English vs Lit ?

[Alison in KY]

Can someone please explain to me when or why/how you would seperate literature into it's own credit or 1/2 credit class, vs just having it included in English. I'm preparing for 9th grade and a bit stumped by how to do English. Do college's consider English classes to include lit, writing, vocab, grammar? All of those every year, or some of those every year, or whatever your kid needs work on every year? In our state, we are required the 4 credits in English...but it seems like it would be very easy to go over 1 credit in English in a year if you were doing all of the above. Do you do a month of writing, then do your literature study, do a little each day, etc?

 

Thank you for your suggestions.

 

Alison

[regentrude]

A typical English high school course includes both literature and composition. In my opinion, a high school student should not need extra instruction in spelling and grammar, but some students may require remediation. Some people do extra vocabulary studies; I don't, because I find extensive reading the best way to increase vocabulary, and my DD's performance on standardized tests shows that this was a good approach for us.

There have been frequent discussions on these boards whether students should be given an extra credit for dealing with large amounts of literature; I agree with the posters who are careful to avoid any appearance of padding the transcript, but YMMV.

Every year should include both literature and writing. I do not find a separation useful or even possible, as we read and discuss literature all the time - but you could certainly devote certain months to just literature and certain months to just writing if you so prefer.

 

There are many different approaches to English, and you will probably get many different answers.

[Harriet Vane]

In my world, there are two types of English classes. One type is literature study. The student writes lots and lots of papers about the literature and the historical context of the literature and the authors, and in so doing we cover grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and literature analysis. We also do some grammar exercises as well. The other type of English class in my world is an entirely writing-focused course with no literature study. In that case, the student writes millions of papers, during which grammar and spelling issues are addressed as part of the process. For those students that I have taught in this manner, I have recommended that even if they do not do a literature analysis class that they at least have a good, beefy, academic reading list to work through.

 

Titles for my courses tend to be either:

 

Medieval Literature and Composition

Modern Literature and Composition

 

OR

 

Expository Writing

Composition

[bobbeym]

In TX high school English is a combination of grammar, vocab/spelling, writing, and literature study.

 

We started in October with pre-writing skills, then did NaNoWriMo in November for a month of creative writing. Starting this month, we're moving into the editing phase of his story, alternated every 2 weeks with a novel/play of his choice and some type of writing assignment of my choice. I also test on vocabulary words for each lit selection.

 

For Secret Life of Walter Mitty he had to write Mitty a new fantasy following the original style and tone of the story. For Taming of the Shrew next month, he'll be writing summaries of each scene. Summaries are a major weakness for him and I don't think we can successfully move forward with writing decent essays until he can write a decent summary. I don't remember the rest of the assignments off the top of my head, but I can share them with you later tonight if you'd like.

[Lori D.]

Well, that IS a "can of worms" topic! :tongue_smilie:

 

 

College expectations of an "English" credit

I've not ever seen much of anything saying what *colleges* expect to see from high school English classes. First, colleges are different in what they want for admissions, there is no "standard" (that I've seen) of what typically they expect. I would guess they want to students to be able to at least write complete sentences and multi-paragraph essays, and I image they assume students will have read a few of the most commonly-covered works of Literature -- but that is so widely divergent, that, while I see "recommended book lists" for students heading to college, I don't think *any* university expects students to have read any specific works. Many colleges don't even ask to see your book lists or course descriptions. Grammar, spelling and vocab don't seem to be things colleges bring up -- I am guessing they just assume those topics were covered in middle school/high school...

 

Second, *high schools* are so different in what they require -- from state to state, from city to city, from district to district -- that it would be hard for colleges to have expectations of high school graduates to have covered similar things -- which also translates into how *well* the English topics were covered. Which leads to...

 

...Finally, the level of writing ability has dropped so drastically over the years that virtually all colleges have students take 2 semesters of writing as part of the general ed. coursework -- and I don't think very many allow students to CLEP or Advance Placement out of the writing any more. So, colleges are making sure that THEY cover what their expectations are for writing in the student's first year of college, and don't really worry about what the high schools did or didn't cover for English.

