Loesje22000 Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 Something I liked from Lightening Literature 7&8 was the diversity of readings. And not just 'classics' but also more contemporary. Not just novels but also biography etc. Now I try to do the same for grade 9 and I feel missing something. Literature is not integrated with history here, it is more about reading level. About maturity. Dd will become 14 in december and all books should be originally written in English. Translations are not allowed ... It is probably an odd list according to some standards... Play: The Merchant of Venice (dd reads Lambs Shakespeare, and watches BBC productions for three years now, she has never read an original shakespeare, we own an archangelsk edition and BBC edition of it) An inspector calls (in classic comics edition with original tekst) Biography: Jane Austen (by Catherine Reef, she did enjoy the one about the Brontes this year) True based: Faith like potatoes Poetry and short stories: We will work our way through the list mentioned in the IGCSE English Literature syllabus. I had to start somewhere :) Fiction: Agnes Gray (Bronte) Silas Marner (George Elliot) The Chosen (Chaim Potok) Fahrenheit 451 The Book Thief? Perhaps a Dickens of her choice. Maybe I miss something fun? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junie Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 Some of the readings from our Brit Lit class: Canterbury Tales (Prologue) A Christmas Carol A Tale of Two Cities The Time Machine Animal Farm The Hound of the Baskervilles Murder on the Orient Express Macbeth Mr. Bliss (Tolkien) -- ds had already read The Hobbit and LOTR Harry Potter (book 1) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 My list is odd too. I decided not to worry about it. LOL 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loesje22000 Posted February 12, 2016 Author Share Posted February 12, 2016 Some of the readings from our Brit Lit class: Canterbury Tales (Prologue) A Christmas Carol A Tale of Two Cities The Time Machine Animal Farm The Hound of the Baskervilles Murder on the Orient Express Macbeth Mr. Bliss (Tolkien) -- ds had already read The Hobbit and LOTR Harry Potter (book 1) Thanks! Dd read Animal Farm The Hobbit and Christmas Carol last year. I've never heard from mr. Bliss I'll take a look at that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loesje22000 Posted February 12, 2016 Author Share Posted February 12, 2016 My list is odd too. I decided not to worry about it. LOL :D I tried to say I would like dd reads more then 'just' Bronte, Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare. If that the only books are she will read, she might get an odd impression of the English speaking world ;) I've no idea of more contemprary english literature. I read my list during highschool and saw never an English boek again until we started homeschooling dd 8 years ago... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junie Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 Thanks! Dd read Animal Farm The Hobbit and Christmas Carol last year. I've never heard from mr. Bliss I'll take a look at that. Mr. Bliss is just a short story. Tolkien wrote several short stories that you might also want to look into. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 :D I tried to say I would like dd reads more then 'just' Bronte, Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare. If that the only books are she will read, she might get an odd impression of the English speaking world ;) I've no idea of more contemprary english literature. I read my list during highschool and saw never an English boek again until we started homeschooling dd 8 years ago... Ah I googled around for high school reading lists for ideas. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 So I guess I'll post my list. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe Iliad Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West - Dee Brown Lord of the Flies The Picture of Dorian Gray A Briefer History of Time The House of the Scorpion- Nancy Farmer Catch 22 Schrodinger's Caterpillar - Zane Stumpo The Princess Bride And I got a traditional 9th grade lit text. We'll read various short stories and poems from that. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theelfqueen Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 (edited) So what we've got on our list for 9th Grade (this year) has been/is: Novels: Animal Farm * Of Mice and Men * To Kill a Mockingbird * Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Nov) Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Nov) Once and Future King (Dec/Jan) The Martian Chronicles (Jan) Call of the Wild (May) Night (April) Play: A Midsummer's Night Dream (Feb/Mar) Short Stories: The Most Dangerous Game * The Scarlet Ibis * The Necklace * The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (late October) The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Jan) The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (Jan) The Machine that Won the War (Apr) Plus we're doing one poem each week this Spring Semester as part of our poetry unit * = things he read in school