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Windows to the World annotation/writing about literature + LLftLotR: possible/advisable?


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I'm trying to come up with a plan for working on literary analysis in eighth grade with my older child, who turns 14 at the end of August.  We're working in Figuratively Speaking now and I hope to do some "Movies as Literature" very gently (all discussion, no writing). 

Once our school year starts, we'll be using WWS2 for our writing program.  DS really doesn't "click" with the literary analysis & poetry analysis in WWS, and while I make him slog through it, I'd like to build up a better & more positive literary analysis experience.  I was thinking of using Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings once we've wrapped up Figuratively Speaking, but looking around it seems as if the Windows to the World annotation & writing support would be very helpful for us.  Might I pull those skills from WtW either before or during LLftLotR?  or is that just absurd (I have neither program in hand)?  I'd love to have better literary analysis writing skills so that we can do a bit of good lit writing with the LLftLotR program.   

Very grateful for any thoughts.  The child is a good reader, though he tends to skim & doesn't naturally twig onto metaphor &c, and a good writer, though he hasn't done many essays.  We may end up going very slowly b/c of health concerns but I want to have a plan in place that will really build up his enjoyment of and facility with literary analysis this year.  He's STEM-y & loves gentle sci-fi/fantasy (nothing dark or dystopian) FWIW. 

Edited by serendipitous journey
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3 hours ago, freesia said:

I run all my kids through WttW.  I intersperse other novels usually.  If I were in your situation, I would do the first five units of Windows and then start the LLfLotR .

Freesia, thanks so much for replying and for this suggestion.  It is very encouraging to me, because this would allow me to line things up nicely with our other scheduling and we could finish before he begins ninth, which is a goal of mine. 

Quick question: we will be reading other novels as we do WttW, and I have Teaching the Classics and will be using that to help our discussions of them.  Would you think of this as a strong way to add novels, or would you suggest incorporating what we read more directly and specifically with WttW? 

thank you again 🙂 

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1 hour ago, serendipitous journey said:

Freesia, thanks so much for replying and for this suggestion.  It is very encouraging to me, because this would allow me to line things up nicely with our other scheduling and we could finish before he begins ninth, which is a goal of mine. 

Quick question: we will be reading other novels as we do WttW, and I have Teaching the Classics and will be using that to help our discussions of them.  Would you think of this as a strong way to add novels, or would you suggest incorporating what we read more directly and specifically with WttW? 

thank you again 🙂 

That is pretty much how I’ve done it the past 2 times. For instance, this year for eighth grade, ds worked on a novel a month and I led a book club with a small group of middle schoolers and we used Teaching the Classics questions to guide our discussion.  During the month he also completed 2-3 weeks of WttW.  ( He could work on the novel at the same time or read it all the last week or two when I didn’t assign WttW.)

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We used both of those programs, although not in the same year.

WttW (a 1 semester program) was easy to break into units and slip in here and there over 2 years. As I recall, we grouped the chapters into units something along these lines:
- chapters 1 + 2 -- annotation ("Gift of the Magi", and, "The Most Dangerous Game")
- chapters 3 + 4 -- allusions, plot, suspense
- chapter 5 -- the literary analysis essay
- chapters 6 + 7 -- parallelism, euphemism, simile, character ("The Necklace")
- chaptesr 8 + 9 -- symbolism, emphasis, theme & worldview ("A Jury of Her Peers")
- chapters 10 + 11 -- setting, imagery ("Fight with a Cannon")
- chapters 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 -- point of view, tone, irony ("The Open Window")

LLftLotR is a 1-year program. We did read other works at the same time -- in fact we did our Ancient Lit. to go with Ancient History. We would not have *also* had time to fit WttW in with LLftLotR AND our full Literature line-up, so just a heads up about how much reading is reasonable.

LLftLotR took us roughly 3 hours per week for the whole 36-week school year. (We spent about an additional 75-90 min./DAY, so roughly another 3-3.5 hours/WEEK on our Ancient Lit + Writing.) For doing LLftLotR, we:
- skipped the fill-in-the-blank comprehension questions and vocabulary (saved time)
- read aloud (added time)
- discussed as we read (streamlined time)
- we also skipped the writing assignments (saved time)
- but did a full writing program (added time)
- we also did all of the 12 units of additional material in LLftLotR, spreading each unit over roughly 2-3 weeks of time

So our LLftLofR weekly break-down looked something like this:
1.5-2 hours/week to read and discussion the chapters
45 minutes/week to read the chapter notes and do the discussion questions for those chapters
45 minutes/week to do part of one of the 12 units

If you plan to do the fill-in-the-blank comprehension and vocabulary, plan on adding another 20 minutes per chapter. If planning on doing some of the LLftLotR writing assignments instead of a writing program, plan on 30-40 minutes per day.

