Fran Rutherford Guides? Now favorite spine for Ancient Lit?

[MamaSprout]

Has anyone used the Questions for the Thinker series?

 

I've got a good resource for essay questions, but I feel like I need something to connect the dots a little more, and I mostly like her book lists and the fact that she has answers. Most of these books I haven't read in decades (and some of them never).

Edited November 17, 2016 by elladarcy

[MamaSprout]

So if no one has used these, what do you use for an ancient lit spine if you don't want religion "built in", like with omnibus?

[Pronghorn]

For ancient Greek literature use courses by Vandiver at The Great Courses. I think she has the Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, and Greek Tragedy. She also has one on Herodotus, but I haven't used it yet.

[MamaSprout]

For ancient Greek literature use courses by Vandiver at The Great Courses. I think she has the Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, and Greek Tragedy. She also has one on Herodotus, but I haven't used it yet.

 

How do you use them? I've looked at Great Course 4-5 times, and I just don't get them. How do people use these? We don't usually listen to or watch a lot of anything, so six hours of lectures on the Odyssey is something I'm trying to wrap my brain around.

 

We've tried some similar ones from Modern Scholar, and they just don't hold our interest. We make it through 3-4 lectures usually, although usually we like nonfiction over fiction when we do listen to audio books.

 

Is there an element of interaction or accountability with the Great Courses that isn't there with the Modern Scholars?

 

Thanks for helping me think this through.

[SilverMoon]

We mostly used Great Courses too. Each lecture is roughly 30 minutes long and has a couple questions to start discussions or essays in the guide book. There's a reading assignment for each one that tells you which parts you need to read with that lecture and suggests further reading if you're interested.  FWIW, I usually order them from Audible now, which makes them $15 each.

 

The Odyssey is going to take weeks to get through, so that 6 hours of lectures are well spread out. The lectures gave us SUCH a better understanding of what we were reading and made our experience all the richer. We read the assigned portions, listened to the lectures, and discussed the questions. DS also worked through the ancients portion of a world history textbook on the side.

Edited July 12, 2022 by SilverMoon

[3andme]

I have been using a combination of the Vandiver and Roman Roads lectures with ds13 and ds15. Both lecturers are enjoyable and clear. Vandiver goes into more depth and provides a more academic perspective re: Greek language and culture. The Roman Roads lectures are more accessible to a younger middle school/high shool student and focus more on understanding the content of the readings and the main themes. Due to time limitations and overlap, we don't listen to every Vandiver lecture. However, we usually review the summary notes for lectures we don't listen to. We have also been watching the Coursera Ancient Greeks lectures to round things out from a historical perspective.

In terms of accountability, both the Vandiver and Roman Roads Lectures provide questions for each lecture. The Roman Roads course has a more complete and explicit student program. It includes a schedule of assignments, workbook with discussion questions, essay topics, and tests. The only caveat with RR might be that it is a 4 yr course and devotes an entire year to Greek as well as Roman literature. Some families might need a more condensed course in which case you could skip some of the works in the program.

If you have the time, I find it really enriches our studies if I read along and join in the discussions.

Edited November 17, 2016 by 3andme

[MamaSprout]

None of the Vandiver courses, but my library has 96! of the Great Courses in Hoopla under "television". Most of them are ones I wouldn't think course books would be necessary for- How to Draw, How to be a Superstar Student, some of the cooking ones, etc. I need to figure out how work some of those into our day.

 

I think the audio would be best for the Vandiver courses. I assume a .pdf of the coursebook comes with the downloads?

[SilverMoon]

I think the audio would be best for the Vandiver courses. I assume a .pdf of the coursebook comes with the downloads?

At Audible, yes. The guide comes as a pdf. We prefer audio only for most GC; watching someone behind a podium is boring. There are exceptions, like the one on Hubble telescope images and such.

Edited November 18, 2016 by SilverMoon