How do you teach Bulfinch's Mythology? (or any Greek mythology)

[Amy M]

If you teach Edith Hamilton's or Bulfinch's Mythology (I just mention Bulfinch's, because that's what I have), what does that look like for you?

1. Do you use a guide? a workbook w/ comprehension questions?
2. Do you have them only read?
3. Just read and narrate (orally or written)?
4. Discuss with them Socratically? (which brings me back to #1...) And how often do you have a lit discussion, if so? once per day or week?
5. Other

Has anyone tried to bring in a Christian worldview--comparing and contrasting Christian theology with Greek myths?

Thank you for your help!

 

[Momto6inIN]

My kids are introduced to basic myths in early elementary our first time through the history cycle, and we just talk about them and contrast them with our Christian beliefs. When we do the next history cycle in middle school, they read D'Aulaire's and other myths and fables and fairy tales from around the world (Africa, Japan, China, Egypt, Norse, Native American, etc). We don't really do anything other than read them and talk about them in an informal way. So I guess I don't really "teach" them - I just expose them to them. And they eat it up and usually read them over and over again because they're so engaging and interesting 🙂

[Lori D.]

1. Do you use a guide? a workbook w/ comprehension questions?
2. Do you have them only read?
3. Just read and narrate (orally or written)?
4. Discuss with them Socratically? (which brings me back to #1...) And how often do you have a lit discussion, if so? once per day or week?
5. Other

Mostly #5 = other 😉 

We were more informal in our study of the Greek myths. Mostly we did reading for exposure, and discussed in context -- we noted where characters/stories/ideas appear in other works of literature and in popular culture, for example. We did the much of our Literature all through the years, including middle/high school grades, aloud together, which facilitated discussion. We did not write about every piece of Literature, and the writing was of a variety of types: sometimes a reader response in answer to a discussion prompt, sometimes a comparison, sometimes some other sort of literary analysis essay.

Which leads me to a side note about narration in question #3 -- IF this is for a high school student, which I was guessing it is, since you posted this on the high school board 😉 :

Narration is an elementary age level of writing. If it helps a student of any age to summarize or keep notes about key characters, plot events, or other major ideas going on in the work, that is more like annotation and is for personal use. But that would be optional if the student finds it helpful, and should not be the assigned writing about the literature.

High school students typically write about literature in the form of digging deeper into the work -- going beyond retelling the story (narration), and providing supported discussion and analysis about the work. High school writing about literature is often in the form of reader responses from prompts and literary analysis essays -- things like comparison; or how a character is developed; or discussion of major themes or literary elements and how they are working; explanation of a "key quotation" in the work and what it reveals about what is going on at a deeper level in the work; or a supported discussion of a personal application or lesson learned or epiphany seen by the student in the work. Etc.

I would also encourage late middle school ages, as they are ready, into writing at a deeper level than narration -- learning to write supported essays and moving into supported, short reader response essays from discussion prompts, or beginning literary analysis essays.


Possible Guides/Resources:
- Elizabeth Vandiver's Great Course lectures on Classical Mythology
That is the Audible link, but you can also purchase from the Teaching Company.

- free online pdf
This is a guide put together by a public high school teacher; many of the questions are comprehension rather than discussion, but some of the material could be quite useful; for example, p. 3-4 have 7 English words that come straight from the Greek Myths, while p. 9 has the student chart how the concept of justice appears in the Greek Myths. And pages 10-12 has the student research how characters and elements of Greek Myths show up in contemporary culture.

- Comparing Greek Mythology and Christianity: Cultural Influences 
Free online brief website article, to get you started with comparing concepts.

ETA
A fun thing you could do with children of all ages is to make a chart of the Greek myth gods and heroes. Possibly do it on a really big piece of paper so alongside you could also do Roman myth equivalent characters, and Norse myth characters, and any other mythology characters from other cultures in a big side-by-side chart -- maybe like one of the examples below... 😄 

Edited January 2, 2021 by Lori D.

[Amy M]

14 hours ago, Momto6inIN said:

My kids are introduced to basic myths in early elementary our first time through the history cycle, and we just talk about them and contrast them with our Christian beliefs. When we do the next history cycle in middle school, they read D'Aulaire's and other myths and fables and fairy tales from around the world (Africa, Japan, China, Egypt, Norse, Native American, etc). We don't really do anything other than read them and talk about them in an informal way. So I guess I don't really "teach" them - I just expose them to them. And they eat it up and usually read them over and over again because they're so engaging and interesting 🙂

I've done this, too. 🙂 I was wondering if I need to do something more on the rhetoric level if I assign Bulfinch's. My oldest will be 14 and starting 9th grade in 2 weeks, so I'm planning for literature for him.

