If you've used Sophie's World for Philosophy,

[Perry]

can you describe how you went about it?  Did you supplement with readings from each of the philosophers?  How long did it take to get through the book? 

 

Any suggestions would be welcome.  This is waaaaay out of my comfort zone. 

[G5052]

We used it as part of Classical Conversation's Challenge I.  It was a semester-long class with a project at the end where they researched and presented on a philosopher or World religion.  They had questions that went with each chapter from the Classical Conversations guide. We also used SparkNotes and this resource:http://www.stjohns-chs.org/general_studies/philosophy/indexSW/swindex.html.  I had my student take notes as they read, and then they did the questions.  When they got stuck, we worked together.

 

I know that it receives all kinds of praise, but I found it really difficult to get what we needed out of it, even though I've studied the great philosophers several times.    Sometimes there was so much to wade through to get the key information.  Sometimes we'd find the answer in SparkNotes and really struggle to find it in the text.  IMHO the questions we had were tough to answer from the book alone.

 

I used a similar book ages ago in high school that was a college-level text.  I wish that I remembered what that one was!  It was much more concrete IMHO.

 

 

 

 

[Geo]

I just had ds read it. It's target audience is middle school/high school, and is generally considered to be an easy introduction, mostly centered around the big questions of philosophy. It shouldn't be too difficult for either of you. There is a study guide (kindle edition) available on amazon, but I have never used it.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Sophies-Jostein-Gaarder-Summary-ebook/dp/B004TO52L0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376533498&sr=1-1&keywords=sophie