BEST of luck as you plan, and wishing you and DS a terrific Lit. year! Warmest regards, Lori D.
 

ETA

Based on this:

11 hours ago, serendipitous journey said:

... we could finish before he begins ninth, which is a goal of mine. 

Quick question: we will be reading other novels as we do WttW, and I have Teaching the Classics and will be using that to help our discussions of them.  Would you think of this as a strong way to add novels, or would you suggest incorporating what we read more directly and specifically with WttW? 


If you are planning on doing WttW AND Teaching the Classics AND adding novels -- that is a full year of Literature and reading right there, and I would say you would NOT have time to also do LLftLotR. In that case, you could drop LLftLotR and just read the trilogy and discuss using TtC techniques. (Just bear in mind for scheduling purposes that each volume of the trilogy is actually TWO books, each about 250 pages long, so you're looking at a total of 6 average-length novels if adding those as novels to go along with TtC.)

Also, if you think your student would really enjoy the LLftLotR program, doing it after completing WttW is apt to make LLftLotR feel pretty light and disappointing, while doing LLftLotR before (or simultaneous) with WttW would be more likely to be a good fit, since LLftLotR is designed to be a gentle intro into formal literature studies. 

Just a further 2 cents worth, LOL.

Edited by Lori D.
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6 hours ago, Lori D. said:

...


If you are planning on doing WttW AND Teaching the Classics AND adding novels -- that is a full year of Literature and reading right there, and I would say you would NOT have time to also do LLftLotR. In that case, you could drop LLftLotR and just read the trilogy and discuss using TtC techniques. (Just bear in mind for scheduling purposes that each volume of the trilogy is actually TWO books, each about 250 pages long, so you're looking at a total of 6 average-length novels if adding those as novels to go along with TtC.)

Also, if you think your student would really enjoy the LLftLotR program, doing it after completing WttW is apt to make LLftLotR feel pretty light and disappointing, while doing LLftLotR before (or simultaneous) with WttW would be more likely to be a good fit, since LLftLotR is designed to be a gentle intro into formal literature studies. 

Just a further 2 cents worth, LOL.

Lori, thanks so much! 

I agree about triple programs being problematic!  and am glad you highlighted this. 

Here is what I am thinking.  Our current school year got thrown off in so many ways that I am in the process of regrouping and reassessing and so on.  Also, DS has developed a chronic health problem that is slowing us down; it looks as though he is healing, for which I am grateful, but I have to plan flexibly for the next year or so.  My main goals (I'm writing them up this weekend & planning things out) are to get us "on track" to be at WTM "grade level" entering ninth next year.  This is entirely realistic and appropriate for this child.  Right now I am agnostic about when we begin "ninth grade": anytime from August to December of 2020 would be okay, I figure, but later than December of '20 would require serious re-assessment. 

So then I figure, to have good literary analysis skills under our belts and to build up a real interest in and enjoyment of literary analysis: these are my main goals, I'd love to have that accomplished before we start high school (again, that is my particular goal for this child, not a general idea about what "should" happen before high school). 

I own Teaching the Classics and have incorporated its ideas, so I didn't really expect it to add much time to literary analysis like WttW or LLftLotR; rather, I was hoping that if I review the program this summer, then I can use the principles to guide our discussions.  As in, throw up a story chart and fill it in and do a few Socratic questions, that kind of thing. 

But what Teaching the Classics won't give us is the annotation & essay-writing skills that WttW seems so good at; or the gentle depth of LLftLotR and opportunity to build interest.  Alongside those concerns is my thinking about our history cycle.  We're trying to wrap up Middle Ages this summer, then do Early Modern over the next 4-6 months and Modern in the 4-6 months after that. 

I had been thinking that LLftLotR might be a good addition to the Modern history cycle for this child because that is when Tolkien wrote it and I think that it could be a great but gentle way for a sensitive child to tackle many of the moral/ethical problems in Modern history, from genocides to environmental crises: it might help these serious things to feel a bit removed but allow deep thinking about them.   I know that LLftLotR is a full-year program, but I gather that it gives some wiggle room regarding how many of the supplementary novels & work one does, so this seemed feasible.  If we decide on this path, we can also work to ensure that sufficient time is given -- we could start it early, for example. 

