momof2boys Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 This year I bought a few of the Progeny Press guides and a few of the Total Language Plus guides for my son to use. While we did use most of them, he did not like them. What I would like to do is for he and I to just set down and talk about the books as he is reading them(I plan on reading them also). I know that the WEM is used by a lot of people but I was wondering if someone would be willing to share a typical discussion of a book their child is reading by using the WEM. I plan on looking at it when I go to the homeschool convention in May but would like to get an idea of just exactly how some of you actually use it if possible. thanks in advance Gloria Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JennW in SoCal Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 I don't know if just scanning the book at a convention will really help you get a feel for how it works, but look through pages 68-84 where she details the kinds of questions you should be answering when first reading a novel, then what to be thinking about when analyzing it. She breaks the reading and thinking process into 3 levels of inquiry, where the first level is the first read through where you identify the main characters and the plot, the 2nd level where you start looking at details like setting and point of view and imagery and metaphors, the the final "rhetoric" stage where you think about the writer's technique or if the book was making a successful argument about something. The book has sections for fiction, biography, history, poetry and drama. Each section has an annotated reading list, techniques for reading and analyzing, and a brief history of the genre. She writes that analyzing literature is a skill that has to be developed and practiced, so your first forays into doing this will be hesitant and you may feel you are not going deep enough. You won't have answers to any of these questions about a particular book as you might with a literature program, so you have to trust that you and your kids really are developing this skill little by little. I do turn to Sparknotes sometimes to make sure we're not missing the boat on some critical point of a book. I've had my kids keep a journal as they read, then we discuss and talk and think aloud together. Sometimes they will have a strong opinion about an aspect of the book and I'll have them write an essay about that point so they can develop and articulate their argument. The rhetoric level questions are good starting points for essay topics as well. My youngest son loves having us reading the same books, whether they are for school or not because he really enjoys discussing them. For me, the WEM is a way to keep our discussions a little more on track, to keep us both reading a little more deeply and looking for the beauty of the language, and the deeper meanings of the writing. I don't know if I really answered your question or not, even though I wrote such a long reply! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MommyThrice Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Does anyone REALLY read through a book three times? Or, 6-8 books per year in this way? :eek: Every time I read WEM or How to Read a Book, I throw up my hands in despair. I would like to teach my children how to analyze literature without making them hate it. I am generally an OC perfectionist, but I've drawn the line at 3 years of Latin, and one reading + 1 skimming of literature! I guess my kids won't get a perfect, classical education after all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harrison_B Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 What worked for me was learning the techniques from "Teaching the Classics" - I knew what questions to ask and we would discuss the conflicts, plot and themes. Also, for the major literary books (and the books I made my son read and I didn't get a chance to read) I would also use Sparknotes 101 Literature -150 Novels and Plays in One Book. This book was useful in pointing out themes and symbols that I didn't catch. It is a handy reference book to have around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathie in VA Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 . . . . would like to get an idea of just exactly how some of you actually use it if possible.thanks in advance Gloria I just got the WEM from my library to preview. You may want to try that ... it will give you more time to read through it. Thanks for posting this question as I'm also wondering how others actually do this in their homes. :bigear: The WTM suggests a pattern to follow where you read about the author, historical events, mark a timeline and then write a summary, etc. Do you have your kids do this writing prior to reading the actual book or do they just do this reading and move on to the book? Then do you have them do any writing in prep for the discussion? It seems like it would be good to have the kids read directly out of the WEM ... do you do this also? Okay, now for the big question: do you just set aside about 2 hrs/day for this and then just move on or do you lay out a schedule of what they should get done by the end of the day or week? TIA Kathie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 (edited) Preface: We've always done loads of reading aloud together and thrown in comments as we see things. In middle school we became "a little more formal" and did Lightning Literature for a very gentle intro into literary analysis, along with Figuratively Speaking to understand what literary elements are and how they work in a book. We've continued to use lit. programs (Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings last year, Lightning Literature 8 and Windows on the World this year) for more practice and more ideas of how to do literary analysis. By the way, we never feel we have to use ALL of ANY lit. program or lit. guide -- we just skim thru and cover the pertinent teaching info, the handful of interesting questions that start some discussion, and any helpful essay question for a writing assignment. Below is what "doing the Great Books" looks like at our house (starting last year with 8th gr. and 9th gr. boys). It will look different at your house, but hopefully be enjoyable! BEST of luck, and enjoy your literature journey together! Warmly, Lori D. 1. We start with 10-30 minutes of background Before we even open the book, on the first day of the new book we read background info on the author and the work from 1 or more sources. This gives us some general ideas of themes we might be looking for, and things that were important to the author that might show up in subtle or interesting ways in the book. We are lit. detectives, and this is our first set of clues to give us some general guidelines for unwrapping the deeper meanings