Center for Lit vs. WaskoLit (any and all experiences welcome)

[mirabillis]

I am planning for 10th grade next year.... thinking to outsource Literature for the first time. We currently do Lightning Literature - but I'm looking forward to having him do some meaty Socratic discussions, the like of which I cannot muster.

 

So I plan to choose between Center for Lit (Lit discussion only) or WaskoLit classes.

 

Center for Lit is 1x/month meeting to discuss a book a month, pretty much. They get mostly good reviews here on the boards.

 

WaskoLit is newer, started by the founder of WriteatHome (which does get good reviews around here). Difference being 1x/weekly chats. Price is fairly comparable for a year-long course, as I recall.

 

So my first thought was to go for WaskoLit - 4x/month meetings, more bang for your buck. But then I thought, maybe having less live meetings will be better schedule-wise, and one of those inherent beauties of homeschooling (not having to sit 7-8 hrs in school, each day, class to class, day in & day out). 

 

So any thoughts/experiences?

 

Is Center for Lit a good experience with only 1x/month meeting? Did any of you feel short-changed and wished for more meetings? Or was it just right?

 

Thanks!!

[Julie of KY]

Never looked at Wasko lit.

 

My biggest recommendation toward Center for Lit comes from my oldest. He took a class as a 9th grader. He did not as a 10th grader. He then came to me and asked to take another Center for Lit class saying that it made him think about everything he read it more deeply. He's my very bright STEM kid that loves to read.

 

 

[RootAnn]

I'll start out saying that I think Center for Lit is ridiculously overpriced. However, it is & has been great for my oldest. 

She is signed up for the no-busy-work just-discussion setup this year. (They added discussion board writing assignments at the request of parents who wanted more output.) With her other schoolwork, having one novel per month is a good pace. The discussions are meaty and interactive (as long as Mr. Andrews is there). They get so much more thought out of DD than I ever do. She laughs during the classes & actually participates (via text, not usually via the microphone).

 

DD doesn't care for Mrs. Andrews at all - as DD thinks Mrs. A only believes HER opinion is correct & talks too much. Mr. A solicits input from the kids all the time & is very kind & thoughtful.

 

She's willing to take more Center for Lit classes, but I'm not sure what. She's taking American Lit this year. She probably won't one next year.

[mirabillis]

And you both feel 1x month meeting was more than sufficient? 

 

I'm thinking of going this route - as we really only need a discussion-only Lit course - and less live time to schedule, really the better!

[Julie of KY]

I thought once per month was fine. It gives you time to read the book and process the information. It's not as intrusive into your schedule as weekly. Also, if you do need to miss a live class, you can download the recorded version.

 

The price (per hour) is expensive, but I've thought it good enough to use it several years with more than one child.

[mirabillis]

Fantastic, thanks! I think with all the research here already, I'm sold. I only need it for 1 year (10th grade) as I think it's time he try Lit discussion outside of me. And 11th, we plan to do AP anyway. So... we're try it out for next year - and maybe 12th grade when we get there!

 

Any thoughts in particular on which courses you liked?

 

I'd love to hear which Lit Year you took and how you liked it...

[RootAnn]

We, too, were looking for a discussion-only lit course. She's taking a time-intensive credit-worthy composition course and she reads a ton on her own. I really wanted the deep thought-provoking discussions that are happening each month with the Andrews. I'm not giving a full credit for this course, although Center for Lit says you can. My plan is either to give it half a credit on its own or combine it with other things we are doing and grant a full credit for those combined. Just my perspective, even though you didn't ask.

 

She's taking American lit and while I don't like ALL the selections, they are the time frame and broad selection that I was looking for. And the very selections I'm not fond of (Great Gatsby, for example), are other people's favorites or could end up being very interesting for my dd. Many of them are standard for high schools (To Kill a Mockingbird) and other selections are a little off the wall (Flannery O'Connor).

[Julie of KY]

I'd pick a course based on what books sound interesting. It's always more interesting to learn literature analysis from books you enjoy rather than ones you dread reading.

 

The first Center for Lit course was a mix of books before they broke it up like they do now. I've also had kids to a jr high course, Am. Lit and World literature. Enjoyed them all.

[yvonne]

 

So my first thought was to go for WaskoLit - 4x/month meetings, more bang for your buck. But then I thought, maybe having less live meetings will be better schedule-wise, and one of those inherent beauties of homeschooling (not having to sit 7-8 hrs in school, each day, class to class, day in & day out). 

 

 

For a literature class, assuming equally good instructors and equally good texts, I would opt for meeting weekly over meeting once a month.

 

With only ONE, two-hour discussion of a truly good book, both instructor and student can only scratch the surface, especially if the format of the class is the same for every.single.book..... setting, character, plot/conflict, theme, rising action/climax/falling action, protagonist/antagonist. Those are good & necessary things to cover. Maybe that's a good enough list of bare minimum elements of a work that an instructor should cover, especially for a student who isn't a lit lover or a student who doesn't have much time to spend on lit and just wants to check the box  And an instructor could actually cover that in two hours.

 

But, how much can even a great instructor cover beyond those most basic elements when one only has ONE class session for each book, no matter how long/dense?  To me it seems like every.single.class just lays the groundwork for a real literature discussion and, bam!, the session is over, on to the next book.

