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OhElizabeth(or anyone) Excellence in Literature question


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We are doing WWS1 for my 8th grader this year, and I got it in the mail yesterday. I am SOOOOO happy I got this. I love it! I did see, as OhElizabeth stated, that there is chapter/s that cover literary writing.

 

We are also doing Notgrass ATB, but their lit books do not cover any analysis.

 

I was looking at Excellence in Lit Intro course. They didn't give to many sample pages. I had some questions:

 

1. Would this be overkill if you are using WWS1?

2. Do you purchase or borrow from the library, the full book for EIL or do you just read excerpts of the books in the guides?

3. The website(CBD) says that there are 9 units that are to be covered in 4 weeks???? Does that sound right to you??? So this is not a full years program??

 

I have looked into other lit programs. I do not want something where *I* have to sit and watch DVD's to be able to teach literary analysis. I think that is WoW that does that?

 

Thanks for any input.

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You read the full books. Each unit is 4 weeks, so 36 weeks total. There isn't really any teaching of literary analysis in this program. It sort of assumes that literary analysis has already been taught and the student applies that knowledge to the novels. There are some book (or website?) suggestions in the EIL 1 program for students that need additional literary analysis work.

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I have absolutely no clue on this, so take an entire five pound sack of salt on this one ....

 

I'm hoping to do Windows to the World first & then do some of EiL. (I'm not planning on doing LL. I still have a few years to decide.)

 

My 8th grader is doing Windows to the World this year. (we've already done LL7 and LL8 in 6th and 7th) I might follow that up with a course in science fiction or maybe Figuratively Speaking.

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oh, then this isn't for me. We can't do Lightning Lit 8th grade as she read all the books. And I heard 9th and up for lightning Lit isn't all that great. True?

 

Any other suggestions?

 

I have used a couple of the high school level courses in my classes, and will use another this year too. I think they are OK as info, but their writing assignments leave a great deal to be desired. The questions require very little analysis, and tend toward the recitation style of writing. I feel that by high school the students ought to be beyond that, so we used the guide's questions as jumping off places for real questions that the students came up with and developed on their own. Also, I view and treat my students as young ADULTS, and expect them to deal with things outside their comfort zone regularly--they have all risen to the occasion with flags flying; I have the sense that LL treats the students as older CHILDREN, and is hyper-focused on protecting students from things outside their comfort zone. As always, YMMV. :001_smile:

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My 8th grader is doing Windows to the World this year. (we've already done LL7 and LL8 in 6th and 7th) I might follow that up with a course in science fiction or maybe Figuratively Speaking.

 

Should Figuratively Speaking be done before WTW? Or it doesn't matter.(Although I think FS is cheaper?)

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Hi Dancer, it's funny you should ask about EiL + WWS, because just tonight I was having a "what in the world was I thinking scheduling two things that could take a total of an hour a day?!?!?!" moment. :blink:

 

I like what EiL does with the rabbit trails (context research), and I think we're going to take a :chillpill: on the rest and let it work out. Like maybe we'll make some author books or a powerpoint or something and call it good on the author profiles. Maybe we'll use Venn diagrams or discuss the 2nd major writing assignments but not actually write them out fully.

 

Maybe I'll decide I'm insane. :lol:

 

Sorry, wish I could tell you something more profound. That's just as far as I got. I definitely agree with you on keeping the time finite and not trying to spend 2-3 hours a day on LA, mercy. Our LA mix may not hold up after we've done it a bit.

 

BTW, having read books has no bearing on whether a lit curriculum is useful. The point is whether the lit curriculum helps them discuss and think through issues more DEEPLY than when they read the books on their own. My dd has read LoTR 8 times through and read it through another 2 times for the class she took online this summer. You're *more* able to discuss and analyze when you've read a book multiple times.

Edited by OhElizabeth
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Well, it doesn't sound like my dd is ready for Eil yet anyways.

How "necessary" is it to do a formal lit analysis program? I am really stressing over this.:confused:

 

I think using Figuratively Speaking could be low stress and the bonus is it's not terribly expensive .... so that's even less stress if it doesn't work well for you. FS will define a literary term and give some examples. It's up to you to decide what reading to assign. Not that you have to match reading assignments up with it. You could just cover 1 or 2 terms per week, discuss when you've noticed them in previously read books or even movies (sometimes movies are easier to come up with, imho). Figuratively Speaking covers the terms, so it's up to you to decide what books to read and what assignments to require afterwards. But, if you have that covered with WWS and Notgrass, then FS might be just the thing.

