Literature Curriculum

[Suzanne115]

Hi -

My rising ninth grade daughter will be taking classes at a tutorial one day a week.  They provide lesson plans and assignments for us to do throughout the week.  Overall it looks very good. 

 

However, I think the literature looks too light.  I need some suggestions for literature curriculum that I could add to to their plan.  I also need some suggestions for reading lists.  We have always read a lot more than they will be assigning.

 

 

Thank you,

Suzanne

[Tita Gidge]

Are you tying literature into history at all? That's where I've pulled my homeschool high school booklists from.

 

I also have public schooled high school kids. I find their literature to be light, so I supplement at home. Mostly it's Socratic discussion, book club style, with me.  This year we signed up for an actual book club (with other teens, not just with me!) that will be facilitated by a friend who is using Teaching the Classics. I've heard good things about it.

 

If that's not your style, I had several veteran homeschool moms suggest I try LLATL. They said it was a lighter program, which would be appropriate as a supplement to an outside class. I bought the Gold books (one is US Lit, the other is British Lit). It's definitely not a discussion-based program, but that's a plus for some people. I do a lot of our discussions in the car between the kids' extracurricular activities, so the approach didn't appeal to me as much but it looked easy enough to implement and to use. That's another possible option.

 

Just the other day I googled "top recommendations American Literature high school" or something like it. I found several lists, printed them out, cross-referenced them, and came up with about 50 books I want the kids to have read before they graduate. Many of them we've already read. I'm not one to care too much about the literary analysis business, mostly I like to read and discuss so I printed a copy for each boy with instructions to cross off each book as they read it. I'll pick and choose which ones I want to discuss with them, but primarily I want them to read for the sake of cultural literacy (and to maintain exposure to quality writing).

[Suzanne115]

Thank you for your suggestions.  She will be doing Notgrass's Exploring World History.  She will use their literature in her class, but it doesn't seem like enough to me.  I may get more history related books for her or I may go a different direction.  I am currently looking at literature based curriculum for ideas, but I thought I would post and see if other ideas came up.  I looked at LLATL a few years ago and decided against it, but I will look again since I just need a supplement.

 

Suzanne

[Momto6inIN]

I like Excellence in Literature. The book lists are excellent, and each unit provides tons of context resources to help them understand where/when each book was written before reading. I also google some spark notes discussion questions to discuss with them before they write the assigned essay.

[MerryAtHope]

I would look at Sonlight for extra book lists. Core 200 would have some that would go nicely with World History, plus includes some great authors. You could pick and choose what to add around what you are already doing, to make it very doable for you.

[Suzanne115]

Thank you both for the suggestions!

 

 

Suzanne

[Haiku]

You could purchase The Reader's Odyssey and let your dd pick some books she is interested in to use with it.

[Jane Elliot]

Apologia's new American Literature is beautiful.

[Mosaicmind]

Thank you for your suggestions. She will be doing Notgrass's Exploring World History. She will use their literature in her class, but it doesn't seem like enough to me. I may get more history related books for her or I may go a different direction. I am currently looking at literature based curriculum for ideas, but I thought I would post and see if other ideas came up. I looked at LLATL a few years ago and decided against it, but I will look again since I just need a supplement.

 

Suzanne

We are doing that and it's more than enough. In the WTM, it states that 8 books are a good literature program, but 12 is great. The literature on EWH covers 12 good literature books. I really wouldn't do anymore than that. If you think about it, that is 1 book every 3 weeks, which seems great to me.

[ThisIsTheDay]

Excellence in Literature is a great program. I wished we had an opportunity to use more of it than we did.

 

We also liked Lightning Literature. My kids chose topics that interested them and always enjoyed the readings. There was not a lot of guidance in writing exercises, but they didn't need to build skills so much as practice them.

 

What a great position to be in, just needing to add something to an already great program! It gives you a lot of flexibility. In this situation, I'd ask my kid what they would prefer and be guided by their preference.

[Suzanne115]

Thank you all for your suggestions.  I think I am just going to add in some of Sonlight's books for her to read.  We have used their books in the past and really enjoyed them.  I am going to hold off on literature until I see what her tutorial is actually planning.  I will keep all of your suggestions in case I decide to add something later.  

 

Thanks again,

Suzanne