How would you run a High School Lit. Class?

[Michelle My Bell]

I may be teaching/facilitating a High School Literature class this upcoming school year (second semester) for a co-op I am joining. I have never done this before so I would love some feedback on how you all would run a class like this.

 

I know that we will likely read about 10 books. The younger class is going to read their books, discuss them in class and write a paper once a week. I think this sounds like a good model but I really need some resources to help guide me through the process.

 

What books would you choose? My daughter said she would like some books in they style of Fahrenheit 451 or one she read recently, The Rifle.

 

What would you do in class? Discussions? Lectures? Written Assignments? Other?

 

Would you include written assignments?

 

Do you know of any resources you think I should look in to?

[EKS]

Just to put some perspective on things, my son's 10th grade English class (where they did a bit of vocabulary as well as lit) at a "rigorous" private school only read two books all semester.

[Michelle My Bell]

Just to put some perspective on things, my son's 10th grade English class (where they did a bit of vocabulary as well as lit) at a "rigorous" private school only read two books all semester.

 

Really? I looked at Classical Conversations Lit list for Challenge II and it was a ton of books. I figured we would do about 1/2 of them. What books did he read?

[Harriet Vane]

I have done this before, and am doing it again this year.

 

I do about 12 works per year. Most are novels or books, but some weeks I may assign several poems or a couple short essays instead. In that case, I consider the entire unit to be one of my 12 or so works for the year.

 

I choose from SWB's recommendations and from my own personal preference (former English major here).

 

I require 75-125 pages of reading per week depending upon the difficulty of the work.

 

I require students to take notes on specific aspects of the text as they read in preparation for upcoming writing assignments. On a heavy reading week, I may only require notes, or the writing assignment will be light. Once the book is read all the way through, there is a much bigger, meatier assignment due (usually formal lit analysis).

 

I also require participation in class discussion, and have been known to give pop quizzes.

[Kate in Arabia]

Will your students already have some exposure to reading/writing about literature? I'm putting together a lit class for my rising 9th grader in the fall, I'm thinking to spend the first semester working on the mechanics of reading and analyzing (using Windows to the World). Then second semester we'll see how many works we can get through. I'm also considering having him read a few things in addition during the first semester as "fun reading"... just to keep him tied into the historical period we're studying and make it not onyl be about the work of it all, kwim?

 

I have gone back and forth with whether we should stretch out WttW over the year and intersperse extra readings, but I think this way (finishing it all at once, then do a block of readings later) may work better.. I might change my mind later ;)

 

hth!

[Closeacademy]

Our co-op is 13 weeks this fall and I signed on to teach A Tale of Two Cities. I found the Glencoe study guide and basically they are reading between 4 and 6 chapters per week. We will have a little essay quiz at the beginning of each class on the assigned reading and then we will discuss the book.

 

Discussions will be on plot, who's who, Dickens writing style, history at the time, culture at the time, compare/contrast various aspects of the book, etc. The last 2-3 weeks we will watch the 1935 version of the movie.

 

I am also assigning a large paper to write about the book and have topics in my syllabus. I am hoping that if I do a good job that I can pick a couple of books next time. I'd love to do a theme like science fiction or the Romantics. I'd want to cover poetry, music, essay, diary, short story and a novel. :001_smile:

[tex-mex]

Just to put some perspective on things, my son's 10th grade English class (where they did a bit of vocabulary as well as lit) at a "rigorous" private school only read two books all semester.

:iagree:

You really want to go in-depth (teach literature analysis skills) and focus on a few books for the semester. Are you meeting once a week? Twice a week? That may not be enough sessions to get into the book and analyze it for the large group, IMO.

[tex-mex]

Our co-op is 13 weeks this fall and I signed on to teach A Tale of Two Cities. I found the Glencoe study guide and basically they are reading between 4 and 6 chapters per week. We will have a little essay quiz at the beginning of each class on the assigned reading and then we will discuss the book.

 

Discussions will be on plot, who's who, Dickens writing style, history at the time, culture at the time, compare/contrast various aspects of the book, etc. The last 2-3 weeks we will watch the 1935 version of the movie.

 

I am also assigning a large paper to write about the book and have topics in my syllabus. I am hoping that if I do a good job that I can pick a couple of books next time. I'd love to do a theme like science fiction or the Romantics. I'd want to cover poetry, music, essay, diary, short story and a novel. :001_smile:

That is a great plan to teach! I like how you will lead discussions with the class too!

[EKS]

Really? I looked at Classical Conversations Lit list for Challenge II and it was a ton of books. I figured we would do about 1/2 of them. What books did he read?

 

I'm not saying that I think two books are appropriate, mind you, and I'm hoping things will change with his IB English course next year.

 

I was also less than thrilled with the selections--Clear Light of Day and The Old Capital. My long term plan is to get the school to see the light on a number of their curriculum choices.

 

If you're assuming that these kids are carrying a full load of classes, I think that reading 4-5 books, 5-10 or so short stories, and some poems would be a good amount. And I would probably assign a short paper for each book to be completed during the time they are reading and discussing the next book. This would give them three weeks at the end for a final, longer paper analyzing two or more of the texts they've already read. The short stories and poems could be filler between books (if necessary) and I probably wouldn't require any major output on them other than discussion. (If you are only meeting with them once or twice per week, then I'd eliminate the shorter works.)

 

However, if you don't have an extensive writing piece, I could see having them read a lot more.

Edited July 10, 2012 by EKS

[Angel]

I have taught a year long Jane Austen course and a year long Shakespeare course. I, however, did not do them through co-op so I'm not sure if I will be much help.

 

For both courses we read one book/play per month. They had some additional readings from other sources as well. That was more than enough reading. I didn't want them to rush. I was looking for retention and thoughtful discussion, so quality not quantity.

 

For Jane Austen we spent one session in discussion of the book and then the second session we did some more discussion and some sort of hands on activity that correlated with the book, movie, or time period. For Shakespeare we spent one session watching the movie and the second session on discussion and hands on activities. My group was big on the discussion. It got quite heated a few times as they agreed, disagreed, and really explored the different areas of the books. I had discussion questions ready if ever there was a lull but they were never needed. Once they got going, it was a free for all.

 

I did not require a paper for every book. I believe papers are mostly just a regurgitation. I wanted something out of the box, something that required them to delve more into an aspect or two of the book. They were required to do "blog projects" (we kept a blog for each course). I searched long and hard through many books and online sources for these projects. Some were writing projects, some were drawing/art, some were music related, etc. I had a page or two of projects for each book/play and they were allowed to choose whichever they wanted as long as they didn't choose the same one twice. The creativity and thought that went into each of their projects never failed to astound me. More often than not, they did more research for their projects than they would have done merely writing a paper.

 

Our group met twice a month for 3 or so hours. For Shakespeare they were required to read the play in 2 weeks time. It varied with Jane Austen a bit, a couple books they took the whole 4 weeks to read.

 

I would have done the same if we had chosen to do the courses in our co-op.