Great Courses literature lectures - watch before or after reading?

[Carolyn in Ohio]

When do you think is the best time to watch literature lectures? Before the student reads the book because they have great background on the author? During or after?

What do you think?

thanks
Carolyn

[Joules]

We always watch them after. We are using Voth's series loosely. Each time he reads one of the books included, he watches the video to get Voth's insight.

It may just be our style, though. Ds reads most everything blind. I prefer him to read a piece and take what he can on his own. Then we study the author, context and analysis. Sometimes he actually writes his essays before reading any other material, so it's his ideas alone. He prefers it that way, too. Of course, some things, like Hamlet, are so referenced in our culture that you can't read them context free, but we do save analysis until after.

Another thing we do different is that ds reads almost everything twice...once fresh and once after studying the piece. It was a requirement by a lit teacher last year, but has become a habit with him.

[klmama]

We usually discuss the author and his literary style before reading a work, so if a lecture is just on that it might go before. For Inferno, with so many lectures, we used them while still reading the book, but after reading the sections discussed. For works with only one or two lectures, we read the whole thing and use the lectures after.

[katilac]

Before. Not so much for background on the author, but the work itself. The lectures and added context also pique their interest. 

[Carolyn in Ohio]

Yes, I mostly mean the one lecture per work sets (ie Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition) Any thoughts on whether you would vary this depending on the difficulty of the work? I think we may watch the Heart of Darkness lecture before reading, while for example, we really enjoyed the Pride and Prejudice lecture after finishing the book.

thanks for the responses,
Carolyn

[laughing lioness]

My ds 14 and dd 11 are currently watching The Greeks by Roman Roads Media. They are very familiar with some of it so they are LOVING the lectures but the reading is a bit beyond their range right now. I did have ds 14 read The Illiad at the beginning of the series  - and he knows the story, etc- but frankly, he was appalled/ bored.

I'm doing the series as a review but my kids BEG for it. I figure it will be a great foundation for high school. And it's the kind of thing we'll use more  than once.