High School English Literature

[butterfly113]

How many books do you cover for English literature course in one year?

[Element]

I'm absolutely going to be on the low side in this group, but we are doing Adler's How to Read a Book, Dorothy Sayers's translation of The Nibelungenlied, Jackson Crawford's translation of The Poetic Edda, & Tolkien's Beowulf. We'll also be reading (translations not yet determined) The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Song of Roland. Just 6 books, apparently, and I'm giving him a full credit! However, on his own, he is going through several of the books recommended by Adler in the aforementioned book. He's not doing anything in-depth with those extra books, just more of an inspectional reading to familiarize himself with them a bit. As far as modern reading goes, I have nothing to do with that. He listens to several podcasts, which I'm totally calling modern storytelling at its finest.  :thumbup: 

(We are absolutely loving the Jackson Crawford book, so we may add his Saga of the Volsungs with the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrook as well, for fun.) 

 

ETA: Ds is in 9th. 

Edited October 27, 2017 by Element

[Lori D.]

Agreeing with Element in that YMMV -- it *really* depends on the student's interest and ability.

 

JMO: getting *depth* in analyzing some of the books we read is more important to me than *how many* books we do. I also work for exposure to a variety of types of literature (novels, novellas, short stories, plays, poetry, a few essays), and a variety of genres (epic, realistic, adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, humorous, etc.). I also strive for some background research on the author/times of the books we were "digging deeper" into, as well as learning about literary elements and some literature topics and seeing how those are at work in the literature we are reading.

 

With that philosophy, the more depth you want to go into, the fewer works you will cover; or if wanting to focus on variety, you can cover many works at a very light level.

 

If you really *need* some kind of number, these might be some general ideas to shoot for (again, depending on your student):

 

- some public schools cover 4 novels (1 per quarter) in a year

(just me, but if I went with this option, I would make sure that the 4 novels were longer, more complex works to dig deeply into AND I would plan on 1 week per quarter focusing on poetry, short stories, or a play, AND require reading several other works throughout the year done as solo reading or with informal discussion)

 

- some rigorous classical private schools read 18+ works in a year

 

- SWB in TWTM recommends 8-12 novels per year

 

- look at the book list of several different homeschool literature programs to see "how much" they cover

(Excellence in Literature = 9 units (one per month of the school year) -- usually 8 novels and 1 unit of short stories)

(Lightning Lit = each SEMESTER: usually about 3 novels, 1 novella or play, 1-2 short stories, and a poetry unit)

(Illuminating Literature: 9th grade = 8 works per year)

(Essentials in Literature: 9th grade = per year: 1 novel; 1 autobiography; 4 short non-fiction works; 7 short stories; 1 poetry unit)

(Oak Meadow = averages 4 novels, plus a few short stories or essay or play, and a poetry unit per year)

Edited October 27, 2017 by Lori D.

[skimomma]

I currently have a 9th grader so this may change with her age, but she is currently covering about one book per month in a style similar to how Lori D describes with additional research on the history of the times, the author, the genre, and some analytical writing.  I am also calling a combo of great books, rhetoric exercises, and history 2 credits.

[hollyhock]

The public schools in my area only cover ONE book in their English classes. I feel like four is a good minimum, but yes, it totally depends on the student and the books.

[Garga]

My son doesn't ever pick up a book to read on his own, so he will only read what I assign.  If he read a lot of books for pleasure on his own, I would probably read less for school.  But what he read here is all he read for the entire year without any "fun" reading on the side.  (Which is why I try to shoot for 10 books a year, since that's *all* he'll read.)

 

9th grade:

 

1. Gilgamesh (as easy of a translation as I could find)

 

2. The Odyssey (as easy of a translation as I could find)

 

3. 1001 Arabian Nights (about 6 stories)

 

4. Don Quixote (as easy on a translation as I could find)

(only 1/2 of the book, because the book that we all think of as a single book, is actually two books in one binding.)

