Do you think the Learning LA though Literature Gold books

[Lara in Colo]

equal high school credit?  There is an American Lit and a British Lit--

 

What do you think they can equal for HS credit-- 1 full credit each? 1/2 credit each?

 

[chiguirre]

I have the American Lit gold book. I picked it up for almost nothing used. It's not very detailed, but it's a decent outline for an AmLit course if you add more and meatier novels. The writing instruction is minimal, seriously MCT's Paragraph Town went into more detail about writing an expository essay. I wouldn't pay much for it because you'll still need to do a lot of planning to turn this bare bones outline into a high school credit worthy class. I plan to use it as an introduction to short stories, poetry and short novels for T over the summer.

 

I've seen the Lightning Lit samples for 7 & 8 and those looked easier to use and more meaty than AmLit Gold, so I assume their American Literature would be a whole lot better.

[Lori D.]

TOTALLY agree with Chiguirre.

 

Both LLATL Gold programs seemed VERY minimal in teaching of literature and literary analysis to me, when we tried to use them about 5-6 years ago. There are a few writing assignments, but no teaching of writing, and no rubrics for grading. You asked about granting credit for LLATL:Gold -- I believe the publishers consider each Gold program to be 1.0 credit (1 year long). However, when compared to other high school literature programs, I personally would grant no more than 0.5 credit (1 semester) for each. As Chiguirre says, these could be useful for planning out a Lit. course, and by adding additional Literature and teaching resources.

 

Alternative literature programs that are also written to the student (as LLATL is):

- Windows to the World (0.5 credit / 1 semester program)

- Lightning Literature (0.5 credit / 1 semester programs)

- Excellence in Literature (1.0 credit / 1 year programs)

 

Here are the table of contents and sample pages of  LLATL:Gold American Lit and British Lit for comparison.

 

BEST of luck, whatever you decide! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[Lara in Colo]

Any suggestions for a good British Lit program???

[swellmomma]

have you looked at sonlight 530? it is a british lit course.  I am happy with sl right no but it might be what you are looking for

[Lara in Colo]

I cannot afford Sonlight unless my (enrichment) school pays for it and they don't go past 9th grade-- so no Sonlight.  I have chosen TRISMS for high school  (a main spine/history curriculum) and I am mainly trying to flesh out the extras.

[3andme]

This blog post presents a short summary of some other English Lit choices including BJU, AO Lifepacs, and Smarr. 

[Hunter]

I'm very much watching this thread and tried doing some searches.

 

The gold books look like what is missing from current self-education plan. Rigorous and complete isn't always the most efficient. I think I was able to order an older version of the American book fairly cheaply from Amazon. My fingers are crossed that it arrives at all and in decent condition.

[at the beach]

Here is a link to an old thread you might be interested in reading: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/67899-llatl-what-are-your-opinions-for-middle-and-high-school/?hl=%2Bllatl&do=findComment&comment=654984 

 

Here is Cathy Duffy's review: http://cathyduffyreviews.com/phonics_reading/learning-language-arts-through-literature-gold.htm

 

HTH. :)

[Hunter]

Here is a link to an old thread you might be interested in reading: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/67899-llatl-what-are-your-opinions-for-middle-and-high-school/?hl=%2Bllatl&do=findComment&comment=654984

 

Here is Cathy Duffy's review: http://cathyduffyreviews.com/phonics_reading/learning-language-arts-through-literature-gold.htm

 

HTH. :)

 

Thanks! There are 3 editions, right?

 

The 3rd edition is 2013 and there seem to be very few used copies hanging around. I think I ordered a 1997 edition and am not sure if that is 1st or 2nd edition, or even if the seller knows the difference. Amazon sellers are notorious for sending the wrong edition. I guess I'll see when it gets here.

 

How well does Gold work as an entry level text, without having used the earlier levels? The earlier levels seem very different.

[at the beach]

Thanks! There are 3 editions, right?

 

The 3rd edition is 2013 and there seem to be very few used copies hanging around. I think I ordered a 1997 edition and am not sure if that is 1st or 2nd edition, or even if the seller knows the difference. Amazon sellers are notorious for sending the wrong edition. I guess I'll see when it gets here.

 

How well does Gold work as an entry level text, without having used the earlier levels? The earlier levels seem very different.

 

I haven't looked at these in a few years and never used the upper levels. I did not realize there was a 2013 edition. I had considered the upper levels at one point in time, and I recalled reading some positive reviews of them, so just wanted to share that. When I considered them, I intended to use them without using any previous levels. 

[Julie in MN]

I've only used portions of the Gold with my older dd as individual book studies etc.  I thought the book studies were fine, the questions were better than some guides we had used.  I believe in high school writing mostly by just reading and responding, rather than a program, so that wasn't an issue for us.

 

 

How well does Gold work as an entry level text, without having used the earlier levels? The earlier levels seem very different.

