If you have used both TOG and Omnibus( last lit question, I promise lol)

[Quiver0f10]

In your opinion, which ones gives you the teacher more hand holding as you work through the books.

 

Thank you everyone for answering all my lit related questions! I really appreciate the help and your patience as I work through my descision.:blush:

[Michelle in AL]

I think they are about equal, but different. :001_huh: TOG gives you more background on the history, so you know exactly what your child is studying and are more prepared in that manner. I can't remember how much information they give you regarding literature. Reading this background information and planning took me a good bit of time on the weekends.

 

Omnibus gives you a lot of background info on the literature selection, but is lacking in the history dept. I still spend time prereading this info on the weekends. So the prep time is probably equal.

 

If you're trying to decide between the 2, it may help to decide what you want to focus on. Omnibus focuses more on lit and TOG on history. We use Omnibus which is light on history prep for the teacher. Now that I realized I've kind of dropped the ball in history by letting them just read the textbook and not discussing anything, I've switched to reading their text on the weekends so I can have a better discussion and that takes a good amount of time.

 

When I compared book list from the 2 they were quite different. Seeing which list your student may enjoy more may help you decide too.

 

Both are good programs, just slightly different.

[Quiver0f10]

Thanks, Michelle, that was very helpful and gave me some more things to consider.

[RebeccaC]

I thought I would throw this out as an option that I am using with my boys. I discovered this option through a post that Eliana wrote. She wrote about a book called The United States in Literature which is part of the America Reads textbook series. I now own the entire series just waiting for the British lit to arrive. I am paying around $5 per book through Amazon. Which is saving me tons of money! Each book contains a huge selection of short stories many by the great book authors, well known poems, and full plays, modern, ancient Greek, Shakespeare, ect... and some short novels. At the end of each selection there is a bio on the author. Each selection is used to teach a lit device and there is a chapter in the back of the book that the student reads that covers lit themes and devices. The first section in Patterns is on plot and there are several short stories that work on plot. There are also Think and discuss questions, composition questions, and thinking skill activities and some vocab work for each selection. Best part of all is most of the stories and plays are boy friendly. My sons are enjoying these books and I am not fighting then to read them.

 

Here are books in the high school series and there are also two for middle school but I do not have them and will probably not buy them.

 

9th grade Patterns in Literature http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Literature-America-Teachers-Annotated/dp/0673293890/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232384081&sr=1-4

 

10th grade Traditions in Literature http://www.amazon.com/Traditions-Literature-America-Helen-McDonnell/dp/0673293807/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232382980&sr=1-1

 

11th grade England in Literature http://www.amazon.com/England-Literature-America-Reads-Classic/dp/067329384X/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232383033&sr=1-7

 

12th grade Classics in World Literature http://www.amazon.com/America-Reads-Classics-World-Literature/dp/0673293858/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232383033&sr=1-12

 

If you would like more info let me know. I bought the series from 1991 there are books from 1989. There are some TMs but I did not feel the need to buy them.

 

I remember when I first started hsing in 96 that there were a lot of hser using these books.

Edited January 19, 2009 by RebeccaC

[Quiver0f10]

Thank you! I will look at the links your provided.