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I think using Figuratively Speaking could be low stress and the bonus is it's not terribly expensive .... so that's even less stress if it doesn't work well for you. FS will define a literary term and give some examples. It's up to you to decide what reading to assign. Not that you have to match reading assignments up with it. You could just cover 1 or 2 terms per week, discuss when you've noticed them in previously read books or even movies (sometimes movies are easier to come up with, imho). Figuratively Speaking covers the terms, so it's up to you to decide what books to read and what assignments to require afterwards. But, if you have that covered with WWS and Notgrass, then FS might be just the thing.

 

I have heard a lot about this program. I wish there was a site where I could view more sample pages then just one. If you know of a site where I can view a few more pages that would be helpful.

 

I see that it is inexpensive. Probably a good way to start off, and can assign my own reading, which I like.:D

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Well, it doesn't sound like my dd is ready for Eil yet anyways.

How "necessary" is it to do a formal lit analysis program? I am really stressing over this.:confused:

 

WWS is going to walk you through beginning written lit analysis, research, etc., so you're going to get there even without EiL.

 

I think for lit analysis it's worthwhile to meet kids where they are. This is a stage where kids start to want to ARGUE, and you're giving them something to argue, dispute, and prove. Could be lit, math, science, politics, theology, ANYTHING. You're just going with their natural flow. Whether it needs to be written or not is a different matter. Learning the form (being able to outline their arguments logically) is worthwhile. Writing all that out into formal papers is a separate beast. Writing is a sore point in our house, so for us I'm separating out the thought process and the actual writing. If I can get the thought process this year, I can work on getting it down on paper next year, after we've done it more sequentially with WWS. To do the thought process AND the writing is too big a jump in our house. Could be done, but nothing else would get done. Maybe 2nd semester sometime? My *goal* is to finish WWS1 by February, at which point yes maybe I could get her to start writing out those week three essays in EiL. However there's 5 years of the curriculum, no rush on getting all the steps in right now. I'll just build up to it.

 

That really had nothing to do with you. I'm just talking through this stuff I was trying to figure out. :D For you, if you do Figuratively Speaking, you're really doing the same thing. You're disputing, giving evidence for your assertion, thinking through your arguments logically, working with the thought process of this age. Then when you have the writing of WWS in place you'll be able to transfer that same thought process over to written. It's a great option to my mind. I got it a couple years ago and we fiddled with it. She wasn't a great lover of it, but that's just her. You're gonna start to think I'm raising this weird dc. I try these things but she never likes them. :lol:

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I have heard a lot about this program. I wish there was a site where I could view more sample pages then just one. If you know of a site where I can view a few more pages that would be helpful.

 

I see that it is inexpensive. Probably a good way to start off, and can assign my own reading, which I like.:D

 

Have you seen this sample?

 

http://www.dedicatedteacher.com/samples/DDTr/ctplw1020s.pdf

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Well, it doesn't sound like my dd is ready for Eil yet anyways.

How "necessary" is it to do a formal lit analysis program? I am really stressing over this.:confused:

 

Not Elizabeth, but she does kinda know me. From what I've read in your posts I think Figuratively Speaking combined with WWS would suit your needs. It will provide your Dd with basic literary terms that you and she can discuss and will probably end up naturally applying to what she is already reading (I think you said you have some literature planned already?). If you work on FS all year then by the time you get to the WWS intro literary writing she will have some knowledge to use from FS.

 

You could also assign very short paragraphs to go with FS that would help her apply what she is learning, without making them into full blown literary assignments.

 

Then next year you can follow up with something like Windows to the World which will help with more advanced literary analysis writing.

 

If you use EIL I think you would just be adding another program parallel to what you are already doing--based on what I've read about it.

 

FS is a nice low pressure intro to literary terms and it is very forgiving. If you set it aside for a while it is easy to catch up. You can use the exercises included, require them written, or just discuss. As Elizabeth mentioned, just the thinking and analyzing process is teaching the beginnings of writing by making the Dc sort through her thoughts and arrive at some conclusions. Add in the literary terms study and have her thinking about how the author uses various devices to craft the work and you have a nice intro to lit analysis without overwhelming yourself or Dd.