[Amy M]

14 hours ago, Lori D. said:

We did the much of our Literature all through the years, including middle/high school grades, aloud together, which facilitated discussion.

Thanks again for all of your help, Lori D. Really wish I could read the lit with my kids. I'm sure it would facilitate great discussion. My other children's needs push me to make my oldest mostly independent for lit. I'm trying to read and prepare ahead to still get some great discussions in there where possible. Yes, this is for high school level--I'm thinking to assign it in a few months during his 9th grade year.

[Lori D.]

On 1/2/2021 at 6:23 AM, Amy M said:

Thanks again for all of your help, Lori D. Really wish I could read the lit with my kids. I'm sure it would facilitate great discussion. My other children's needs push me to make my oldest mostly independent for lit. I'm trying to read and prepare ahead to still get some great discussions in there where possible. Yes, this is for high school level--I'm thinking to assign it in a few months during his 9th grade year.

Totally understand that doing lit. together does not work for everyone -- just describing what it looked like for us, per your request. 😉 

A few possible ideas, in case something helps:

Combining can sometimes streamline your schedule:
- Bulfinch's Greek Myths could probably be handled by your older 4 children, so that might be able to still be a read-aloud
- in general for high school next year, if you have an average-to-advanced 12yo, for some "easier" works you may be able to combine the 14yo and 12yo for reading/discussing -- and maybe at the same time when combining older, combine the 10yo and 9yo for an occasional "book club", which streamlines to just 2 books for 4 children

Schedule regular time in your homeschooling for discussion with 14yo, so that it actually happens.
- esp. to start with as you move into high school and are just starting to dig deeper with discussion, doing it several times a week for a shorter time (like 10-15 minutes 3-4x/week, or 15-20 minutes 2-3x/week is more effective than once a week for an hour -- it's easier to keep up with discussion; it's not so overwhelming for the student; it builds the habit of thinking about what is being read)
- schedule younger children for solo reading or other solo work while doing scheduled discussion with older children
- if you absolutely cannot schedule discussion in your school day, then block out a *regular, consistent* time in the evening or on weekends for discussion; OR, discuss informally -- at lunch or dinner, or during regular traveling during the week (if your family regularly commutes by foot or vehicle to a weekly or even daily place/event)

Parent needs to be familiar with the work to discuss; if you don't have time to read all the literature too, maybe try:
- pick 4 works (1 per quarter), or 3 works (1 per 12 weeks), that you commit to read either together or individually but concurrently, and discuss in depth; other books could be a combination of student "just reading" and student working through parts (or maybe all) of a literature guide
- for works you don't have time to read, use a meaty study guide with chapter summaries, analysis of major themes/characters/ideas, and discussion questions; or, use free online resources such as Sparknotes, Cliff's Notes, Pink Monkey, Schmoop, etc.
- for works that you don't have time to read and can't find a summarizing resource for you, let it be a total solo read; or if wanting discussion, let your student summarize the work to you, or talk about what was interesting or important to them, or have the student pick one discussion prompt and answer it aloud to you, and you ask a few questions for clarification

Not every work needs to be discussed or written about
We don't want to kill the love of great literature by forcing a student to write about EVERY book, or by over-analyzing or over-discussing EVERY book. That will save you time, NOT having to write about or discuss every work. 😉

Be sure to include some "lighter" books and high interest books
If doing a Great Books type of study, it is easy to overkill and ONLY do ALL books from that time period/area. In addition to not over-doing and killing the love of literature, be sure to include works that are lighter and of high interest to the student.

Enjoy your high school literature studies! Warmest regards, Lori D.
 

Edited January 3, 2021 by Lori D.

[EKS]

Read aloud (even in high school) and discuss as we go.