 

 

"English" credit in public/private schools

In the majority of high school systems, a 1.0 credit English class is typically about 1/2 Literature and 1/2 Writing. Often, a small amount of Grammar instruction/practice is included with the Writing portion, but that amount of Grammar typically decreases over the grades of high school, as grammar becomes part of what you "do" when you write. Vocabulary is typically folded in with the Literature, and usually comes from the Literature. Some school systems require 0.25 or 0.5 of one of the English credits of one of the high school years to be about "rhetoric" -- as in, "public speaking".

 

 

"English" credit in homeschooling

Homeschoolers do too wide of a variety of things with the various "Language Arts" topics in high school for me to say "here's the standard". Already, you've received lots of variant answers! :) Some families do Lit. for 1 semester, then Writing for 1 semester. Some do a little of both topics every day. Those seem to be the most frequently mentioned ways of doing it, but there are others, as well, especially if a family outsources part of the coursework. How families accomplish the credits often dictates how they account for the credits on the transcript, and why there is so much variation there.

 

So, I'll give you our breakdown, too, just to make it more variable. (LOL) We spent between 1.5 to 2 hours a day, 4 days a week, on high school English. About an 45-60 minutes on Lit., and the rest on Writing (with a little Grammar and Spelling thrown in).

 

Literature: Read aloud together and discuss classic works of literature, ala WTM and WEM questions, individual lit. guides, and full-year programs. Writing was anything from 1 paragraph response to a prompt, to several paragraph long essays, to a very occasional multi-page analysis. We did not write about every work read. Vocabulary was absorbed as we went. (We had done a vocabulary roots-study in late elementary/middle school years.)

 

In addition, in grades 9 and 10, we did a double amount of Literature -- 0.5 credit's worth for the English each year, but an additional 1.0 credit's worth through the Great Books study we did. So each DS received 1.0 English (Lit and Comp), AND 1.0 credit Elective: Literature: Ancient Classics, and 1.0 Literature: Modern Classics. Yes, we spent at least 2.5 hours a day, and all 5 days a week, on all the English topics that year. :)

 

Writing: Work through a writing curriculum in the first 3 years of high school; then in last year of high school, mostly review/touch on aspects of writing and do writing assignments either related to the Literature, or a longer History research paper, or essays for college/scholarship applications. During all 4 years of high school, one day a week we did a timed essay from a past SAT essay prompt.

 

Grammar: In grade 9, I had DSs do an overall Grammar review to make sure they had it down. The rest of the years, they did a 5-10 minute Grammar practice 2-3x/week. Grammar at that point was a tool for good writing and speaking, and helpful for understanding sentence structure of foreign language study.

 

Spelling/Vocabulary: One DS needed remediation due to LDs in the spelling and writing areas, and the other was only average in spelling, so I made individualized spelling for each that included vocabulary words from The ABCs and All Their Tricks -- a great resource from which we also learned the source of certain spelling patterns (for example, "ch" has the hard "k" sound when it is a word of Greek origin -- "chronological", "chaos", etc.). DS who needed remediation also did Megawords throughout high school, as well as some spelling practice techniques.

 

 

Why separate credits for Lit. and Composition?

Reasons why homeschoolers might separate these components of English credits:

1. that's the way the schools are required in the homeschooler's state to do transcripts or show completion of high school graduation requirements

2. that's the way a particular college/university the student is applying to prefers to see the credits listed

3. the student completed an outsourced class that is labeled that way

4. the student completed additional Literature or Writing beyond the 0.5 credit's worth for the English credit, enough so to make it a separate credit it on its own

5. the student did a specialized course that warrants a separate credit (example: wrote a novel -- course would be Creative Writing: The Novel or something along those lines)

 

 

So, how you decide to do it will probably end up being a combination of things:

- individual needs of each student combined with overall homeschooling goals re: Literature, Writing, Grammar, Spelling, Vocabulary

- use of a formal curriculum already laid out for 0.5 or 1.0 credit of work -- or a DIY -- or WTM style English

- any outsourcing of coursework and what it is called and what it covers

 

To help you decide what and how to cover high school English, print off your state's list of what general topics they expect each high school course to cover. Check out the materials and table of contents for more standard school-like curriculae (Bob Jones, Abeka, K-12, etc.). Check out specific writing or literature programs to get an idea of how much material is covered in a year, and how it is scheduled. Look at online literature and writing courses and see if that may be of help or interest, or at least what is covered and how it is scheduled.

 

 

Consider what your goals are:

- Do you want a more rigorous classical English?

