What else like Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings?

[Cynful]

My son is adoring this curriculum this year and so am I.  I think my daughter would like something similar.  She's doing Lightning Lit Early American but it isn't clicking well with her so far.  She doesn't really get into LOTR so is there something else very similar to this that I could use with her?  

 

Thanks,

[Lori D.]

For your DD, Where the Brook and River Meet might be of interest -- it is a unit study (rather than a Literature study) for gr. 8-12 girls based on the Anne of Green Gable books and the Edwardian time period.

 

For all of you to do together, Movies as Literature might be an interesting different route for Literature.

 

Oak Meadow has a 9th grade Lit. program called The Hero's Journey. Books include:

House of the Scorpion (Farmer)

Kidnapped (Stevenson)

Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)

Into the Wild (Krakauer)

Pygmalion (Shaw)

Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston)

House of Light (Oliver)

 

Online classes might be an option:

- Bravewriter Boomerang Book Club - secular (a book a month, sign up for month(s) of choice; 2015-16 book list here)

- Potter School - Christian - 1 semester classes (Literature Through Film; Summer Book Club: Jane Austen; Fairy Tale, Fantasy & Myth; Works of CS Lewis; Worlds of Imagination: Fantasy; Worlds of Imagination: Science Fiction)

- Brigham Young Univ. (BYU) - Mormon - Independent Study online high school class: LIT 061: Science Fiction Literature (I Robot (Asimov), Speaker for the Dead (Card), Martian Chronicles (Bradbury) )

 

Since your students are at the high school level, you and DC might really enjoy creating your own literature study on a genre, author, book series, etc. of special interest. Here are some past threads to get you started in that direction, if interested:

 

- lit. topic of personal interest (Roots of Steampunk)

- parody/satire (Literary spoof, satire, sarcasm, anyone?)

- 19th Century Female Authors (Can I feel dumb here and ask about Victorian era, Pride & Prejudice and British Lit?)

- author study (Have you ever done an "author's study"?)

- fairytale study (Fairy Tale unit for high school; and, Need ideas... classics: Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc.)

- fantasy & sci-fi literature (Anybody know of a fantasy & science fiction course?)

- science fiction (Science Fiction; and, Science Fiction Unit)

- dystopian literature (Dystopian Society or Sci-Fi Literature Study…; Utopian and dystopian Literature)

- inspiring classics (High Literature which is encouraging; or, Lightning Lit: American Christian Lit; British Christian Lit)

 

And, ideas for "DIY" Lit.:

- "If you make up your own literature course list"

- If you create your own high school lit.

- Just reading vs. using literature guides

 

Hope something there is of help! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[Pegasus]

I'd love to know as well.

 

We used LLoLOTR for my eldest DD to great success.  Younger DD is not interested in reading LOTR an asked for a similar program based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. As far as I can tell, there is no such beast.  

[Cynful]

Lori, as usual, fantastic!!!  Thanks.  I'll go exploring.

 

Pegasus, my daughter wants one on the Harry Potter series.  I tried to get her to check out the Anne of Green Gables one but she was not interested in the least.

 

 

Are there any secular lit guides setup similar to LLfLOTR?

[Lori D.]

And just to answer your original question of "what else is like Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings"… unfortunately, no, I don't think there is anything else exactly like it. 😞

There is the unit study on Anne of Green Gables I mentioned above (Where the Brook and River Meet). And there are *elementary age* unit studies on the Chronicles of Narnia (Further Up and Further In, gr. 4-8) and Little House on the Prairie (Prairie Primer, gr. 3-6). And there is Hogwarts Academics to go with Harry Potter, free 9-week courses, but which looks like it may be more of a fun supplement than actual curricula. No personal experience with this one, and I also can't find any age/grade range for the classes...
 

On 9/19/2015 at 6:56 PM, Lucidity said:

Are there any secular lit guides setup similar to LLfLOTR?

LLftLotR is designed for secular use in public school classrooms. The specifically Christian material is a "bonus unit" in one of the appendices in the back, and not scheduled as a regular unit.

