Smarr Feed back please

[RebeccaC]

Anybody use these? Particulary the intro short story, poetry and lit guides, pros and cons........

 

Do you only get the writing and grammar if you buy the whole program?

 

TIA,

[RebeccaC]

acccccckkkk I thought I got a note saying the board was too busy try again. Sorry for the sort of double post:001_huh:

[Lori D.]

We were very disappointed. We used Robert Watson's SMARR guide to go with the Epic of Gilgamesh ($8 from Rainbow Resrouce catalog) as part of our ancients studies this past year with an 8th and a 9th grader.

 

It was 5 sheets of regular paper folded in half to make a 20-page booklet. Of those pages, 8 were covers, copyright info page, inside title page, or completely blank pages. The remaining 12 half-size pages divided Gilgamesh into 4 lessons, which covered:

- a short vocabulary list (words from the translation sold by SMARR) and short vocab. exercise for each lesson

- 16 to 24 comprehension questions ("what did he see"; "where did they go"; "why did they want that" type of questions) for each lesson

- 11 critical thinking (discussion) questions total in the booklet

- 1 literary term is explained in the booklet

 

Two additional pieces of paper were folded and loosely placed in the back of the booklet; one was a 13 question vocabulary quiz, and the other was an answer page for the vocabulary and comprehension questions in the booklet and the loose quiz page.

 

We spent $8 on the SMARR guide. For $2 more, we bought a full-size, 112-page lit. guide from Garlic Press publishers for The Odyssey -- and it was extremely meaty: extensive introduction; covered 4 different translations and the translators; a dozen very thought-provoking questions for each chapter; lots of great writing assignment ideas; 10 literary elements covered in detail; detailed info on other topics (the hero's journey; cross-cultural parallels; etc) additional resources and activities; answers; etc. Or, for the cost of paper and ink we downloaded/printed the free lit. guides from Spark Notes, also quite informative, with notes on characters, symbolism, themes, etc.

 

 

Hopefully, this was just a "fluke" and the other SMARR guides are more substantial and helpful -- and hopefully someone has experience with the guides you are particularly interested in.

 

Just our experience! Warmly, Lori D.

[Kelli in TN]

I have used the whole program, the chronological courses. We did Smarr for two years, then skipped a year and now I am going back to it for this year.

 

If you search the forums for Smarr you will find complaints about the lack of literary discussion. You will see that people are unhappy with the question and answer format that is basically a reading comprehension feedback. All of this is true.

 

That was actually what I was looking for so I like Smarr. I like the questions, I like the vocabulary, I like the grammar review as we do not do grammar after 8th grade, I like the writing assignments, I like the critical thinking questions. Overall, what my daughter studied for Smarr was a whole lot more than her older sister did in her Honors English (though her sister did have better writing instruction, but not nearly as much literature).

 

 

I like a combo of Smarr and IEW, personally. Other than IEW, I did not ever feel like I had to tweak or add on to Smarr. That is rare for me, I tweak everything.:lol:

 

To answer your question, I do not know if the writing and grammar are included with the individual guides.