 

Well, now I've written all this, I hope Elizabeth will agree with me.

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Thank you for those samples, they were just what I was looking for.

 

Believe it or not *I* am confused over what a Denotation and a Connotation really is????(oh boy I feel stupid):001_huh:

 

I am going to order the book, it seems perfect. I just hope *I* understand it.

 

Are the answers in the back of the book?

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Thank you for those samples, they were just what I was looking for.

 

Believe it or not *I* am confused over what a Denotation and a Connotation really is????(oh boy I feel stupid):001_huh:

 

I am going to order the book, it seems perfect. I just hope *I* understand it.

 

Are the answers in the back of the book?

 

Glad the sample helped. I've become adapt at finding better than the usual samples. I like to have a good idea what I'm buying.

 

For terms that might confuse you, try some googling or a literary terms site for further explanation and examples. I know sites have been mentioned before. Lit terms and criticism come naturally to me, so I don't happen to have any sites bookmarked, but maybe someone else will post.

 

I'll have to check the book to see about answers. We used it over a year ago.

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Another book that is similar to Figuratively Speaking is the book Figurative Language and other Literary Devices. It doesn't cover as many topics as Figuratively Speaking, but I like the definitions better. I am planning on using both with my 7th grader next year. We are both have to see the big picture first and then the details. I like the combination of the two books.

 

Janet

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Glad the sample helped. I've become adapt at finding better than the usual samples. I like to have a good idea what I'm buying.

 

For terms that might confuse you, try some googling or a literary terms site for further explanation and examples. I know sites have been mentioned before. Lit terms and criticism come naturally to me, so I don't happen to have any sites bookmarked, but maybe someone else will post.

 

I'll have to check the book to see about answers. We used it over a year ago.

 

Thank you!

 

I mean, I kind of have to understand the terms myself if I am going to teach them.

 

This is what I get for skipping school so much in my younger years!

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Another book that is similar to Figuratively Speaking is the book Figurative Language and other Literary Devices. It doesn't cover as many topics as Figuratively Speaking, but I like the definitions better. I am planning on using both with my 7th grader next year. We are both have to see the big picture first and then the details. I like the combination of the two books.

 

Janet

Thanks! I will check this out as well!

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Hi Dancer, it's funny you should ask about EiL + WWS, because just tonight I was having a "what in the world was I thinking scheduling two things that could take a total of an hour a day?!?!?!" moment. :blink:

 

I like what EiL does with the rabbit trails (context research), and I think we're going to take a :chillpill: on the rest and let it work out. Like maybe we'll make some author books or a powerpoint or something and call it good on the author profiles. Maybe we'll use Venn diagrams or discuss the 2nd major writing assignments but not actually write them out fully.

 

Maybe I'll decide I'm insane. :lol:

 

Sorry, wish I could tell you something more profound. That's just as far as I got. I definitely agree with you on keeping the time finite and not trying to spend 2-3 hours a day on LA, mercy. Our LA mix may not hold up after we've done it a bit.

 

BTW, having read books has no bearing on whether a lit curriculum is useful. The point is whether the lit curriculum helps them discuss and think through issues more DEEPLY than when they read the books on their own. My dd has read LoTR 8 times through and read it through another 2 times for the class she took online this summer. You're *more* able to discuss and analyze when you've read a book multiple times.

 

The Author Profiles and Context Pages are not that difficult if you are doing the context research anyway. The essay questions would be the most difficult and the other writing assignments are probably middle of the road.

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The Author Profiles and Context Pages are not that difficult if you are doing the context research anyway. The essay questions would be the most difficult and the other writing assignments are probably middle of the road.

 

Yup, that's what I'm hoping. I'm thinking imperfectly done and grown into is better than not done at all. And you've pretty much confirmed what I was thinking on those week 3 assignments. I think I'm going to have her *outline* the week 3 essays but not actually write them out this year. That will accomplish our goals in that department. Then I can use that 4th week to hit the more creative alternate assignments since we won't be editing an essay draft that week. Should work. I think. :lol:

 

Me and my theories.

 

So you've used this?

