TOG: Is it ok to use the Dialectic selections?

[cseitter]

My DS is in 10th grade. He HATES to read and we are working on some visualization stuff to help with that. But the Rhetoric selections are just to boring for him. He likes the Dialectic much better.

 

Is it ok to substitute the Dialectic selections for the rhetoric and still give a high school credit for History?

[curlylocks]

My DS is in 10th grade. He HATES to read and we are working on some visualization stuff to help with that. But the Rhetoric selections are just to boring for him. He likes the Dialectic much better.

 

Is it ok to substitute the Dialectic selections for the rhetoric and still give a high school credit for History?

 

Are you talking about Literature or History or both?

[Candid]

What are his goals? Is higher education in his future? What does the school(s) he is interested in say they want?

[cseitter]

He does want to go to college. And yes I am talking History and Lit. We are in Year 2 unit 3. He has plans to go to BYU.

 

He went to public school last year for 9th and did well in both subjects but for some reason they read TO them. He has only been HS'ed for 1 year (8th grade)

 

Maybe we can do D for a while and ease into the R?

[curlylocks]

I used TOG with my oldest through Jr. High and High School. We used a mixture of D and R (more D than R) and she had no problem getting into the local community college. (She is now studying to become an RN and has passed 2 certification courses -- not through the CC -- with flying colors.)

 

Somewhere, either on the TOG website or on the Loom Disk, I read that the R plans are similar to an Honors or Advanced Placement (AP) course load. They can be "tweaked"/pared down and still be considered a credit. I cannot find this information at the moment.

 

I know I've also read that many people start out with D and ease into R.

 

I'm not sure if that helps or not... best wishes.

[TXMary2]

I do a combo of D and R. Depending on the lit selection I choose one or the other. If I can find a movie to take the place of R lit then I will do that, but I require him to write a response paper. Some of the D selections are too low of a reading level, so sometimes I just add in something that isn't even on the TOG book list, but is from the same time period.

 

For R we do Government and Philosophy as well.

[Candid]

I do think you could ease into it. The other thing to do is look at the alternate pages. If history is not his thing, you might consider using a textbook and then adding in components from Rhetoric or Dialectics as it makes sense.

 

I'm not exactly sure where Shakespeare pops up in Year Two, but I'd make sure he read at least a couple of the plays. AND since we are talking Year Two, I'd most certainly locate the trimming charts and use those for his literature. I think I would go with the lightest R level lit over the D level lit if at all possible.

[Shelly in VA]

Another vote for both. This year, I have a 9th grade ds (D level) and 11th grade dd (R level), and while I pull some discussion and questions from the D material for my older teen, I also sometimes use R resources with the younger one. For instance, in Y1, both are using Spielvogel as their history spine, along with Susan Wise Bauer's History of the Ancient World. Part of the reason is because my 9th grader HATES the Streams of Civilizations books, and he can handle the other reading just fine. The difference comes down, in part, to what I require them to do with the material they read. When it comes to, say, the evaluations, they are both working at the appropriate level. Even there, I let my 11th grade dd take the tests as assignments through U1, then we start to use them as timed tests for the remainder of the year. My point is that you can use the texts and assignments in a variety of ways, and if you need to transition from D to R, that's fine. IMHO, both are rigorous.

 

Shelly