- Or do you just want to cover what a typical English class in a school covers? (check out some of the college-bound reading lists here, here and here, and lists of works most common covered in high school here, here, and here.

- Do you have a science-minded student and want to put more energies there and so want to just focus on getting your student writing solidly and exposed to some basic literature?

- Do you have a student with special needs (advanced or LDs) and will need to create your own course?

- Do you plan to have your student take AP Lit. & Comp and test? That will dictate what materials you use, and how you schedule.

- Do you have specific works of literature you or your student *want* to cover in homeschooling?

- Does your student have an interest/talent for a particular type of writing you want to nurture and focus on?

- Have a specific college in mind? Then consider gearing all courses, including the English to be the best fit with that college.

 

 

Hope something there is of help as you wrestle with that can of worms! ;) BEST of luck in your high school English planning! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[G5052]

Well, that IS a "can of worms" topic! :tongue_smilie:

 

 

Yes, Lori superbly outlined what took me quite awhile to figure out. There is no standard, and if you went through a rigorous AP program with lots of classic novels and graded essay-writing, don't ask what the standard-track English class in high school does now. Locally it is mostly journalling on short stories, poems, and plays with one novel a semester thrown in.

 

So I had to strike a balance. I decided that I can teach them writing, but we outsource for literature because they enjoy the discussion aspect of that. Yes, they have some writing in their literature classes, but I also work in more vocabulary and essays behind the scenes. I haven't decided yet how to handle that in the end on the transcript. I may be bold and put both literature and "rhetoric" down because "rhetoric" is a better description of what I do.

 

The reality is that mine likely will end up at in-state commuter schools, so one of their first classes will be English 101 or the equivalent. And it will be easy for them, but that's fine. In my day you could get out of it with AP scores, but that isn't the case anymore. So get through it and move on.

[Ellie]

Can someone please explain to me when or why/how you would seperate literature into its own credit or 1/2 credit class, vs just having it included in English. I'm preparing for 9th grade and a bit stumped by how to do English. Do colleges consider English classes to include lit, writing, vocab, grammar? All of those every year, or some of those every year, or whatever your kid needs work on every year? In our state, we are required the 4 credits in English...but it seems like it would be very easy to go over 1 credit in English in a year if you were doing all of the above. Do you do a month of writing, then do your literature study, do a little each day, etc?

 

Thank you for your suggestions.

 

Alison

 

Most major textbook publishers, who write their textbooks based on what their customers--schools--want, which is in turn based on state requirements for *curriculum* (remember that "curriculum" is the course content, not the specific textbooks), which may or may not have anything to do with what colleges are looking for, assume that there will be composition, grammar, and literature every year of high school, for one English credit (or whatever credit each state gives a full-year course). Vocabulary is not usually a separate subject but is part of literature (and science and history, actually). Generally, grammar and composition will be in one text/workbook, literature in a separate one (either an anthology or multiple original works); in the four high schools in three states I attended, we alternated units of grammar, composition, and literature.

 

Since most textbook publishers write grammar/comp and literature texts for each year that make up an English course, it would be safe to assume that colleges most often see transcripts which have one English credit each year which includes all those components.

 

Course descriptions would provide information on which literatre was studied (e.g., British, American, etc.).

 

Homeschoolers tend to overthink things, lol.

 

I am also always surprised by how many people don't remember what they did in high school. o_0

 

That you might do more than is necessary for a college transcript doesn't really mean much, because we want our children to learn because learning is valuable, not just because they're working on a college transcript, right?

[Mom22ns]

Since most textbook publishers write grammar/comp and literature texts for each year that make up an English course, it would be safe to assume that colleges most often see transcripts which have one English credit each year which includes all those components.

 

 

Interesting. In my school district, in 8th grade I was able to take honors English. We dropped grammar and read more novels. We never had a textbook for English class from that point on. We read books, we wrote papers and essays, we read plays aloud, we discussed it all. We did study vocabulary from the literature. We discussed time periods, context and authors. For 5 years, that was my experience in English class.

 

I do something quite similar with my kids.

[Ellie]

 

Interesting. In my school district, in 8th grade I was able to take honors English. We dropped grammar and read more novels. We never had a textbook for English class from that point on. We read books, we wrote papers and essays, we read plays aloud, we discussed it all. We did study vocabulary from the literature. We discussed time periods, context and authors. For 5 years, that was my experience in English class.

