Lightning Literature and Literary Lessons from The Lord of the Rings

[Amy in CO]

My daughter will be in 9th grade next year and wants to learn American History. We will be using Lightning Literature for American Literature to match our history work.

 

Next she wants to do the Ancients using the LLftLotR. I have seen the LOTR book mentioned as an introductory literature book. If she has already done LL 7, 8, and both American Lit sets, would the LOTR book be too repetitive? Or since she is interested in it, can you just gloss over the repetitive things and go a little deeper.

 

The next year she wants to do Middle Ages with the LL Medieval Lit and one Shakespeare. On the LL site, it says that these are more difficult and that you should do at least 2 other high school level LL before attempting them. Do you find that to be true? I ask before my next child wants to do LOTR in 9th, and Medieval Lit and Shakespeare in 10th. So is LOTR enough of an intro to be able to handle Medieval LL and Shakespeare?

 

Thanks for any help.

Amy

[Lori D.]

My daughter will be in 9th grade next year and wants to learn American History. We will be using Lightning Literature for American Literature to match our history work.

 

Next she wants to do the Ancients using the LLftLotR. I have seen the LOTR book mentioned as an introductory literature book. If she has already done LL 7, 8, and both American Lit sets, would the LOTR book be too repetitive? Or since she is interested in it, can you just gloss over the repetitive things and go a little deeper.

 

The next year she wants to do Middle Ages with the LL Medieval Lit and one Shakespeare. On the LL site, it says that these are more difficult and that you should do at least 2 other high school level LL before attempting them. Do you find that to be true? I ask before my next child wants to do LOTR in 9th, and Medieval Lit and Shakespeare in 10th. So is LOTR enough of an intro to be able to handle Medieval LL and Shakespeare?

 

Thanks for any help.

Amy

 

 

 

We've done LL7, LL8, and LLftLotR in this way:

 

two years ago:

7th grader = LL7

8th grader = LL8

 

last year:

8th grader and 9th grader together = LLftLotR

(along with a separate "Great Books" lit. done all together on ancient classics)

 

this year:

9th grader = LL8

10th grader = made our own lit. program ("Worldviews in Sci-Fi and Gothic Lit.")

(along with a separate "Great Books" lit. done all together on a mix of classics)

 

 

I would say that LLftLotR works well either in between LL7 and LL8, or after both of them. While we haven't done any of the high school level LL, I don't think it would be enough new literary analysis in LLftLotR to do it AFTER any of the LL high school levels.

 

Since she's really interested in LLftLotR, I'd say get it and do it as an elective (that's how we're counting our "Great Books" extra lit. and counting the other lit. as the lit. part of the English credit). She can even spread it out over 1.5 or 2 years, if that helps it fit better into the schedule. LLftLotR is such a fun program, with such interesting additional units, that if you have a student interested in doing it, then I highly encourage you to work it in. I would just say that if you've already done LL7 and LL8, then that's the moment to do LLftLotR as your sole literature program -- otherwise, do LLftLotR AND something else that will encourage deeper literary analysis at grade/academic level.

 

Just my 2 cents worth! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[sandra in va]

The next year she wants to do Middle Ages with the LL Medieval Lit and one Shakespeare. On the LL site, it says that these are more difficult and that you should do at least 2 other high school level LL before attempting them. Do you find that to be true? I ask before my next child wants to do LOTR in 9th, and Medieval Lit and Shakespeare in 10th. So is LOTR enough of an intro to be able to handle Medieval LL and Shakespeare?

 

Thanks for any help.

Amy

 

 

From my understanding (based only on research since we are using LL7 currently) - LL was designed to use 2 courses a year. So if you do American Lit in 9th grade, you will most likely use both their early-mid 19th cent and mid-late 19th cent courses. I believe this counts as two courses, and you are set to go for Medieval/Shakespeare. You would probably want to double check this with Hewitt. (The only thing I see that might be conflicting for using LLftLotR is that their unit studies use much of the same literature that is in the Medieval LL. You would need to adjust for this, which you did mention in your post.)

[Rebecca in VA]

Lori, I noticed that LL8 contains "The Hobbit." If you do LL8 first and then do Literary Lessons from LOTR, won't the student be reading "The Hobbit" twice? Was that a problem for you?

[Jenny in Florida]

Lori, I noticed that LL8 contains "The Hobbit." If you do LL8 first and then do Literary Lessons from LOTR, won't the student be reading "The Hobbit" twice? Was that a problem for you?

 

LLLOtR doesn't cover The Hobbit.

[Rebecca in VA]

Oh! Shows how little I know. Thanks for answering!

[Frontier Mom]

We are planning on starting with the Ancients and using Omnibus as a "guide" for the year. I really like the looks of LL but don't see anything on Ancients. Am I missing something?

[sandra in va]

We are planning on starting with the Ancients and using Omnibus as a "guide" for the year. I really like the looks of LL but don't see anything on Ancients. Am I missing something?

 

 

The other day I noticed Hewitt's list of possible future courses on their website. Ancient lit is one of them. :)

[Frontier Mom]

Thanks. I'll check into it.

[Lori D.]

Lori, I noticed that LL8 contains "The Hobbit." If you do LL8 first and then do Literary Lessons from LOTR, won't the student be reading "The Hobbit" twice? Was that a problem for you?

 

 

It's not that you'd do The Hobbit twice; it's just that you'd be doing the Hobbit ("prequil") AFTER the trilogy, so the books would be out of order. It's not that big of a deal, as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place years apart, and are really very separate works.

 

And that was not a problem for us. We had read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy 3 times aloud together as a family, and both boys had read all of the books on their own separately over the years before we ever did LL8 or LLftLotR. We love those books! :001_smile:

 

Additionally, LLftLotR and LL8 are structured differently and cover such different material, it really isn't a problem. If you're concerned, or if you want to cover The Hobbit FIRST to have the books in chronological order, you could cover The Hobbit first with either a lit. guide from either Progeny Press or Garlic Press publishers, then do all of LLftLotR. Then if you're doing LL8 the following year, you could just read the teaching info on The Hobbit and skip reading the book if you didn't want to do it twice. Or, do just the LL8 unit on The Hobbit first, then do all of LLftLotR, and then the following year do the rest of LL8.

 

Enjoy! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited April 1, 2009 by Lori D.
added info

[Rebecca in VA]

Thank you so much for your kind reply! I wasn't aware of how the series worked since I've never read it. I've been thinking of having my daughter work through LL7, then LL8, and then Literary Lessons from LOTR. The information you've provided is extremely helpful.