Tweaking already

[shanezomom]

Two weeks under our belt for ds 9th grade:

Biology with labs outsourced

Algebra1 outsourced

Composition (Lost Tools of Writing 2 online with Leah Lutz)

Latin (Henle)

Traditional Logic (Memoria)

Greek Literature and History (Roman Roads Media)

 

So far so good, except for the scope of our literature/history choice. I picked it for Great Books approach, comprehensive, well-produced program and Wes Callahan is great. Their 4 year sequence is titled "Old Western Culture."

 

Year 1 is The Greeks

THE EPICS BOOK LIST:

– The Iliad

– The Odyssey

DRAMA AND LYRIC BOOK LIST:

  – Aeschylus (The Oresteia)

  – Sophocles (Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus)

  – Aristophanes (The Frogs and The Clouds)

  – Eurpipides (The Medea and The Trojan Women)

  – Sappho (various poems) 

  – Pindar (collection of Odes) 

  – Theocritus (Idyls I, VI, VII, and XI) 

  – Hesiod (Works and Days) 

  – Quintus of Smyrna (The Fall of Troy) 

  – Apollonius of Rhodes (The Argonautica)

THE HISTORIES BOOK LIST:

  – The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories

  – The Landmark Thucydides

  – Xenophon: The Persian Expedition

THE PHILOSOPHERS BOOK LIST:

  – Plato: Six Greek Dialogues

  – The Basic Works of Aristotle

 

Year 2, The Romans, covers

Epics

– The Aeneid

– Ovid’s Metamorphoses

THE HISTORIANS:

– Livy: The Early History of Rome, Books I-V

– Sallust: Catiline’s War, the Jugurthine War, Histories

– Julius Caesar: The Gallic Wars

– Tacitus: The Annals of Imperial Rome

– Plutarch’s Lives Vol. 1

– Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars

– Pliny the Younger: The Letters

– Quintillian: The Orator’s Education, Vol. I

– Cicero: Selected Works

EARLY CHRISTIANITY:

– Early Christian Fathers

– Eusebius: The Church History

NICENE CHRISTIANITY:

– Augustine: The City of God

– Athanasius: On the Incarnation

– Athanasius: Life of St. Anthony

– Basil The Great: On the Holy Spirit

– Augustine: Confessions

– Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy

 

Year 3 is Christendom and Year 4 is Modern Times.

 

After working exclusively on the Iliad for two weeks according to the schedule in the program, it has sparked a lot of unsatisfied curiosity about the bigger picture of culture, history, religion, literature, art, etc. Listening to Vandiver lectures helped flesh some of that out, and I now see the approach I chose is "deep, not wide."  I think it would be better for ds in high school to get a broader sweep of ancient history that kicks it up a notch from just the facts to the bigger ideas of history and literature. If he wants to go deep in college, then great. I'm probably a candidate for a scaled-down version of Tapestry of Grace but I don't know that I would be biting off more than I can chew. Maybe we should do SWB History of the Ancient World and a separate self-developed literature plan. I love to integrate so it seems strange to me to study the ancients while reading Animal Farm, for example. (Then I think...oh, interesting....weave the ideas of authority, submission, primitive groupings and see where that goes! Nah, not this year.)

 

Any ideas for us?

 

 

 

 

[TheAutumnOak]

I wanted to bump this up to see how you are doing and what you have decided?...I tend to be a "deep not wide" person, so I am curious...That looks like a lot of reading for year one, more than going deep would allow 😉...