Then, I imagined, if we did enough of WttW to benefit from the annotation & essay chapters while we are studying "Early Modern" history, that might work. 

On the other hand this may all be absurd.  I'm not totally sure that the child would love LLftLotR (he never wants to read the books on his own, for example) and so it might be better to meet my goals by spending the year's literature with WttW, pull in Teaching the Classics, and do Tollkien's trilogy as our read-aloud. 

The OTHER thing I'd considered is Excellence in Literature's intro year, but thought WttW lined up better with our specific goals, particularly since I don't might not want to use EiL in the upper years.  I know we could just follow TWTM/Susan Wise Bauer's audio lecture ideas RE literature in the middle school/logic years, and I may do that with my younger fellow, but this older guy does best with more structure and with clear requirements for output. 

(ETA: he's maturing nicely & I think that if we hit high school with strong literature skills then we can do TWTM-style literary analysis at the high school level.)

and: THANK YOU!!!!!  I'm going back to re-read your post and digest it more carefully ...

 

Edited by serendipitous journey
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Okay, maybe this plan:

Keep Teaching the Classics in mind to provide a point of departure & guide discussions. 

We could this summer begin WttW, and plan to do chapters 1 - 5 in July and August and into September if necessary, then pick up LLftLotR.  Pull any "extra" novels or literature from the supplemental/optional LLftLotR lists and do not allow myself to create crazy-making additional literature lists for my poor child 😉 .  Consider finishing WttW next summer or just calling it good. 

Maybe???

(updated plans/questions below)

Edited by serendipitous journey
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I've used both and I thought that WttW required more thought and more in depth writing skills than LLftLotR. I thought it was helpful that they already knew how to write a standard essay before doing WttW. That's what we worked on with LLftLotR. We skipped the comprehension questions and vocabulary and mostly read the book and used the optional additional literary units as jumping off points for learning to write different types of essays based on those units. Then once standard essay writing was in place, we moved on to WttW and reading/writing about novels after the short stories.

Lori D is much more experienced than me, though, so if you don't like my suggestions, hers are probably better 🙂

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1 hour ago, Momto6inIN said:

I've used both and I thought that WttW required more thought and more in depth writing skills than LLftLotR. I thought it was helpful that they already knew how to write a standard essay before doing WttW. That's what we worked on with LLftLotR. We skipped the comprehension questions and vocabulary and mostly read the book and used the optional additional literary units as jumping off points for learning to write different types of essays based on those units. Then once standard essay writing was in place, we moved on to WttW and reading/writing about novels after the short stories.

Lori D is much more experienced than me, though, so if you don't like my suggestions, hers are probably better 🙂

Thanks so much for that BTDT perspective!  Given Lori's thought that LLftLofR would seem light after WttW, if I want to sequence them then it sounds like doing chapters 1-5 (at least) of WttW after LLftLotR would suit better. 

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Well, it really sounds like LLftLotR goes more naturally before WttW: thank you, Hive!  So maybe a better plan would be to do LLftLotR first, then at least the first 5 chapters of WttW. 

I do have one other concern, which is building the child's enjoyment and love of the LotR series.  He hasn't yet picked them up on his own, and is a bit resistant to reading them.  Might it be best for me to do these over the next year as a read-aloud and then leave the books about for him to re-read on his own? since he almost never picks up a book to read if it has been assigned for school, unless it is non-fiction, but does sometimes re-read books I've done aloud. 

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9 hours ago, serendipitous journey said:

Well, it really sounds like LLftLotR goes more naturally before WttW: thank you, Hive!  So maybe a better plan would be to do LLftLotR first, then at least the first 5 chapters of WttW. 

I do have one other concern, which is building the child's enjoyment and love of the LotR series.  He hasn't yet picked them up on his own, and is a bit resistant to reading them.  Might it be best for me to do these over the next year as a read-aloud and then leave the books about for him to re-read on his own? since he almost never picks up a book to read if it has been assigned for school, unless it is non-fiction, but does sometimes re-read books I've done aloud. 

If he's resistant, then yes I think that would be better. It's a big intimidating book!

Has he seen the movies? Usually I don't recommend seeing the movie before reading the book, but in this case I might, since they are exciting and might generate interest in the book if he hasn't seen them before.

But if he has seen them and is still resistant to reading it, I might look for something else for building basic essay writing skills before WttW. For us, LLftLotR was great because we already loved it and it was a gentle introduction to high school level literature and writing about a book he loved. But I don't know if I'd still think it was worth the time if he didn't love it.

