Lit in high school?

[suzziesnowflake]

My ds is in 9th year and has dysgraphia & dyslexia. We are using OM for lit and he is completly stumped. He is having a very difficult time answering the questions, doing vocab, and writing a simple paragraph. He is reading Earthsea on the I pad through book share. He says he doesn't understand it (I am reading it as well and had to do so twice so I could understand it). He listened to it twice and still is not "getting it". I know it is not his type of book. I guess my question is how are you handling lit with your highschooler?

[Heathermomster]

We are using the Teaching the Classics DVDs with a 6 week lesson plan written by Jill Pike.  The plans are free and posted on the IEW Yahoo Group site.  I've also downloaded EIL's Intro to Lit and Comp.  TtC emphasizes Socratic questions for discussion and teaches about a story's context, structure, and style using children's literature.  The first DVD was boring but improved with the other videos.

 

We read short stories together.  I ask him Socratic questions and jot down any vocab word that he doesn't know.  He defines and types up the vocab.  We look for literary elements and themes.  I don't want DS to dissect every short story that he reads, so expect we'll be looking more closely at the author's life and mindmapping  characters, setting, and plot.  You can mindmap easily enough with the Inspiration app for the IPad.  I'm also in the process of teaching DS how to annotate stories as he reads.

 

We just read a short story by O. Henry that was surprisingly difficult.  Reading together, jotting words down, and looking them up with the IPad has been a lifesaver.  At one point, we both started laughing over the author's use of the word hegira.    Anyho..I expect we will back down to a lower reading level or turn to a standard classroom lit text if future stories turn out to be like the doozy we just experienced.  

 

[kerenlynne]

We used EIL last year for an intro to lit class as well as some Sparks notes etc. DS (Dysgraphic and Dyslexic) really struggled with the writing assignments so we scaled them way back. The reading was ok for him but we use a Kindle fire and buy the books and audiobooks which sync together. I think this helps a lot but makes an otherwise inexpensive lit program more pricey:( We couldn't do that with short stories so that actually made them a bit harder to complete. This year we are doing American Lit and I am combining Education Portal with the Norton Anthology of American Lit. Norton has a website with online quizzes and a link to video lectures and the Ed portal has some great animated 5 minute explanations of lit with mini comprehension quizzes. All free:) Writing is our Epic Failure. If we talk about Lit he is actually pretty knowledgeable but to write it all down in answers to questions let alone papers(even using dragon)is something we have not had success with. Good luck to you- I included the links to our American Lit resources below in case you're interested.

 

http://education-portal.com/academy/course/american-literature-course.html

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/naal7/contents/A/quiz.asp

http://www.learner.org/amerpass/index.html