World Geography and tying in Literature

[butterfly113]

We are planning on studying World Geography next year for 9th grade. My son has asked if his Literature may also be Geography based, not necessarily all of it, but some.

 

If you were to come up with a list of literature works to study, what great works, good books would you include?

 

On the list we already have Around the World in 80 Days, but we are looking for other suggestions. Thanks.

[Momling]

http://learner.org/courses/worldlit/. We read many of these books and watched these videos in preparation. With study guides and an essay, I think it was a great way to study world literature.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

There was a woman who kept a blog as she read a book from every country in the world. That might be a start.

 

http://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/

[justkeepswimming]

Here is a link to wonderful geography plans:

 

http://harmonyfinearts.org/2009/08/world-geography-for-high-schoolers-free-download/

 

 

[EndOfOrdinary]

 

Here are a few ideas my husband and I have thrown around for the future. We study literature in the context of geography/history/cultural studies.

 

 

Beowulf and The Vikings Great Course

 

Robin Hood, Le Morte d'Arthur, Canterbury Tales, Hamlet, Macbeth all work for Britain and the surrounding Empire. There is a British Lit Great Course as well

 

Don Quixote is Spanish

 

There are some really great Chinese Myths like Yi and the Nine Sons. Confucius or the Communist Manifesto are also really interesting.

 

Animal Farm is a great study of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. There is a lot of great material about it online.

 

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse is pretty amazing.

 

The Ramayana is interesting for India (there are numerous graphic novels and other translations of this that are not exceedingly lengthy)

 

The Epic of Gilgamesh does some very interesting things with the goddess worship which show the merging of the Greek empires with the Mesopotamian areas in cultural significance. Ishtar and Aphrodite are strikingly similar. There is a lot of good material on the comparisons of The Odyssey and Gilgamesh as a similar representation expressed through the different cultures.

[butterfly113]

Wow, great suggestions!

 

Momling, did you feel the content of most of those books were appropriate high school level??

 

After a year of World Geography, we will also cover World History, US History and Govt./Econ. SO what I'm primarily looking for for the Geography year would be more along the lines of seeing more into various cultures, etc.

[Kareni]

This older thread might be of interest.  Here is what I wrote there:

 

Australia:

I had my daughter read Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington.

"Following an Australian government edict in 1931, black aboriginal children and children of mixed marriages were gathered up and taken to settlements to be institutionally assimilated. In Rabbit-Proof Fence, award-wining author Doris Pilkington traces the story of her mother, Molly, one of three young girls uprooted from their community in Southwestern Australia and taken to the Moore River Native Settlement. There, Molly and her relatives Gracie and Daisy were forbidden to speak their native language, forced to abandon their heritage, and taught to be culturally white. After regular stays in solitary confinement, the three girls planned and executed a daring escape from the grim camp."

She and my husband then watched the movie with Kenneth Branagh.

Regards,
Kareni

[Corraleno]

what I'm primarily looking for for the Geography year would be more along the lines of seeing more into various cultures, etc.

 

Lightning Lit's World Literature I & II would work for that.

 

World Lit 1 covers:

 

Chinua Achebe (novel: Things Fall Apart)

African poetry (poems selected from This Same Sky)

Kazuo Ishiguro (novel: An Artist of the Floating World)

Poetry of the Far East (poems selected from This Same Sky)

Naguib Mahfouz (novel: Fountain and Tomb)

Middle Eastern poetry (poems selected from This Same Sky)

An autobiography of a Third-World national, to be chosen and obtained by the student, from a list of recommendations in the Guide

Poetry as Life Stories (poems selected from This Same Sky)

 

World Lit 2 covers:

 

R. K. Narayan (India) (short stories: Malgudi Days)

Short Stories of India (short stories selected from Other Voices, Other Vistas)

Isabel Allende (Chile) (memoir: My Invented Country)

Short Stories of Latin America and Japan (short stories selected from Other Voices, Other Vistas)

Adeline Yen Mah (China) (memoir: A Thousand Pieces of Gold)

Short Stories of China (short stories selected from Other Voices, Other Vistas)

Amin Maalouf (Lebanon) (essay: In the Name of Identity)

Stories of Africa (short stories selected from Other Voices, Other Vistas)

[LinaJ]

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse is pretty amazing.

 

What age is the book appropriate for? Thinking of reading it to my 10 and 11-year-old, never read it myself, so not sure if they are too young to grasp it or not.

[Space station]

http://learner.org/courses/worldlit/. We read many of these books and watched these videos in preparation. With study guides and an essay, I think it was a great way to study world literature.

This looks amazing! Thanks for sharing it.

[EndOfOrdinary]

What age is the book appropriate for? Thinking of reading it to my 10 and 11-year-old, never read it myself, so not sure if they are too young to grasp it or not.

 

If they are into philosophy and "big concepts of life" then it might resonate.  There is some sex.  He is not the greatest of guys in the beginning.  Lots of lust and greed - in various forms.  I do not remember obnoxiously pornographic sex, but it definitely does not mince words.

 

Here is a quote, "“So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.â€

 

So it is sex positive, and not really about sex, but it is definitely going there and does not shy away from anything.

 

It is mainly discussing the concept that we can only reach our true selves if we recognize the world as a unified experience, one that is larger than it's separate pieces which at the same time requires those separate pieces to give it meaning.  That might be a bit boring.  I remember thinking it was incredible at 15.  Reread it at 23 and was just as impressed.  To some degree a bit of life experience is necessary to care at all about the narrative of the central character.  I had been through he** and back by 15 with my very dysfunctional family.  I was also an angsty teen feeling a thousand things about the world were smiting me :lol:

 

I do not like to underestimate kids.  My son wanted to read the Epic of Gilgamesh in the original translation this year (Age 9) and blew me away with how much he understood about the symbolism and power dynamics.  They might be totally into it.  It is definitely full of fantastic messages and discussion. You could always try it and they look at you glazed over, bored to tears, then stop.  It would definitely be one that I would read chunks of and then stop to talk in between.  It is not a cute read aloud by any means.  But it could be really cool if they were into it and you could have some fairly up front discussions before those angsty teen years hit :)