Other secular guides for Lord of the Rings (but which are not set up similarly to LLftLotR) include:
- Houghton Mifflin teacher guide (free, 15 pages, background info, vocab,, discussion questions)
- Houghton Mifflin lesson plans (free, suggested "units" of study topics to expand the discussion questions)
- Sparknotes: Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of the King (free chapter summaries and analysis)
 

On 9/19/2015 at 6:21 PM, Pegasus said:

We used LLoLOTR for my eldest DD to great success.  Younger DD is not interested in reading LOTR an asked for a similar program based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. As far as I can tell, there is no such beast.  

I haven't heard/seen of any curricula/program for the Discworld series as a whole, but Bookrags has some guides for individual Discworld books. And there are also some guides out there on one of his non-Discworld books, Nation (a shipwreck survival novel).

The problem I see with trying to build a *high school* literature class or program around just Discworld, is that, on their own, the books really are not meaty enough works of Literature to be able to teach all that a typical high school Literature class/program needs to cover. As enjoyable as Pratchett's works are, they just are not written with the skill, depth, and substance that allow for the deep digging and learning that needs to happen in a high school Literature class/program. Plus, you really do need to cover a wider range of types of works (poetry, short stories, novellas, essays, plays) in addition to novels, and in a wider variety of genres (coming of age, realistic, adventure, sci-fi, fantasy), and have exposure to a wider variety of time periods/locations and authors. JMO. 🙂

However, I could see using one Discworld book as part of a Literature course. Maybe even make one Discworld book the spine work, and the rest of the works being covered in the class/program would be classics that attach to or extend from the Discworld book in some way.Maybe start a thread asking for ideas and resources -- there are a number of people on this board who create their own high school special-interest units and courses! 🙂 
 

On 9/19/2015 at 6:56 PM, Lucidity said:

...my daughter wants one on the Harry Potter series

I could see Harry Potter as an intro to literature class for middle school, but Rowlings is just not high school Lit. level material IMO. Maybe DD could do the Hogwarts Academics just for fun, and we could help you build a high school level course around Literature of another interest??

BEST of luck ladies, in your Literature adventures! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited January 26, 2019 by Lori D.

[Pegasus]

You are a gem, Lori. Thanks for the input on Pratchett and high school lit.  

[Cynful]

 

 

I could see Harry Potter as an intro to literature class for middle school, but Rowlings is just not high school Lit. level material… Maybe DD could do the Hogwarts Academics just for fun, and we could help you build a high school level course around Literature of another interest??

 

 

BEST of luck ladies, in your Literature adventures! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

Oh, I totally agree about it being a great option for middle school.  Not so much for high school.  I so wish she'd like Lord of the Rings.  She really doesn't like Tolkien's writing though.  

 

I let her know about the fairy tale options and she LOVED that idea.  So I think I'm going to pursue that option.

 

Just curious....and not sure how to word this.....besides exposure to various genres and time frames, learning analysis and literary terms, is there any other point to lit class?  Is there a reason besides ease for grouping them into American Literature and World or British Literature?  She keeps thinking she has to do British and American but that's not really true is it?  I mean we can glean the same information and dig into things without them being segregated to time periods, correct?  Besides, we do the two histories (world and american) concurrently/chronologically, so not sure how to work that.  

 

The reason I like LLfLOTR so much is the way it explains the literary terms within the context of each chapter as it comes up.  Is there a lit program around that say would give you a list of books to choose from for an autobiography or poems, etc. and then help you go through them showing each literary term that pops up?  

 

I had a horrid education in language arts in high school, so besides being well read, I'm drowning here.  

 

Thanks always,

[Lori D.]

I had a response started the other night and the WTM system went down and ate it ! ! !  :eek: So, I'm back to try again. 🙂

On 9/20/2015 at 5:06 PM, Lucidity said:

Just curious....and not sure how to word this.....besides exposure to various genres and time frames, learning analysis and literary terms, is there any other point to lit class? 