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3 hours ago, Momto6inIN said:

...

Has he seen the movies? Usually I don't recommend seeing the movie before reading the book, but in this case I might, since they are exciting and might generate interest in the book if he hasn't seen them before.

...

🙂  I was just beginning to plan to do the movies first.  So thank you for the encouragement!  He's often a bit disappointed in movies after books, and I thought that the movies might Spark an Interest as well as give a very general feel for the plot, and make it fun to read & discuss the differences. 

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Okay, normally I agree with most everything Momto6inIN advises 😄 , but for this particular book/movie I say WAIT on the movies until AFTER the trilogy.

A big reason why I say this is that the purpose of the films is action/spectacle, and as a result, much of the depth of theme and character is stripped out in order to spend more time and focus on spectacle and fighting scenes. Also, while I totally understand that films have to abridge/condense the fullness of a novel because there isn't room to put the entire novel into a 2-3 hour film, the movie trilogy of Lord of the Rings is especially disappointing in this regard, as the films  increasingly leave out material, and actually start changing some of the story and characters -- and then write in new material not even in the book, with the time they "saved" by dropping out original material. The end effect "modernizes" the story, and shifts the underlying worldview from Tolkien's strong Christian/Catholic virtues and values toward a more secular and post-modern worldview. This both weakens and "makes shallow" characters who were written as strong and complex in the trilogy.

Just me, but I would vote for instead doing the books aloud together -- possibly as a family read -- or listen to an engaging audiobook version, as you do LLftLotR together.

Also, I would highly encourage you to first informally read The Hobbit aloud together over the summer before starting the trilogy. That way, you get some key "back story" and get familiarity with the world of Middle-earth. Also, The Hobbit overall has a lighter mood and moves at a faster pace than the trilogy, which allows you to get used to Tolkien's descriptive style of writing and vocabulary while speeding along from one exciting adventure to the next. Then when you hit the more serious mood (and, at times, slower pace) of The Lord of the Rings, you are not also wrestling with Tolkien's writing style.


ETA -- Just want to add that there are elements of the Lord of the Rings films that I love -- the locations, sets, and costuming are fantastic and the film crew worked WAY above and beyond to match how the world of Middle-earth was described. And some of the acting/specific scenes between characters are absolutely moving and powerful. And any time they use dialogue or writing straight out of the novels -- wonderful! It is those wonderful and spot-on aspects that make the post-modern interpretation in the changes in the writing and choice of storytelling feel so clunky and fall so flat in comparison. sigh.

Edited by Lori D.
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2 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Okay, normally I agree with most everything Momto6inIN advises 😄 , but for this particular book/movie I say WAIT on the movies until AFTER the trilogy.

A big reason why I say this is that the purpose of the films is action/spectacle, and as a result, much of the depth of theme and character is stripped out in order to spend more time and focus on spectacle and fighting scenes. Also, while I totally understand that films have to abridge/condense the fullness of a novel because there isn't room to put the entire novel into a 2-3 hour film, the movie trilogy of Lord of the Rings is especially disappointing in this regard, as the films  increasingly leave out material, and actually start changing some of the story and characters -- and then write in new material not even in the book, with the time they "saved" by dropping out original material. The end effect "modernizes" the story, and shifts the underlying worldview from Tolkien's strong Christian/Catholic virtues and values toward a more secular and post-modern worldview. This both weakens and "makes shallow" characters who were written as strong and complex in the trilogy.

Just me, but I would vote for instead doing the books aloud together -- possibly as a family read -- or listen to an engaging audiobook version, as you do LLftLotR together.

Also, I would highly encourage you to first informally read The Hobbit aloud together over the summer before starting the trilogy. That way, you get some key "back story" and get familiarity with the world of Middle-earth. Also, The Hobbit overall has a lighter mood and moves at a faster pace than the trilogy, which allows you to get used to Tolkien's descriptive style of writing and vocabulary while speeding along from one exciting adventure to the next. Then when you hit the more serious mood (and, at times, slower pace) of The Lord of the Rings, you are not also wrestling with Tolkien's writing style.


ETA -- Just want to add that there are elements of the Lord of the Rings films that I love -- the locations, sets, and costuming are fantastic and the film crew worked WAY above and beyond to match how the world of Middle-earth was described. And some of the acting/specific scenes between characters are absolutely moving and powerful. And any time they use dialogue or writing straight out of the novels -- wonderful! It is those wonderful and spot-on aspects that make the post-modern interpretation in the changes in the writing and choice of storytelling feel so clunky and fall so flat in comparison. sigh.