 

A single session to discuss a book not only limits how much the instructor can cover, it also means that the student does not have the opportunity to think about what's been discussed in the class session and come back to a second class session with perhaps more refined, more perceptive thoughts about the book to discuss. It's that second (and later) sessions where the best discussion will happen, after all the bare minimum preliminaries have been introduced.

Edited January 12, 2017 by yvonne

[RootAnn]

Yep, yvonne. It totally depends on your goals. My kid doesn't need a lit-heavy credit this year. If we were covering it at home, she wouldn't be getting nearly this level of discussion & depth. The busy-work kids have a discussion board they must post on after the class covers the book. They can certainly do some more thinking & talking on the discussion board. My kid doesn't have the need or want to do it (especially for a grade).

 

There are other format classes which incorporate the literature with compositions. (My dd#2 is in one this year.) Do they get more out of the books - interacting with it over weeks and having to think deeply and write about it? Some. Most. Probably. Having to write about it would ruin the whole experience for this particular DD. And, honestly, this dd does interact with many of the books before & after the class - having discussions with us. (DD#2 is thoroughly sick of the stuff they cover in her class & doesn't want to talk about any of it before/after/during, unless to get help with an assignment. She seems to dislike all of the lit choices so far, too.) The oldest DD is the type who has to think about something for a long time after getting that spark of insight. It creeps into later discussions.

 

She got a lot out of Roy Speed's Shakespeare class, too. (Once per week meetings, but only for a short period like 6 weeks for the one she did.)

For us, these formats are great for this kid. That's why I try to explain what our goals are & what the class is like. If you are looking for a CLRC Lit/Composition class, for example, that's not at all what Center for Lit is. It isn't super rigorous. It isn't going to require your kid to participate. It doesn't require you to be there live to get benefit from it. It has its limitations (and its "ouch" price for hours-in-seat).

 

Benefits far outweigh negatives for this year, for what we need, for all the greatness we get. 

[mirabillis]

Helpful discussion. Yes we don't need a lit-heavy course either. I've learned, the less writing the better. It's been pulling teeth to do Lit-related writing work this last semester, so I gave up - and we're doing Lit-discussion only this spring and added in a WriteatHome writing semester to add the other 1/2 credit. That's what we'd do next year too - WriteatHome composition and Center for Lit (or WaskoLit) for 1 full English credit.

 

Yvonne, I agree in many ways - but all the reviews of Center for Lit say their kids get sooo much out of it. And maybe that's enough. Also WaskoLit seems to involve a required (albeit minimum) writing requirement which we just don't need. Like RootAnn said, it writing's involved with Lit, he'll hate it. So maybe Center for Lit, 1x/mo, while maybe 'light' is heavier than what I can do with him and may be just right.

[yvonne]

Totally agree--it all depends on your goals. Having kids in high school, I've realized that you just cannot do _every_thing full on.  It sounds like you're both going into it with a clear idea of what it offers. CfLit was such a disappointment for us. I do like what they do with the basics, but I was expecting more. In hindsight, I can see I was expecting way more from it than it could possibly provide in a format where one reads one book a month and attends a two hour session about it.

 

For the basics though, and for getting students to read some good works of literature, it seems to do the job. And the fact that people here, whose opinions I respect, have found it useful has caused me to mention it to a few people looking for a streamlined lit class.

[Julie of KY]

I agree that you need to know what you are getting into.

 

At first, I thought Center for LIt seemed "basic". It certainly is not a class that goes through and teaches all sorts of details as they do only have two hours per book. However, what impressed me initially about Center for LIt was at the end of one year of class, the depth of discussion that my son could carry on with me about a book had dramatically increased. He also was using all sorts of formal literary terms and analysis that I certainly never taught him. I describe it mostly as he absorbed it from the class.

 

The biggest thing however was when a year later he came and asked to do another class saying it changed how he approached all literature he read. He says he gets way more out of books now as Center for LIt has changed how he THINKS about a book - especially themes and worldviews. This is my math geek who also loves to learn as long as it does not involve writing.

 

If you want to sample a class, they have one class that you can download and listen to for free on their website. They also have some dvd classes that are very similar to what they do online.

[RootAnn]

Stepping back - do you see the trend in Julie, my, and mirabillis' kids that writing about what they read takes away from the book?   :lol:

 

I think they need to be able to write about what they read (literary analysis papers), but I find that separating the learning-to-write-them from the learning-to-think-deeply-about-literature is more helpful for these type of kids. My writing-phobic kid is more likely to think deeply and develop the type of ideas she will later write if she doesn't have to worry about the writing when she's doing the reading and thinking.

 

So, we separate the writing from the reading/discussing classes for this kid. And, with a writing-phobic kid, I have to go heavy on composition since she NEEDS it. If she was already a good writer, like DD#2, I might choose a class that mixed the two a lot more. Or, I might choose a much heavier literature focus since the writing was already covered. Different goals. Different kids.

 

I appreciate yvonne's additions to this thread as it IS really important to know what you are getting in a class & to see all sides, including the negatives. (I try to include our perceived negatives in all my reviews. My negatives might be your positives & vice versa!)