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What is everyone using for 8th literature?


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Windows to the World for study and discussion of literary concepts. I love it.

 

But WttW only works with short stories (really works well for the purpose, I think), so additional assigned reading (mostly coordinated with our historical period) includes:

 

Across Five Aprils

The Red Badge of Courage

The Man Without a Country

Little Women

Huckleberry Finn

A Study in Scarlet

The Time Machine

The Call of the Wild

One of Ours, Cather

All Quiet on the Western Front

In Flanders Fields (just a picture book that gives the background of the poem and the poem itself)

Murder on the Orient Express

Farewell to Manzanar

Once There Was a War, Steinbeck

Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl

1984

Animal Farm

To Kill a Mockingbird (using the Lightning Lit 8 unit -- we covered the other LL8 chapters a couple of years ago)

 

These may just involve reading and a brief journal entry. Some require a bit more discussion, looking up background, etc. But for the most part, just reading.

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I splurged, mostly because I've been a real slacker in the lit department, and paid for an on-line class with Captive Thought Tutorials for my ds this year. He LOVES the Intro to Lit class and he is not a reader. I love it too - she does a great job with the class, grading, testing, everything. All I have to do is make sure he has the books when needed and help with time management on the reading. They have occasional writing assignments too. I highly recommend her! http://www.captivethoughttutorials.com/

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We will be using this program - The 1940's: A Decade of Change, found here

http://kendallhunt.com/store-product.aspx?id=16916. Looks like it is available as a pdf here http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED380954.pdf

 

This will very nicely supplement our study of WWII next year.

 

We've been using Patterns of Change from the same company this year and it is going very well.

 

We will also use the MCT Time Travel program.

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Windows to the World for study and discussion of literary concepts. I love it.

 

But WttW only works with short stories (really works well for the purpose, I think), so additional assigned reading (mostly coordinated with our historical period) includes:

 

Across Five Aprils

The Red Badge of Courage

The Man Without a Country

Little Women

Huckleberry Finn

A Study in Scarlet

The Time Machine

The Call of the Wild

One of Ours, Cather

All Quiet on the Western Front

In Flanders Fields (just a picture book that gives the background of the poem and the poem itself)

Murder on the Orient Express

Farewell to Manzanar

Once There Was a War, Steinbeck

Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl

1984

Animal Farm

To Kill a Mockingbird (using the Lightning Lit 8 unit -- we covered the other LL8 chapters a couple of years ago)

 

These may just involve reading and a brief journal entry. Some require a bit more discussion, looking up background, etc. But for the most part, just reading.

 

That is a great reading list. Good on you.

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nt

 

Appreciations in Reading, part of the old Appreciations in Literature series from Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. I actually used some of these book in my own high school days.

 

You can find them used on Amazon for inexpensive prices. I like the Classic and Pegasus editions, but I think the Athena edition lost a lot (too many pictures, side bars and irrelevant commentary that doesn't add to the works read). I have one book that is the Cardinal Neuman edition for use in Catholic schools. This is another older edition that is pretty solid.

 

These have good readings. Lost of short stories, poetries, plays and essays. Adventures in Readings has an abridged edition of Great Expectations as their novel. It is a pretty good abridgement, but I think that it still loses a lot of the flavor of the book.

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Thanks everyone for the suggestions! I'm still hoping to get a few more to consider. Some of these I'd heard of before, so that is great "food for thought"!

 

How "user friendly" is Windows on the World? I looked at some samples but I'm concerned it will be gathering a lot of extra resources and such. Our library is even more pitiful than the library we had prior to our move. So, most of our books will need to be purchased.

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Thanks everyone for the suggestions! I'm still hoping to get a few more to consider. Some of these I'd heard of before, so that is great "food for thought"!

 

How "user friendly" is Windows on the World? I looked at some samples but I'm concerned it will be gathering a lot of extra resources and such. Our library is even more pitiful than the library we had prior to our move. So, most of our books will need to be purchased.

 

It's extremely straightforward, and I can't think of a time when we've needed anything that couldn't be found easily on the internet. (Any time she suggests additional short stories, for instance, they're always in the public domain so that they can be found easily online. Although I think all of those are optional assignments -- required stories are all included in the student text.) The student book is written directly to the student BUT it's VITAL that the parent/teacher read both the student and teacher books. The teacher book does not replicate the material in the student (so you need to read every page in the student book), but it includes a lot of additional material about how to teach concepts, discussions, how to grade the writing assignments, etc. There's tremendous value in both books.

 

But it's very, very straightforward and easy to use. ... Not easy to complete -- I think there's a lot of thought necessary, and since it will be the first time writing literary analysis papers for most students, it can be challenging -- but the presentation certainly makes it quite approachable (for parent and student).

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