The bolded part just might be the best compliment I've received in a long time! ❤

Also, the idea of reading The Hobbit first is a great one! It really made my kids want to read more about Middle Earth!

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Thank you both! 

He read The Hobbit last summer -- oh my, time flies!  So we are good on backstory.  And he likes hobbits.  Just not enough to be actively interested in the LotR books, not sure why. 

I will think on the movie vs. book concerns, maybe discuss them with the child.  I actually suspect that the shallow-ization in the films might motivate him to read the books more carefully (or listen more carefully) because he is interested in these sorts of issues.  He notices & comments on the gender stereotyping & fairly one-dimensional characters in Asimov's "Foundation" series, for example, esp. in contrast to Terry Pratchett's stories: we've been alternating between Pratchett and Asimov for before-bed reads.  And he's been disappointed in the ethics of Asimov's main characters.  So I was thinking that having the movies in mind and seeing what was done to Tolkien's original characters and story might give him something to be opinionated about. 

Lori, do you have thoughts on LofR as read-aloud versus doing the Literary Lessons study?  In which case we'd use WttW, I'm pretty sure.  I think he could handle the writing since he finished WWS1, but haven't seen the full program yet and am not sure. 

You guys are just awesome.  I can't thank you enough. 

Edited by serendipitous journey
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1 hour ago, Momto6inIN said:

The bolded part just might be the best compliment I've received in a long time! ❤

Also, the idea of reading The Hobbit first is a great one! It really made my kids want to read more about Middle Earth!


I also just remembered another thing that might help students keep chugging through the books, and that is doing a fun weekly webpage or other activity to go along with that week's chapters. I did this with my co-op class that was a year-long study of Lord of the Rings + several Medieval Lit. titles.

copy-pasting a short list of some links/ideas I sent to my students:

Hands-on ideas:
- be inspired by Tolkien's own artwork: Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator (by Hammond)
- try Tolkien calligraphy: Tengwar Calligraphy
- create your own map (or atlas with a series of maps) and/or timeline (see Middle Earth maps at Encyclopedia of Arda3 Ri.ngsLord of the Rings ProjectTimeline of the One Ring)
- walk and talk about LotR with the Walk to Rivendell Challenge
- create your own miniature hobbit hole -- Instructables how-to
- see how Medieval illustrated manuscripts were made 
- make foods from Middle Earth Recipes

Some past threads with ideas:
"Fun Tolkien projects?"
"xpost Any serious Tolkien fans"


And these resources might be fun to spark more thinking/dialogue together about the trilogy:

FREE lit. guides (discussion questions) from Houghton-Mifflin:
The Hobbit Educator's Guidelesson plans
Fellowship of the Ring - discussion prompts
The Two Towers - discussion prompts
Return of the King - discussion prompts

FREE audio lectures about Lord of the Rings from Mythgard:
- Fellowship of the Ring (6 lectures; each approx. 90 minutes long)
- The Two Towers (10 lectures; each approx. 90 minutes long)
- The Return of the King (9 lectures; each approx. 90 minutes long)

Edited by Lori D.
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20 minutes ago, serendipitous journey said:

Lori, do you have thoughts on LofR as read-aloud versus doing the Literary Lessons study?  In which case we'd use WttW, I'm pretty sure.  I think he could handle the writing since he finished WWS1, but haven't seen the full program yet and am not sure. 


When we did LLftLotR we did the readings aloud together as a family, AND did the study aloud together. But all of us love all things Tolkien. (:D If your other DS is 6th or 7th grade, I don't know why you couldn't do LLftLotR all 3 of you aloud together and make some fantastic family memories... I remember some past posts where someone had a 5th grader who had fun listening to the books and the LLftLotR chapter notes and additional 12 units, and chiming in with thoughts. 😉

At the time we did it, DS#2 was grade 8 and a struggling writer and stealth dyslexic, so it was important for us to still do a lot of reading aloud together buddy reading style "you read a page, I read a page". So reading aloud the books and doing the study together really kept DS#2 motivated and interested in going through both the books and the program. However, we had also read Lord of the Rings as a family read aloud twice before, several years before reading it again and doing LLftLorR, so everyone was very familiar with the world and characters.

Edited by Lori D.
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11 hours ago, serendipitous journey said:

  So I was thinking that having the movies in mind and seeing what was done to Tolkien's original characters and story might give him something to be opinionated about. 

 

This made me laugh and reminded me sooooo much of some of my kids! 😂

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