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Yup, that's what I'm hoping. I'm thinking imperfectly done and grown into is better than not done at all. And you've pretty much confirmed what I was thinking on those week 3 assignments. I think I'm going to have her *outline* the week 3 essays but not actually write them out this year. That will accomplish our goals in that department. Then I can use that 4th week to hit the more creative alternate assignments since we won't be editing an essay draft that week. Should work. I think. :lol:

 

Me and my theories.

 

So you've used this?

 

She will be in 8th grade right? Both Teaching the Classics and Reading Roadmaps suggest the same thing for logic stage writing from literature:

 

* IEW Unit III - 3 to 5 paragraph "key thought outline" summaries

* IEW Unit IX Critiques

* Page long answers to questions from the Socratic List, especially the "theme" section

 

I would replace the EIL essays with these suggestions.

 

FYI Reading Roadmaps has a nice section on how to write and grade literary analysis essays. This is great if you don't want to spend so much time or in depth with Windows to the World. In fact this book is worth its weight in gold for creating and structuring your own literature course.

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She will be in 8th grade right? Both Teaching the Classics and Reading Roadmaps suggest the same thing for logic stage writing from literature:

 

* IEW Unit III - 3 to 5 paragraph "key thought outline" summaries

* IEW Unit IX Critiques

* Page long answers to questions from the Socratic List, especially the "theme" section

 

I would replace the EIL essays with these suggestions.

 

FYI Reading Roadmaps has a nice section on how to write and grade literary analysis essays. This is great if you don't want to spend so much time or in depth with Windows to the World. In fact this book is worth its weight in gold for creating and structuring your own literature course.

 

Sorry, I'm having a little brain blip here. What is Reading Roadmaps? Why do I want to create my own literature course if I have a literature course with EiL? And why do I want to replace the EiL essays with the IEW assignments? I'm just missing your hindsite on this and need clued in. :D We've never done IEW. Are you suggesting IEW is a concrete way to have instructions for the assignments? I have WWS, so I was just going to take the instructions from that and be hack and do it together, outlining the essays together, till it all connects in her brain. She already argues and supports, she just isn't LOGICAL about it. :lol:

 

Yup, she's rising 8th. I thought the EiL people said this was supposed to be for 8th, so I was just going to use it straight, just to give us sort of a benchmark. Sometimes I get tired of making things out of nothing and just wanna be lazy and open it up and have it work, sigh... That's all it was. I walked in the hall, said "Oh, that could work," and bought it. No consideration to how it fit anything, no research, just went with it. And it's fine. I'm not sure tearing apart the literature in any more depth is really going to thrill her soul, dunno. Even though I noticed the mention of WtW in the opening of the book, it doesn't really seem to build on it or encourage discussion. It seems pretty much to stand on its own, and the thought process seemed pretty reasonable. There was a big jump in the upper level guides (am, brit, world), but the lower two were pretty straightforward.

 

Oh, I looked at TtC, because I enjoyed the guy's talk. It was fine, but it seemed a lot like the questions in WTM. Maybe I need to think about this more. I haven't really formulated a thought process or philosophy for how we'll approach lit in later years. There's a dissecting approach to literature (what are the techniques, did you see it, can you prove it), a thematic/wisdom approach (do you understand what you were supposed to LEARN from this, hopefully done in context), and relevance/application approach (it's relevant to me, I thought this, I liked it because...). That last school of thought is utterly disinteresting to me in its self-absorption. The middle school is where I'd like to be, and the first will happen sooner or later. We've already been through a lot of the tools. It's not like we've neglected it. It just doesn't seem to meet a need for her right now. EiL doesn't harp on it, so it's not something I'm looking to add in. TtC didn't really speak to the middle category (wisdom) in the way I was looking for, so it didn't help me on that level.

 

Well that probably all sounds nuts, lol. I'm just a little gun-shy, because I'm not sure I see us writing literary essays on use of techniques for the next 5 years, blech.