before I pulled him out to homeschool in late October. Also a variety of readings appear in our other classes -- we're reading "Do Hard Things" in Religious Studies right now, for example. Edited February 12, 2016 by theelfqueen 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 Sounds like you are shooting for touching on the various types of literature (novel, novella, short story, poetry, play, essay, biography), as well as various types of fiction genres (realistic, epic, sci-fi, fantasy, romanticism, gothic, horror, etc.), plus some "inspirational" or "worldview" based works. :) I worked towards that as well during the high school years, although because we were also tying our Literature pretty closely to our History, it meant that some years we did not get to *all* of the variety in every year -- BUT, we were able to do a bit more of a closer focus on one type of literature, or one genre of literature in a year. By the end of the 4 years of high school, we had pretty much managed to touch on everything. Looks to me from your list that you're covering most everything. :) It's always such a good idea to include lots of works of the student's interest, and it looks to me like you're doing that, as well as covering a variety of types of works and various genres. The only thing I'll mention is that you may want to look for individual lit. guides or online discussion questions or helpful info/articles about each work to help suggest topics for digging deeper into the works. The choice of Agnes Gray is unique; I've seen guides for Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, but not for Agnes Gray, so if you can't find anything on that one, what might be helpful is to read another classic "British 1800s governess" story for comparison -- such as Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) or Turn of the Screw (Henry James). If you haven't formally studies poetry before and don't have much background in Literature for guiding discussion, you may find either Introduction to Poetry: Forms and Elements (Progeny Press guide) or The Art of Poetry (Classical Academic Press) to be helpful guides for this first year of high school, and then branch out on your own with the IGCSE English Lit. syllabus later on. Just a thought: sometimes when doing a "pot pourri" of works, it helps to have a common thread or theme running through many of the works as that allows for deeper reflection on the works, rather than reading each work "in isolation" or as a separate unit from all else. For example, all the works all heavily use a few of the same literary devices such as imagery, point of view, or mood. Or are epic-quest adventures, or coming-of-age works. Sometimes it's helpful to do several works in the same genre (example: dystopian works), or written by authors in the same time period/location, so you can compare the different points of view and see how different authors approach the same topics or themes. And finally, just me, and it's just one way of doing things, but I counted our inspirational (biographies of people of faith and "Christian living") and worldview works (philosophy, theology, apologetics) as part of our Bible credit rather than Literature. I also counted autobiographies, speeches, and most essays as part of our History studies as those tend to be a type of "primary source documents", and are not read/analyzed/discussed in the same way that novels, short stories, plays and poetry are. Also, that allowed me to squeeze more works into the Literature portion of the English credit by counting other reading towards Bible or History credits. :tongue_smilie: But all of this is just my ramblings, so take it or leave it as it helps or not. :) Enjoy your high school Literature adventures! :) Warmest regards, Lori D. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loesje22000 Posted February 12, 2016 Author Share Posted February 12, 2016 Thanks for the responses so far! Many titels I would have never discovered on my own, so thanks! Jane Eyre and Henry James are considered as grade 11/12 in the EFL reading lists I'm aware of. I guessed Agnes Grey would be more 9th grade level. She'll read Jane Eyre anyway, but not next year I suppose. We're covering poetry this year with Dutch LA, so I hoped to use the knowledge next year with English (and the year afterthat with French & Latin) We don't have credits, just exit exams. I'll try to find some literature guides. