Great Courses: Art of Reading

[Sunnybuddy]

Has anyone used this course for high school? I'm looking at possibly using it for literature. Pros? Cons?

[katilac]

We loved it! And loved Professor Spurgin's presentation (his other course, The English Novel, was obviously his first one and he is not as smooth or engaging in that one; still good, though). 

 

It was not our full literature class, so we mostly watched and discussed. We definitely did delve into some of the works he talked about, and my youngest actually tackled War and Peace and then Anna Karenina when she liked that. That alone made it worth it. 

 

The guidebook has a good outline of each lecture, along with suggested reading and questions to consider (some of which could easily work as writing assignments).  It could definitely stand alone for literature if you intentionally make use of these and add some correlated reading. 

 

I highly recommend this course. 

[Sunnybuddy]

Katilac, do you think it is necessary to get literature guides for reading the books or is his lectures enough to guide you through the books?

[raganfamily]

We liked it, but the kids felt that it was redundant with what they already covered. I didn't use this as a spine, but rather an enrichment.  They had already read How to Read a Book LIke a Professor and preferred it to the Art of Reading.

 

Yet, I still plan to use this with my younger two. (I thought it was good)

[katilac]

Katilac, do you think it is necessary to get literature guides for reading the books or is his lectures enough to guide you through the books?

 

Please note that I am working from memory, and it's been two years! 

 

Because the focus of the course is on the process of slow reading, we did not read entire novels in conjunction with watching. He gives a ton of great discussion questions, but in the context of a specific techniques used, as opposed to walking you through the work as a literature guide would. There are some short stories included that would work better.  

 

For novels, we concentrated on remembering or looking for additional examples of the current topic (irony, minimalist style, or whatever). It was a different but very helpful exercise to contrast and compare excerpts from different authors, as opposed to reading through one book. 

 

As I mentioned in my first post, they did wind up reading various novels featured in the course, but this was done after, not during. You can always refresh your memory on the work by reading the outline in the guidebook. I thought a lit guide on top of that would be overkill, and we were always able to google anything particularly puzzling. 

 

Of course, we used it as part of an overall literature course, and not as a specific "close reading" course, so it depends on your goals. 

[Brad S]

As you may or may not know, the Art of Reading covers reading "literature" and not general reading.  FYI, SWB's The Well-Educated Mind covers reading in a broader way.  I just thought I'd make sure you knew that.

Edited June 27, 2016 by Brad S

[Sunnybuddy]

Thanks everyone!