 

If you have any trouble with (or don't connect to) the Gold poetry, we found going back to the green level where LLATL introduces poetry was helpful.

 

Julie

[Hunter]

I've only used portions of the Gold with my older dd as individual book studies etc.  I thought the book studies were fine, the questions were better than some guides we had used.  I believe in high school writing mostly by just reading and responding, rather than a program, so that wasn't an issue for us.

 

 

 

If you have any trouble with (or don't connect to) the Gold poetry, we found going back to the green level where LLATL introduces poetry was helpful.

 

Julie

 

Thank you so much for the review, and for the tip about LLATL Green.

 

It looks like there is a lot of poetry in Gold British. I'm on a budget so need to wait to see the British book till at least next month. I'm not convinced I need to do all those poems, but I have found that sometimes curricula use poems to teach literary devices that are used in composition. I'm interested in seeing the poetry lessons. I very much appreciate the tip, that I might want the Green book, if I'm going to really tackle the poetry lessons.

 

I have found poetry to be a big emphasis in ultraconservative curricula for grades 7-12 as an alternative to more novels. Are the authors of LLATL conservative? It is a Christian curriculum, right?

[Julie in MN]

 

I have found poetry to be a big emphasis in ultraconservative curricula for grades 7-12 as an alternative to more novels. Are the authors of LLATL conservative? It is a Christian curriculum, right?

 

Hmm, I've never thought about that, maybe poetry can be more conservative, not sure.  It certainly depends on the poets chosen, but there are a lot of very God-honoring poets.

 

I thought LLATL was more about getting away from the typical public school system of using snippets of literature, trying instead to use whole works, but using smaller works so that it didn't grow impossibly large.  So short stories, short novels, and poems.  Now of course we have WTM-ers who read lengthy novels each week, and LLATL is not that. 

 

LLATL to me felt Christian but it's high school, so not sheltering students from things written from a non-Christian viewpoint, but having the student examine the viewpoint.  For my kids (dd who has some Aspie-type traits and ds who is, well, all boy), it helps with any of these types of lessons when I go over the answer key and cover the points so they can see the lesson-with-the-lesson, e.g. a particular worldview (such as superstitions) wasn't working for the character, etc.

 

These are all pretty vague, but my dd who used some of LLATL is 27 now :)

 

Julie

[swellmomma]

LLATL green is a good book :)  It is the one we are using this year alongside their regular english stuff.  It is giving a good intro to each of the units we want to cover in each year of high school english (especially poetry and shakespeare).  We have to cover poetry and shakespeare every year here in Alberta so the higher books won't help with that, but this gives a good first introduction to the study of them.

I looked at the gold levels today after I read the review given and like them quite a bit.  Now I had already planned to do grey next year, and so we would just keep progressing.  In my case it is not the only lit my kids do though, both teens asked today to return to SL *eyeroll* and they take lit classes online with socratic discussion, so for me LLATL sort of supports what we are doing, but is not the spine of our english program.

[Hunter]

Thank you both so much for your reviews. I'm trying to use LLATL to fill in some gaps from jumping straight into EIL 1 and Hake Grammar 7, without doing the previous books or the author suggested prerequisites.

 

So my plan is to do:

 

Hake 7 and 8 supplemented with Cozy Grammar Basic, Punctuation, and Essay

 

Bits of EIL 1, American, and British along side some of LLATL Green, and most of Gold American and British

 

A little advanced spelling review with HTTS 4 workbook and SWR audios

 

Hake Grammar and Writing 7, has a lot of literary analysis taught as vocabulary and filler, that is not entry level literature analysis. I'm hoping LLATL will fill in those holes. And EIL 1 lesson 1 is on short stories and is just not entry level; There is definitely the assumption of past formal short story study. And I don't think EIL contains any poetry of which LLATL seems to cover extensively.

 

I was able to purchase a Green teacher manual for #3.00, so I bought that. I think all I want it for is the poetry and short story lessons, but we'll see. The rest looks pretty redundant or something I do not want to prioritize enough to complete. 

[Hunter]

Green and Grey are 2 book sets, teacher and student? Gold is just one book, teacher and student combined?

 

I'm hoping just the Green teacher book will be enough. The sample looked like the answers were just in a column next to a reproduction of the student page.

[swellmomma]

The student books and teacher books have the same information, with the student books have blanks to answer the questions.  You could get away with just the teacher book if you have the student write their work separately.  It is similar to R&S in that the teacher book is like an exact replica of the student with teaching infor added in and the correct answers.  It is different in the early levels, things get cut out and pasted etc but not in the green + books that I have seen so far

[HollyDay]

Any suggestions for a good British Lit program???

 

Oldest dd LOVED Alpha Omega LifePac Brit Lit.  It is a 1 semester course BUT, I added more whole books and more writing to stretch it to a 1 year course.

 

Youngest is enjoying Scott Foresman's England in Literature