[Amy M]

18 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Totally understand that doing lit. together does not work for everyone -- just describing what it looked like for us, per your request. 😉 

A few possible ideas, in case something helps:

Combining can sometimes streamline your schedule:
- Bulfinch's Greek Myths could probably be handled by your older 4 children, so that might be able to still be a read-aloud
- in general for high school next year, if you have an average-to-advanced 12yo, for some "easier" works you may be able to combine the 14yo and 12yo for reading/discussing -- and maybe at the same time when combining older, combine the 10yo and 9yo for an occasional "book club", which streamlines to just 2 books for 4 children

Schedule regular time in your homeschooling for discussion with 14yo, so that it actually happens.
- esp. to start with as you move into high school and are just starting to dig deeper with discussion, doing it several times a week for a shorter time (like 10-15 minutes 3-4x/week, or 15-20 minutes 2-3x/week is more effective than once a week for an hour -- it's easier to keep up with discussion; it's not so overwhelming for the student; it builds the habit of thinking about what is being read)
- schedule younger children for solo reading or other solo work while doing scheduled discussion with older children
- if you absolutely cannot schedule discussion in your school day, then block out a *regular, consistent* time in the evening or on weekends for discussion; OR, discuss informally -- at lunch or dinner, or during regular traveling during the week (if your family regularly commutes by foot or vehicle to a weekly or even daily place/event)

Parent needs to be familiar with the work to discuss; if you don't have time to read all the literature too, maybe try:
- pick 4 works (1 per quarter) that you commit to read either together or individually but concurrently, and discuss in depth; other books could be a combination of student "just reading" and student working through parts (or maybe all) of a literature guide
- for works you don't have time to read, use a meaty study guide with chapter summaries, analysis of major themes/characters/ideas, and discussion questions; or, use free online resources such as Sparknotes, Cliff's Notes, Pink Monkey, Schmoop, etc.
- for works that you don't have time to read and can't find a summarizing resource for you, let it be a total solo read; or for discussion, let your student summarize the work to you, or talk about what was interesting or important to them, or have the student pick one discussion prompt and answer it aloud to you, and you ask a few questions for clarification

Not every work needs to be discussed or written about
We don't want to kill the love of great literature by forcing a student to write about EVERY book, or by over-analyzing or over-discussing EVERY book. That will save you time, NOT having to write about or discuss every work. 😉

Be sure to include some "lighter" books and high interest books
If doing a Great Books type of study, it is easy to overkill and ONLY do ALL books from that time period/area. In addition to not over-doing and killing the love of literature, be sure to include works that are lighter and of high interest to the student.

Enjoy your high school literature studies! Warmest regards, Lori D.
 

Lots of good ideas here, thank you. Looks do-able, if I don't get lazy! I'll be juggling phonics with the littlest and Homer with the oldest. 😜

I've been thinking about combining the top two (12 and 14yo) for Henty's Cat of Bubastes. I saw MFW does that in 9th grade... is Henty okay for a lighter read in high school? is he too light or too much... MFW has the high schoolers independent. I wondered if I combine my 12 and 14yo for some of the works if that will require me to make the 12yo an entirely different schedule when he gets up there? I was kind of hoping that if I work out a nice schedule for the 14yo this year, that it work for the 12yo when he gets up to 9th or 10th grade himself. Is it better to do that (like MFW--put them more independent in high school--I think MFW has a weekly meeting for discussion and planning with the student), or to combine them for discussions and readings (like TOG)? Trying to think about what is going to work for us, and it's hard to know.

[Miss Tick]

22 minutes ago, Amy M said:

I've been thinking about combining the top two (12 and 14yo) for Henty's Cat of Bubastes. I saw MFW does that in 9th grade... is Henty okay for a lighter read in high school? is he too light or too much...

I've not read Henty myself, but I understand that his racist views come through frequently in his writing. This might be something to consider if you aren't able to read along with your dc and discuss. You may, at least, want to discuss the issue of "classical" writers reflecting the views of their times which are now recognized as inhumane. Particularly with regard to books like the Cat of Bubastes, where Henty is criticized for importing his views into a historical time.

[Lori D.]

3 hours ago, Amy M said:

...I've been thinking about combining the top two (12 and 14yo) for Henty's Cat of Bubastes...
... is Henty okay for a lighter read in high school? is he too light or too much... 

Yes, Cat of Bubastes could be done by both the 12yo and 14yo together.

I personally don't think there is much literary depth to Henty's writing. Not much to discuss in the way of depth (character, themes), or use of literary elements (mood, metaphor and simile, conflict, irony, imagery, hyperbole, etc.), or use of beautiful language and poetic sound devices (rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia). 

His works were written for entertainment ("dime novel" historical fiction) -- high on adventure in exotic settings/time periods, low on beautiful, rich, complex language, and low on depth for study/analysis/appreciation.

Also, just me, but I dislike Henty. His books are not always historically accurate, and more importantly: his writing is problematic. This article, "G.A. Henty and the Christian Worldview", is a short explanation of the multiple problems found in his writing, including racism and 19th century British imperialism/superiority over "natives", and, ecumenism (belief that Christianity, Islam, and Judaism worship the same God and have no major differences).