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 (edited) Mr. Bliss is just a short story. Tolkien wrote several short stories that you might also want to look into. Agree. :) Mr. Bliss was a rambling children's picture book story he wrote for his own children, and not really a high school Lit work. However, Tolkien did write 3 great short stories that are very worthy of inclusion in high school studies: Farmer Giles of Ham (humorous mock epic -- a good one to do after studying a traditional epic) Smith of Wootton Major (good to read this after his essay "On Fairy Stories", as it perfectly exemplifies what he was talking about in that essay) Leaf By Niggle (the closest work to an allegory that he wrote, and clearly inspired by his faith; very inspirational) I tried to say I would like dd reads more then 'just' Bronte, Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare. If that the only books are she will read, she might get an odd impression of the English speaking world ;) I've no idea of more contemprary english literature. Some more recent classics of British Literature: Don't forget the early 19th century British classic: - Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) Late 19th century British works: - Rikki Tikki Tavi (Rudyard Kipling) - a Sherlock Holmes mystery (Arthur Conan Doyle) -- short story - The Monkey's Paw (WW Jacobs) -- short story - The Open Window (Saki) -- short story - The Bottle Imp (Robert Lewis Stevenson) -- short story - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Lewis Stevenson) - The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde) - The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde) - War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man (HG Wells) 20th century British Literature often used for high school: 1900-1910 - Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad) -- descent into madness - The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame) - The Man Who Was Thursday (GK Chesterton) 1910-1920 - Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw) -- play - Peter Pan (JM Barrie) 1920-1930 - a Father Brown mystery (GK Chesteron) -- short story - A Passage to India (EM Forester) - Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf) - works by PG Wodehouse (written 1920s-1940s; mostly set in the 1920s) -- humorous 1930-1940 - Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie) -- mystery - a Dorothy Sayers "Peter Wimsey" mystery - Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier) -- gothic type of work - Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) -- dystopia - I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith) -- autobiographical sketches 1940-1950 - Animal Farm (George Orwell) - 1984 (George Orwell) -- brutal dystopia - space trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength (CS Lewis) 1950-1960 - Our Man in Havana (Graham Greene) -- novella/short novel; humorous - Lord of the Flies (William Golding) -- shipwreck survival story showing fallen nature of man in children - On the Beach (Nevil Shute) -- post-atomic war - Lord of the Rings trilogy (JRR Tolkien) -- fantasy 1960-1970 - A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess) -- brutal dystopia 1970-1980 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) -- sci-fi; humor - Watership Down (Richard Adams) -- fantasy; very skewed to male point of view, but interesting for exploring different types of governments, and as a modern type of "The Aeneid" epic (search for a homeland) 1980-1990 - Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro) 1990-present - The Thirteenth Tale (Diane Setterfield) -- like a modern Bronte sister work! - Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro) -- feels contemporary setting, but explores ethics of cloning - Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Susanna Clarke) -- 19th century setting - something by Neil Gaiman -- young adult fantastical/gothic/horror ETA -- So sorry, just realizing when you said "English Literature" you mean classics of the English Language, and not just British or UK literature… oops! :blushing: At a later time I'll try and pop back into this thread with a broader range of classics of the English language and more contemporary works... Edited February 12, 2016 by Lori D. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-rap Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 I loved Lightning Lit 7th/8th grades too! Once we got to high school, I just put together my own list, as you're doing. I do like the idea of throwing in a classic mystery (Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christi, G.K. Chesterton). Also, a couple my kids read a John Steinbeck, and one still claims it was her favorite book in high school. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 I think LL looks good. BUT their 9th grade book list is a bit crazy. Moby Dick and The Scarlet Letter aren't typical 9th grade reads. The other two book choices are ok. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loesje22000 Posted February 13, 2016 Author Share Posted February 13, 2016 Thanks for all the extra replies! I read Pied Piper from Nevil Shute during highschool, but I was at a lower track then dd. I've never made it to bronte / austen in English... Therefore I mentioned Agnes Grey, I'm a little intimidated but it seems short enough to handle it :) Yes, maybe I used the wrong terminology, but 'English Literature' covers also Australian, American, and Canadian literature as long as they are originally written in English. Alexandre Dumas, Camus etc. will be read in French, and German authors in German. That's the idea of the languages track in the Netherlands. As dd learns her vocab solely from reading she has to read wide as she has to speak modern English during her exams. Thanks again! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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