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Has anyone used any of these? Which ones and what is the good & the bad? Thinking about using the first one next year for 8th grade. Are there certain skills needed before starting or does it start at the beginning? Is this really high school level work? Any suggestions of programs to do before or instead of? Thanks in advance.

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:bigear:

 

We use LL 7 & 8 in Jr High, but I just bought the first year of Excellence in Lit to use next year. It looks good and high school level to me, but I haven't had a child actually go through it yet. So I'll listen in for other opinions.

 

Our plan is that while we are doing American History spread over the next two years we will use 1/2 of Intro to Lit along with 1/2 of American Lit each year. I just bought Intro so I could get my hands on it in advance and make sure I was satisfied before I spent the money on American.

 

It has more writing and less "busy work" than the Jr High LL courses do. Don't get me wrong I love LL for Jr High. I'm just making the comparison. I haven't seen LL high school courses to compare those.

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My 15yo is using EiL 1 this year and I am very happy with it. The lit is good, the opportunity to analyze is solid. No busy work, no nitpicky stuff, just reading good lit and doing thoughtful, varied analysis. One book each 4 weeks (9 units). A couple weeks of pre-reading (and during reading) analysis -- background, author profile, etc . . . and one solid analytical essay after reading is completed.

 

Can be done relatively independently with minimal mom-time needed.

 

Seems just right for lit for my highschooler. We'll continue with it.

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Dd used EIL American Literature last year. This is how we structured each unit.

 

Week 1 - Context Resources

Week 2 - Reading

Week 3 - Reading and Approach Paper

Week 4 - Essay

 

The only thing I wish I had done differently is that dd had started with more experience writing literature essays as there is very little instruction on actually how to write. But it has good assignments.

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The only thing I wish I had done differently is that dd had started with more experience writing literature essays as there is very little instruction on actually how to write. But it has good assignments.

 

We are doing Windows to the World this year, and it provides a lot of instruction on HOW to write a literary analysis paper. I'm hoping of moving into Excellence in Lit next year.

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My 10th grader is using Excellence in Literature with great success. After speaking with him during the break however he is getting a little bored and frustrated with it. He would like to have a more straight forward approach as to what literary devices he should be focusing on as he reads and why.

 

I showed him an example of Lightning Literature and we concluded he would love to morph these two curriculum together and have more discussion with me about the great books he is reading. This is what he likes from each curriculum:

 

Excellence in Literature: Links for Research, Approach Papers, and Essays

Lightning Literature: Author/Literature Intro, Literature Lesson, Discussion Questions, and Schedule

 

I have Excellence in Literature the Complete Curriculum for 8th through 12th grades. I pick literature units to fit our history chronologically. I also just recently purchased Reading Roadmaps to help me understand the plot, conflict, theme, and devices being used in each selection. It also helps me incorporate Teaching the Classics Socratic discussions and how to grade them as well as what should be in an literary essay and how to grade it. I think the addition of Reading Roadmaps will give me the additional support my ds is looking for without having to buy LL every semester! I'll have to let you all know how it goes after we start our 4th term on 1/30.

 

The one thing I recommend that should be done before starting this program is using Windows to the World lessons with step-by-step instructions on annotating and how to write literary essays since this is not provided in Excellence in Literature or Reading Roadmaps.

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I have Excellence in Literature the Complete Curriculum for 8th through 12th grades. I pick literature units to fit our history chronologically.

 

I would be interested in doing this also, but I thought that the material got more complex as you went further in the program. Can you move between all the books with ease?

 

Ruth in NZ

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I would be interested in doing this also, but I thought that the material got more complex as you went further in the program. Can you move between all the books with ease?

 

Ruth in NZ

 

We have been mixing them all up with no problems whatsoever. Some of the units are a little lighter than others in requirements. For example essays range from 600, 650, and 750 words and some have a creative option instead of the essay. I actually like this because I can tailor how much work ds is completing by sandwiching in some lighter units for a breather. We started mid August and ds has been able to complete 3 units on Beowulf, Inferno, and Spencer/Gawain.

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My plan is to mix units. I'm going to use some of the Introduction units and some of the American Lit units next year. I haven't done it yet, but I have read through them and don't see any problem with mixing it up. I'll do the first unit in Introduction first, because it gives a course overview and some explanations combined with a lighter unit. After that, I'll pick the order that works for us.

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