in the work! :) Below are some of the resources we've used: - Sparknotes free online guide - Cliffs Notes free online guide - Glencoe free online guide - Wikipedia free online encyclopedia -- articles on the author and/or book - Progeny Press guide - The Great Books guide - Garlic Press publishers guide - Portals to Literature lit. guide - The Well Educated Mind - Invitation to the Classics 2. We read aloud/discuss together Once we do start the book, we read aloud together "popcorn" style ("you read a page, I read a page") for about 30 minutes, 4-5 days a week. If any unknown vocabulary pops us as we're reading, we deal with it right then in context (which seems to make it "stick" better than vocabulary worksheets). If we see anything of note, we make a comment at that moment. I initiate an average of 1-2 comments per page (depending on the book); the boys initiate comments less frequently -- an average of 2-3 comments per chapter. I'd guess that only 1-2 of all of those comments initiate some discussion. That increases some the further we get into a book. I'm thinking that next year we'll jot the best of those comments down as key words on post-it notes and stick them on the page as a help for thinking about themes and examples for writing literary analysis essays. But that will come after 2-3 years of having done outloud reading/discussing of literature together as practice. Examples of the types of things we might comment on: - a striking description - a reoccurring item that we suspect to be a symbol - personal/emotional reaction to description, character choice, or plot twist - a simile/metaphor/personification/alliteration, etc. - flashback, frame story or other plot device - the choice of a character -- and possibly predict consequences, or make a comparison - how suspenseful the story is getting (and what the author is doing to make us feel so tense) - predicting where the plot will go - noting a reoccurring (or new) theme - comparing/contrasting what we just read to something earlier in the book or to a different book or to a movie/TV show - noting the worldview (and its implications) behind a character's statements and/or choices - etc. No, we don't read the book 3 times (ala WEM). We sometimes go back and re-read a sentence or a paragraph while we're discussing right after we've done the reading. 3. We use lit. guides to launch us into discussion After reading, we'll discuss for 2 to 20 minutes (varies depending on what we see!). When we finish reading, we skim the lit. guides and use the bits that will help us discuss, and skip comprehension questions or "fill-in-the-blank" workbook-y stuff. We're after tidbits that will help us dig into the work. The guides give us ideas of things to be looking out for (symbols and themes), while the literary analysis programs give us practice in looking for literary elements and make connections. And often, after asking/answering a lit. guide discussion question, we suddenly find it has sparked completely new ideas, themes, examples, comparisons, etc. NOT mentioned by the lit. guide. Yeah! It's also helpful that we talk about the films and TV shows we watch a LOT -- film analysis and literary analysis overlap quite a bit. And for some students, it's easier to start with the very visual medium of film or TV storytelling and then move to the slightly more abstract medium of literature. For example, seeing repeated visual images in a film and then talking about what it could be a symbol of, translates well into seeing what's a symbol in literature. Or, discussing the film techniques used to make a scene suspenseful is similar to the literary techniques that make a scene suspenseful. Films are often all about plot, as are many books, so you can easily trace the rising action, climax and falling action in both. 4. I ask leading questions Our boys are smart, but they're also fairly inexperienced in analysis, so it really helps them if I drop hints/clues, or ask leading questions to start a bit of discussion. Examples: "Did anyone see yet another use of the color red in this chapter? What do you think it meant?" -- or -- "What worldview do you think this character is expressing when he/she said ... ? What is a possible consequence [i.e., what will happen plotwise] of the character holding that view?" Some of these questions come from information or discussion questions in the lit. guides, but some also come from ideas that occur to me from what I note in the book as we're reading. 5. We don't expect heavy discussion or loads of epiphanies every single day We average a good discussion or great "aha" connection moment maybe once a week -- and that usually comes after reading into the book for awhile -- often a third to halfway through the book -- before we start making connections to begin to get to some good conversations. When we first started discussing, the comments were most often comparisons: "That reminded me of the Star Trek episode where..." Or, "That character's choice/situation is like in Star Wars when..." Or, "Hey, this character is being tempted to grab power like in the Lord of the Rings..." Now, as the boys are becoming more practiced at discussing the literature, they're beginnning to actually initiate and point out things that they are seeing in the book. Also, now that we have several years of previous classic literature to build on, we are finding it easier more complex things on our own -- such as symbols and themes and how they are developed in the book. We've also been learning about worldview, so it's getting easier to see and discuss worldviews in the literature, too. Edited April 17, 2009 by Lori D. fixed sentence fragment; added info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 Hopefully Nan in MASS and Janice in NJ will jump in and give you a sample of the wonderful ways in which they do The Great Books! Also, below are a few past threads that may be of a little help in seeing what a day of doing literature ala the WEM might look like. Cheers! Lori D. Does anyone do high school history/lit ala WTM/WEM? http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81682 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight -- need input please http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66792 Tell me I really can do WTM at home for high school http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=720073 I don't think we're cut out for the Great Books http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77066 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momof2boys Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 Lori, Thanks for posting! I found the past posts and read them and re read them. I think I understand now how to go about doing it. Thanks, Gloria Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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