Janice in NJ Posted October 5, 2008 Share Posted October 5, 2008 Good morning! It just dawned on me this morning that I hardly ever see these study guides discussed on the boards here. Duh to me! I should have mentioned them a long time ago. They are terrific for studying books ala WTM/WEM style. I'm sorry that I haven't mentioned them before. ... and please forgive me if they have been discussed here at length. I ran a quick search and didn't find the discussions. ======================= The site is enotes.com I have many of their Study Guides. I have not used their lesson plan service; it is more expensive and I have found that traditional lesson plans don't generally meet our needs. It is NOT a free service. I had to pay $9.95 per month to join, but all of their study guides are downloadable. I just downloaded the guides that I wanted to use this year and then terminated my membership. In the future I probably will join and become a regular member; their discussions look very interesting - something I think that I will want to participate in as I become more well-read. But for now, I really appreciate their study guides. They are very well done and lend themselves VERY well to WTM-style study. Take the Great Expectations guide as an example: It is 140 pages long. With LOTS of great things to explore. Table of Contents 1. Great Expectations: Introduction 2. Overview 3. Charles Dickens Biography 4. One-Page Summary 5. Summary and Analysis 6. Quizzes 7. Characters 8. Themes 9. Style 10. Historical Context 11. Critical Overview 12. Character Analysis 13. Essays and Criticism 14. Suggested Essay Topics 15. Sample Essay Outlines 16. Compare and Contrast 17. Topics for Further Study 18. Media Adaptations 19. What Do I Read Next? 20. Bibliography and Further Reading 21. Copyright The guides suggests that the student read the book in the three weeks. This works out to 4 chapters a day - the first day covers only three chapters which gives you a bit of time to do a little author-overview. Every two chapters has a "quiz" with answers printed in the guide. I plan to cut and paste the questions for my ds and then instead of directly answering the questions, I will have him write a short paragraph-length summary for each two-chapter set of questions ala WTM/WEM style - attempting to incorporate the answers to most of the questions. So each day, he will read four chapters and write a two paragraphs of plot summary. The guide also has all of the standard items that you can get free with a Spark's or Cliff's guide. But it also has something that I have found VERY useful. Item #13. Essays and Criticism offers several essays on the book that are worth studying in order to show the student how the pros write about literature. The essays from this guide are from: Source: Arnold A. Markley, in an essay for Novels for Students, Gale, 1998. Markley is an assistant professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. Source: Lucille P. Shores, "The Character of Estella in Great Expectations," in Massachusetts Studies in English, Fall, 1972, pp. 91-99. Source: Robert Barnard, "Imagery and Theme in Great Expectations," in Dickens Studies Annual, 1970, pp. 238-51. THEN the guide offers up 3-4 potential essay topics for every two chapters of the book. MORE than you will ever, ever need. VERY helpful if you don't want the student to answer comprehension questions but want pick-up-n-go digging-deeper assignments OR discussion points for each day's reading. :001_smile: There are answers to the comprehension questions (quizzes) but NO answers for the essay topics under this section. And then - for those of us who are still teaching our student how to tackle a literary essay, they provide FOUR Sample Essay Outlines that we can use to teach the literary essay. Each outline has: 1. An essay question. 2. An outline that begins with a thesis statement. A terrific tool if you are trying to teach the student HOW to turn an essay question into a thesis. And because there are four samples you don't have to WRITE all of the essays - you can discuss/practice this process of "question into thesis" with multiple questions 3. The outline then goes on to show the main ideas (usually 3-4) and another layer to show the student how they can support those main ideas in order to support their thesis (usually 3-4 sub-points). It's not too detailed; just enough to get them started - to MOVE them from "What should I write about?" to WRITING!!!! Supporting a thesis from a literary work. Go, go, go. Practice, practice, practice. The Compare/Contrast section of the guide provides a comparison between the setting of the book and our lives today. Some neat research-project ideas could be generated here if you wanted to. AND the "Topics for Further Study" section of the guide clearly lays out relevant topics for a high school student to study on their own in order to connect the book to its historical time-period and the issues of that period. THIS makes it so easy to used these books as springboards to history study which seems to me to be the biggest idea in TWTM plan at the rhetoric level. The student primarily studies the literature and then studies history as it relates to that literature. History is viewed through the lens of the great books, not just in conjunction to the great books. For this work, the suggested topics begin: * Research the history and 1850-60 social climate of Australia as an English penal colony.... * Investigate U.S. social conditions in 1842 when Dickens visited the United States, and compare this to conditions seen in 1868... * Investigate child labor in England before the 1875-80 movement to legally limit work-hours and... The topics are open-ended enough that they can be approached by different students at different skill levels at different levels of involvement. Anything from a couple of paragraphs to an essay with a couple of sources to a research paper. The guide ends with a list of movies and other materials that relate to the book with a brief description of each. ======================= Not all of the guides are this complete. But I have been very pleased with almost all of their great-books/WTM-suggested titles. Most of the guides for junior-high level books or less-frequently-used-in-the-classroom titles are much shorter - with fewer helps. Iliad Guide - 113 Pages Long The Canterbury Tales - 219 Pages Paradise Lost - 121 Pages Romeo & Juliet - 225 Pages! Tartuffe - 52 Pages Pride and Prejudice - 96 Pages Persuasion - 32 Pages Lord of the Flies - 100 Pages Our Town - 22 Pages Robinson Crusoe - 34 Pages Middlemarch - Only 25 Pages :-( Over all though, a very worthwhile contributor to my lesson plans for this year. At a very reasonable price. :001_smile: As an extra idea for Great Expectations: DK has a terrific edition of this book. ISBN: 978-0-7566-3329-5 When I have time, I'll try to post about this DK Illustrated Classics Series. Nicely done. :001_smile: Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happykids Posted October 5, 2008 Share Posted October 5, 2008 These really look great and will be very helpful, especially this year, as we are focusing a lot on literary analysis! ~Sabrina in NY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhondabee Posted October 6, 2008 Share Posted October 6, 2008 thanks, Janice! So....how are your plans going for "doing your own thing"? If anyone can, it's you! I am trying to ignore how completely ignorant I am in comparison as I'm beginning to launch into 9th grade materials. Ah, well....ignorance is bliss, no? =) Rhonda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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