 

If wanting to substitute another work for studying as part of your ancient History/Literature, you might consider:

- Till We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis)
This is a wonderful, deep, complex work -- probably Lewis' best fiction writing. It is set in a fictional ancient Mesopotamian-based land and is a loose retelling of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche. This one is deep, and too much for a 12yo -- probably too much for a 14yo who is just beginning to do literary analysis. But do this one at some point in high school -- it is so good! Here is a free guide from the CS Lewis Book Club website to start off with (click on the "chapter chunks in the yellow bar on the left of the main page to access the parts of the guide). Also check out the audio lecture by Peter Kreeft (Christian worldview) -- don't know if this is the same audio discussion or a different one.

- Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare)
The famous history-based play by Shakespeare on the death of Rome's first emperor. Pretty straight-forward play; if you have an advanced 12yo reader, you might consider doing this one together with the 14yo and 12yo. If wanting to study it more in-depth, Progeny Press (Christian-based literature guides) has an e-book version you can download -- so no shipping. Sparknotes' No Fear Shakespeare has free online side-by-side original language and modern version for reading. And the secular Parallel Shakespeare materials have nice teacher guides and student workbooks (with teacher version for answers) for guiding through the play.

- The Aeneid for Boys and Girls (Alfred Church)
An abridged prose retelling of the lengthy epic by the ancient Roman author Virgil, about the Ancient Greek character of Aeneas and his search for a new homeland with the fall of Troy (he eventually founds Rome). Not the richness of the original, but told in shorter length with simpler language, so it could be done by both 14yo and 12yo, and you could still discuss the "big ideas" going on it.

- Wonderbook, and Tanglewood Tales (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
Both of these have short story re-tellings of some of the classic Greek myths. These are in the public domain, so there are full-text versions available to read FREE online.


If wanting to substitute other historical fiction, (and either study as literature, or not) you might consider something from below -- note, most are middle school level, but it can be very helpful for a young high school student to have a "break" with some books in their list that are below reading level:

Egypt:
- Tales of Ancient Egypt (Green) - gr. 5+ -- translated/abridged mythology from the Book of the Dead myths, plus folk tales
- The Golden Goblet (Magraw) - gr. 5-8 -- historical fiction
- Shadow Hawk (Norton) - gr. 8+ -- historical fiction

Rome/Israel
- The Bronze Bow (George) - gr. 7-9; Christian theme
- Ides of April (Ray) - gr. 8+; Christian
- Beyond the Desert Gate (Ray) - gr 8+; Christian -- sequel

Rome/Britain
- Eagle of the Ninth (Sutcliff) - gr. 6-9 -- and possibly The Silver Branch and The Lantern Bearers, that follow this one

 

3 hours ago, Amy M said:

... I wondered if I combine my 12 and 14yo for some of the works if that will require me to make the 12yo an entirely different schedule when he gets up there? I was kind of hoping that if I work out a nice schedule for the 14yo this year, that it work for the 12yo when he gets up to 9th or 10th grade himself. Is it better to do that (like MFW--put them more independent in high school--I think MFW has a weekly meeting for discussion and planning with the student), or to combine them for discussions and readings (like TOG)? Trying to think about what is going to work for us, and it's hard to know.

Ug, every student and every family is SO very different, that it's really impossible to help you with this one.

I was able to combine my 2 at the high school level of Literature because they were only 20 months apart in age and 1 grade apart, and because (for various reasons), both DSs were on the older side for their grade levels -- so a bit more mature in 8th and 9th grades. BUT, that may not be your situation at all.

Just a guess, but I would think if you want to combine the 14yo and 12yo for a more heavy-hitting Great Books study in 9th grade, the 12yo would really need to be a strong to advanced reader/thinker. Otherwise, you may need to do them separately, and your 14yo will be your guinea pig while you tweak and figure what works/doesn't work for doing a lot solo to create a schedule that works for him AND will later work for your 12yo. And there's no guarantee that schedule WILL work for the 12yo, if that student is a late-bloomer and NOT ready for mostly independent work by the time he reaches 9th grade... 😉

I suggest writing your schedule and plans in pencil, and be ready to erase and tweak all next year as you learn what works/doesn't work for THIS student for THIS year of high school. (And know that they change SO much over high school that every year is going to look different as to how much they can/can't do independently, and how much depth they can go into with discussion. 😉 )

BEST of luck in planning, and have a great year of ancient Literature studies! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited January 3, 2021 by Lori D.