 

Now THAT'S a rabbit trail. I'll go look up Reading Roadmaps and see what that is. :)

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Sorry, I'm having a little brain blip here. What is Reading Roadmaps? Why do I want to create my own literature course if I have a literature course with EiL? And why do I want to replace the EiL essays with the IEW assignments? I'm just missing your hindsite on this and need clued in. :D We've never done IEW. Are you suggesting IEW is a concrete way to have instructions for the assignments? I have WWS, so I was just going to take the instructions from that and be hack and do it together, outlining the essays together, till it all connects in her brain. She already argues and supports, she just isn't LOGICAL about it. :lol:

 

Yup, she's rising 8th. I thought the EiL people said this was supposed to be for 8th, so I was just going to use it straight, just to give us sort of a benchmark. Sometimes I get tired of making things out of nothing and just wanna be lazy and open it up and have it work, sigh... That's all it was. I walked in the hall, said "Oh, that could work," and bought it. No consideration to how it fit anything, no research, just went with it. And it's fine. I'm not sure tearing apart the literature in any more depth is really going to thrill her soul, dunno. Even though I noticed the mention of WtW in the opening of the book, it doesn't really seem to build on it or encourage discussion. It seems pretty much to stand on its own, and the thought process seemed pretty reasonable. There was a big jump in the upper level guides (am, brit, world), but the lower two were pretty straightforward.

 

Oh, I looked at TtC, because I enjoyed the guy's talk. It was fine, but it seemed a lot like the questions in WTM. Maybe I need to think about this more. I haven't really formulated a thought process or philosophy for how we'll approach lit in later years. There's a dissecting approach to literature (what are the techniques, did you see it, can you prove it), a thematic/wisdom approach (do you understand what you were supposed to LEARN from this, hopefully done in context), and relevance/application approach (it's relevant to me, I thought this, I liked it because...). That last school of thought is utterly disinteresting to me in its self-absorption. The middle school is where I'd like to be, and the first will happen sooner or later. We've already been through a lot of the tools. It's not like we've neglected it. It just doesn't seem to meet a need for her right now. EiL doesn't harp on it, so it's not something I'm looking to add in. TtC didn't really speak to the middle category (wisdom) in the way I was looking for, so it didn't help me on that level.

 

Well that probably all sounds nuts, lol. I'm just a little gun-shy, because I'm not sure I see us writing literary essays on use of techniques for the next 5 years, blech.

 

Now THAT'S a rabbit trail. I'll go look up Reading Roadmaps and see what that is. :)

 

I didn't mean to confuse you or anyone else reading this. I am coming from the perspective of a rising 11th grader who has already completed one year EIL in 10th. I bought the The Complete Curriculum from Janice Campbell and therefore was able to pick and choose units for ds based upon what we were studying. I did not worry about whether or not it was from the 8th grade Intro or the 12th grade world.

 

Ds absolutely loved EIL because he loves to read and it was a good mix of easy, medium, and hard writing assignments. However, EIL does not teach in any way shape or form how to do literary analysis but it does give you examples of the different types of writing it asks the student to write. Ds had completed Ancient HBWL and TWSS in 7th grade and SWI B and The Elegant Essay in 8th grade. Although he is a fabulous creative writer we have never done any learning of a literary analysis essay. Because of this fact he struggled tremendously with strong thesis statements, how to support his assertions, and writing clearly his literary analysis.

 

So when I was reading the posts in this thread my brain zeroed in on the fact that WWS1 only has one lesson on literary analysis toward the end and your dd does not like to write. So I thought I would give you some suggestions on how to ease her toward it while working your way through WWS1 and EIL at the same time. I'm sorry for assuming you had background in IEW, that was me being in a hurry and not thinking through my whole post. The suggestions can still be completed without having done IEW before.

 

For my ds I plan to go over how to write a literary analysis essay using the example from Reading Roadmaps the first week of school so he can get going again with EIL right away. I will expand upon it using WttW throughout the year. Ideally we would have done this first last year before starting EIL. That is the main point I am trying to get across.

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Jennifer, thanks, it makes more sense now! I knew you were giving me some hindsite. I was just trying to understand. And you're right, I knew I was going to need to give her some instruction in HOW to do the writing for EiL. It was on my to do list, but more in a vague sense. (bet it's in WWS, go find it and write out the instructions so they're more clear and upfront, blah blah) I'll definitely follow your leads on places to look.

 

She did an expository writing class in co-op last year that had them busting out lots of paragraphs and essays with theses, so it's not like she's never done this before. I just felt like she wasn't holding to the *logic* of it tightly enough. I think she'll do fine with the context and approach papers. It's the week 3 essays I'm concerned about, and mainly I think I'm going to have her make good outlines and not even fiddle with writing the papers this year. That way I make sure the logic is getting accomplished. I know she can write now. I just need the logic and structure. :D

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