Well, I definitely think so. I do not see discussing literature and literary analysis to be anything like solving an algebra problem and coming up with "the answer" (i.e., what literary elements can you find). I see it this way: literary elements are tools you learn to use to help you dig deep into literature to find buried treasure. This is some of the treasure I tell my Lit. & Comp. co-op classes that can be found in Literature -- I personally find the last two items on the list to be most important, meaningful and powerful:

- participate in the thousands of years old "Great Conversation" that is literature
- appreciate and be moved by great stories, memorable characters, beautiful writing
- be inspired by beautiful writing to write more beautifully yourself
- gain a better understanding of the times / culture of the author and his/her work, through the experiences of the characters in the author's work
- ability to experience things impossible in real life
- see life from another perspective outside of yourself
- explore new worlds and ideas
- benefit from the beliefs, choices and consequences of characters
- learn about the world  and yourself
- see the admirable in everyday life
- apply lessons learned by the characters to self
- develop empathy for those unlike us
- wrestle with the "big questions" of life and what it means to be human
- discover and apply Truth to our own lives
 

On 9/20/2015 at 5:06 PM, Lucidity said:

 Is there a reason besides ease for grouping them into American Literature and World or British Literature?  She keeps thinking she has to do British and American but that's not really true is it?  I mean we can glean the same information and dig into things without them being segregated to time periods, correct?  Besides, we do the two histories (world and american) concurrently/chronologically, so not sure how to work that.  

Yes, you certainly can glean from Literature without doing it as groupings. The value of "grouping" literature is that it can more easily allow you to compare works and authors, and it can more easily help you to follow specific themes, ideas, and "threads" that run through all of the works.

But, no, there's no problem with making your own Lit. list, and digging into the history of an author and his/her times and the historical / social / economic / political background that is a foundation for a novel. Sometimes, a pattern or thread will emerge unexpectedly from reading what you thought were unconnected works -- like the choice of works in the Oak Meadow "Hero's Journey" lit. course -- what holds it together is the discussion of "what makes a hero" -- Anne Frank's Diary, and Kidnapped are not two works I ever would have thought to put in the same literature grouping, but the creators of the program have found a thread to connect all of those diverse works, which allows you to look at variations on a theme, and go digger with each work, in addition to looking at aspects that are unique to each work.

So that works great, too! 🙂

 

On 9/20/2015 at 5:06 PM, Lucidity said:

… American Literature and World or British Literature… we do the two histories (world and american) concurrently/chronologically, so not sure how to work that.  

You could follow WTM recommendations, and do your choice of major Literature works that fit with the time period you are studying, regardless of country of origin. Or, make a list of classic works you want to make sure you want to cover in high school, and do them how you wish, regardless of where you are in History.
 

On 9/20/2015 at 5:06 PM, Lucidity said:

The reason I like LLfLOTR so much is the way it explains the literary terms within the context of each chapter as it comes up.  Is there a lit program around that say would give you a list of books to choose from for an autobiography or poems, etc. and then help you go through them showing each literary term that pops up?  

Some lit. guides for individual books will bring up literary elements and how they are working in the book.  You might also want to go through Figuratively Speaking together to learn about literary elements and see them at work in excerpts from classic lit. -- do 1-2 a week, and then practice looking for them in whatever literature you are reading. Here is a list of works of literature to go with each literary term in Figuratively Speaking. Here's a very helpful past thread ( "Figuratively Speaking") -- even though it's 5 years old) on using the program, plus suggestions for also using Michael Clay Thompson materials.

For a poetry study, you might check out The Art of Poetry from Classical Academic Press. Sometimes, using a guided program covering specific works helps you "see" how the literary elements work, and the kinds of ideas and discussion that can come out of the work, and from there, you can begin to transfer that kind of "seeing" and discussing to other works… 🙂

Hope something there is of help! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited January 26, 2019 by Lori D.

[ondreeuh]

Center for Lit (Teaching the Classics) has a guide for the Chronicles of Narnia series. http://centerforlit.com/Materials/RRN.aspx

 

This 160-page book provides a full set of Socratic discussion questions for each story with comprehensive answers keyed to the text.  Questions cover Conflict, Plot, Setting, Characters, Theme and Literary Devices.  In addition, a completed Story Chart graphically outlines the major structural and thematic elements of each story.