Oak Meadow Hero's Journey Composition and Literature

[SJ.]

I am considering using Oak Meadow's Hero's Journey Composition and Literature for either 8th or 9th grade. Before I take the plunge I work love to hear reviews!

SJ

[Kassia]

We used it when dd was in 8th grade and liked it.  I can't remember too much about it since it was a few years ago but I thought it was a pretty good course.  I didn't think the little book about writing was worth the cost and I used the teacher manual but wished it had been more helpful on certain assignments.  But there was a good amount of reading and writing, which is what I wanted for dd.  And the questions on the reading required some thought rather than just being reading comprehension questions.  IIRC, there was a lot of writing required and I wanted dd to have more time to spend on her essays so we dropped some of the assignments so she could focus more on writing well-developed essays rather than rushing through them.  

[CAJinBE]

We used it for ninth grade and really liked it. We didn't do all the assignments like the drawing and journaling but a more creative student might enjoy those a lot. The books were really good and I liked the way the hero theme was used to unite them all. There was a final essay on the hero theme that took a lot of thought and tied the whole course together. I would say that it was one of the pre-made courses that we both liked. I thought the instructor's manual was useful since I'm more of a math/science person. 

[hebandgene]

I used this with both kiddos in 9th grade and love it!  I recommend it to all my friends.  DS #2 needed to really improve his reading comprehension, writing, and critical thinking skills; he improved dramatically thanks in huge part to this curriculum.  The hero theme is fabulous and it was a great exercise taking such varied literature and tying it together with this theme.  The assignments are similar enough to make a nice weekly routine but varied enough that you aren't doing the same thing over and over.  There are plenty of assignments making it easy to pick and choose and still have a full lesson plan.  We even skipped one whole book and still had a complete year's plan.  It's expensive but worth it.  I highly recommend the teacher manual.  There are Oak Meadow Yahoo and Facebook groups  where you might be able to find used copies.