I don't think I even cracked the TM on WttW -- we just worked our way through the Student Book a little each day. When it came time to read and annotate the short stories, we would take a week (for the longer stories), and do a few pages a day. Sometimes all that supplemental material seems (for me) to make it harder to actually do the program. ;)

 

 

Just do a little each day, and like that ant in the song, you'll move that English rubber plant! :D Best of luck! Warmly, Lori D.

[mom31257]

British Medieval is one semester for 11-12th grades and Shakespeare has 2 semesters for 11-12th grades. The reading selections look grade appropriate, not as rigorous as other sources out there, but well chosen in my opinion.

 

Honestly, LL is perfect for us right now. My dd is reading the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - the syllabus schedules quite a bit of reading on any given day....she has 'homework' in order to complete our daily plan in other subjects. I haven't seen the 2 levels you are looking at, but we are happy with our decision to use it this year & I could see us continuing with it for the next 3 years.

 

Hope that helps. :001_smile:

 

Thanks! She'll be in 10th, but she's advanced in her reading level.

[kangato3]

Did you just do EE as written? or did you use the lesson plans from the IEW Yahoo group that has them writing essays day 1? I have the 2nd edition. Do you have the revised 3rd edition? Not sure if I should invest in that one?

 

 

Grace

 

I had the 2nd edition and used the plans that were posted on the IEW group. From my understanding, those plans were incorporated into 3rd edition, so you'd be fine using the 2nd edition with the plans.