 

6. The Three Musketeers (as easy of a translation as I could find)

 

7. 6 short Russian stories 

 

8. The Hiding Place

 

9. The Little World of Don Camillo (as easy of a translation as I could find)

 

10. Picnic at Hanging Rock.

 

I did not use any literature guides.  I did use Shmoop.com to read a bit about the author or the history of the book, or for my own reference to drive conversations.  We'd just read and discuss whatever we felt like discussing.  There was no official guidance.  We didn't assess literary language or anything like that.  We just enjoyed the books.  

 

We used the Lost Tools of Writing last year as our writing program, so he wrote 8 essays based on the above books, but the first 2 or 3 essays were super tiny (which is how the program works.)  So, I feel like he only wrote 5 proper essays last year, which was fine.

 

 

10th Grade:

 

Short stories:

Young Goodman Brown

Two stories and The Raven by Poe (the shortest stories in the book)

​Two O. Henry Stories (haven't picked them yet)

The Most Dangerous Game

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The Lottery

 

Books:  (Note, some of these books are actually novellas, and the books were the shortest ones I could find for American lit.)

 

1. Huckleberry Finn

2. The Red Badge of Courage

3. The Call of the Wild

4. The Great Gatsby

5. Animal Farm

6. Of Mice and Men

7. A Separate Peace

8. Cather in the Rye

9. To Kill a Mockingbird

10. Flowers for Algernon (maybe)

 

I have lit guides for four of the above books, but we don't belabor the lit guides. We skip stuff we don't want to do.  He'll write essays for the 4 lit guide books, but not for the rest.  For the rest of the books, we'll just read and enjoy like we did last year, and lightly discuss them with each other.  These books are all so short that it only takes about 1-3 weeks to read them. 

 

Again---this is because my son doesn't read, and my goal for him is for him to have read 40 books by the time he graduates high school.  If he loved to read, I'd probably only pick 4 or so books to really dig deep into for school.  Or if he haaaaated reading, it would be less.  He doesn't hate to read.  He's perfectly happy to read what I give him and even enjoys the books I assign.  He just doesn't touch books on his own for his own pleasure.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Garga

[Penelope]

What I have seen is that when a high school class only requires a few books, they are also reading from an anthology with excerpts from various genres. YMMV.

 

This year I am following the Kolbe Medieval literature syllabus, with a few additions and subtractions. They recommend eight relatively short writing assignments per semester.

There are 15 works, listed here:

http://www.kolbe.org/courses/homeschool/courses/high-school/literature-curriculum/

But a few cantos of Purgatorio and Paradiso are skipped, and only selections of Chaucer and Milton are included. Beowulf, Sir Gawain, and the plays are relatively short works.

[mschickie]

We do a minimum of 4 books covered in depth (lit guides and such) and then a handful of other books that I have dd read through out the year.

[Guest]

We do roughly 8-10 per school year, but only go deeply into one per semester.

[....]

We try for 7-8, but we spend a lot of time on each book.  Any more than that and it feels like we are flying through them without time to discuss them.  

[Targhee]

My DD's freshman honors English covers a books a quarter in class and a second book each quarter of their choice related to the assigned book. So they are STUDYING only 4 books as a class, though they have essays on the other 4 books of choice as well. That seems about what I did through high school. Multum non multa. We would be doing Roman Roads Old Western Culture if she were home.

[klmama]

I tend to assign more reading rather than less, but it depends very much on the specific literature and how much writing I want the dc to do.  

 

OP, are you wondering specifically about English - as in British - Literature, or are you asking about any literature learned as part of a language arts class?  Is there a particular period or region you want to cover?

 

Also, are you wanting to know how many books covered IN ADDITION to a literature text that includes short stories, poetry, essays, and plays, or are you wanting the books you read to be the only literature covered?

 

How much writing to you want to be included in this course?  Response essays and literary analysis essays?  Other writing, such as creative writing or research papers?  Quizzes or tests?