 

I do something quite similar with my kids.

 

Note that "curriculum" means the content of the course, not the materials or methods used to cover the content. Your curriculum included composition and literature; you were lucky enough to have teachers that used actual works instead of anthology textbooks; they taught you how to write then had you actually...write. IOW, your curriculum was just what I said it would be: composition and literature every year, with vocabulary being part of the literature. Grammar is often dropped if the students don't need it.

 

Most schools just default to using textbooks, with some discussion thrown in for good measure.

[Mom22ns]

Note that "curriculum" means the content of the course, not the materials or methods used to cover the content. Your curriculum included composition and literature; you were lucky enough to have teachers that used actual works instead of anthology textbooks; they taught you how to write then had you actually...write. IOW, your curriculum was just what I said it would be: composition and literature every year, with vocabulary being part of the literature. Grammar is often dropped if the students don't need it.

 

Most schools just default to using textbooks, with some discussion thrown in for good measure.

 

I understand the difference between curriculum and format. I was just surprised to hear your textbook English experiences since I've never even seen a high school English textbook in spite of my ps background.

 

My education was not an impressive one, but when I hear people talk about English in ps now, I think our district was a cut above. Now I understand why I aced all my writing and lit classes in college even though I was a science major.

[Ellie]

 

I understand the difference between curriculum and format. I was just surprised to hear your textbook English experiences since I've never even seen a high school English textbook in spite of my ps background.

 

My education was not an impressive one, but when I hear people talk about English in ps now, I think our district was a cut above. Now I understand why I aced all my writing and lit classes in college even though I was a science major.

You were in AP classes, right? The rest of us had textbooks. I graduated in 1969. :-)

 

Most private Christian schools use either ABeka or BJUP texts for English. Smaller Christian schools may use Alpha Omega, Christian LIght, or ACE, which *may* study a few original works for literature, but otherwise it will be the individual Life Paks, LIght Units, or Paces.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I understand the difference between curriculum and format. I was just surprised to hear your textbook English experiences since I've never even seen a high school English textbook in spite of my ps background.

 

My education was not an impressive one, but when I hear people talk about English in ps now, I think our district was a cut above. Now I understand why I aced all my writing and lit classes in college even though I was a science major.

 

There were also good textbooks. The Adventures in Literature series by HBJ was good. They have short stories, poetry, drama and essays. Add a couple novels and you are good.

 

ETA: I've been picking these up used. I think I have a pretty full set now. Some of the volumes are not full of classic works (Adventures for Americans, for example). But most of them are full of just the type of strong short story, prose and poetry that you would want a student exposed to. My (honors level) high school courses did add some novels or plays and also benefited from strong, demanding teachers who assigned work and expected you to live up to the work load. FWIW, I have compared several editions of this series and the older versions are far better. Athena and Pegasus editions have far more pictures and far less good text. The Classic and Heritage editions are much better.

[Mom22ns]

No, there were no APs in my high school.

[Ellie]

No, there were no APs in my high school.

Oh, sorry. I read back through your post and you said *honors* English. :-)

 

Not all states have honors courses, and possibly not all schools in all states. Of the four high schools I attended in California, South Carolina, and Virginia, only California had honors English; I was only there for one semester, and I *loved* the honors English. :-) In the other high schools, it was textbooks for everything. I was bored to tears during the literature units, coasted through the grammar/comp units.

 

Lucky you. :-)

 

I think *all* students would benefit from your honors English experience.

[Alison in KY]

Thank you all so very much, this is great information.

 

Alison

[fluffybunny]

I hope you don't mind me adding this;

 

English: how we use the language we call 'English'

Literature: the study/analysis/critiques of living books/poetry from any language translated into English, (or originally written in English).

 

If we were to call the study of Homer "English", it would be like a Greek speaker studying a Greek translation of Shakespeare and calling it "Greek studies". :D

[Ellie]

I hope you don't mind me adding this;

 

English: how we use the language we call 'English'

Literature: the study/analysis/critiques of living books/poetry from any language translated into English, (or originally written in English).

 

If we were to call the study of Homer "English", it would be like a Greek speaker studying a Greek translation of Shakespeare and calling it "Greek studies". :D

 

You could say it that way. You could also say that the course called "English" includes the study of all facets of the English language, including writing, grammar, and literature.