Skills for Literary Analysis by Stobaugh

[Guest CarolinaMom]

I have been looking into Skills for Literary Analysis by James Stobaugh for a 10th grader who is an average writer and somewhat struggles with writing. We have not homeschooled with the classical approach. This program says it is geared toward Jr high and early high schoolers. After looking at samples online, I thought it would be a challenge for my 10th grader.

I really really liked the format of analyzing literature with writing. I like the depth of what is taught. Most guides and programs I've used in the past have not had the literary analysis like this does....Or they have had the literary analysis, but not the writing. I like the combination. I would like to know if anyone is familiar with this and if you could modify it a bit and not do all of the writing, or all the reading. Has anyone successfully used this and done all the reading and all the writing?

Thank you

[amtmcm]

:lurk5:

[Chris in VA]

I tried but ended up doing Omnibus instead. I just didn't feel secure enough at that point, and I wanted to have ds read other things. (I have it for sale but haven't listed it yet.)

[Harrison_B]

My girlfriend uses the Stobaugh's curriculum and she loves it. Her son is taking lessons from him online. We've tried it a few years back, and my son didn't enjoy the format. I'm going to be selling in at our local curriculum sale this year. We keep going back to the techniques taught in the "Teaching the Classics" from IEW. Also, look into Excellence in Literature - I was impressed with their samples online.

[Julie in CA]

. Also, look into Excellence in Literature - I was impressed with their samples online.

I've had my eye on Excellence in Literature, but can't get past the fact that there doesn't appear to be any teacher guidance. While I'd like to be able to follow along with what each of my 5 dc are doing, I just can't keep up with the reading involved with doing that. Excellence in Literature would be close to perfect, imo, if it had "hints" to help me with discussing the books with my student (similar to Omnibus).

[asta]

I've had my eye on Excellence in Literature, but can't get past the fact that there doesn't appear to be any teacher guidance. While I'd like to be able to follow along with what each of my 5 dc are doing, I just can't keep up with the reading involved with doing that. Excellence in Literature would be close to perfect, imo, if it had "hints" to help me with discussing the books with my student (similar to Omnibus).

 

I saw this on their website:

What's in EIL?

 

Here's a sample table of contents from the first level. The book is designed to be used directly by the student, with very little help from the parent or writing mentor, so the first part of the book explains how to use it, and each unit is laid out with complete resource links and week-by-week assignment instructions. The Formats and Models chapter contains complete instructions and samples for the approach papers and essays the student will write, and the evaluation rubric will help the student and the evaluator determine the strengths and weaknesses of each piece of writing.

 

I don't know if that helps.

 

 

asta

[Michelle in AL]

I ordered Excellence in Lit~British Lit on Monday. It may come today. If anyone has any questions I can look through it when it gets here for you and hopefully answer some.

 

Sorry, to hijack the original post as the subject seems to have changed. I do have an OLD Stobaugh Literary Analysis and didn't find it useful at all. I've heard the new version is much improved.

[Julie in CA]

I saw this on their website:

 

 

I don't know if that helps.

 

 

asta

Yes, I read that too. Independent work is what I'm aiming for, and an evaluation rubric is wonderful, but some of the questions in the sample unit were very thought provoking. If I'm not able to read the book, I won't even know if my student has come close to plumbing the depths of the question, kwim? I want to know if my child is giving me a pat answer, or if there are other aspects or details they should be considering in order to find greater meaning. I've read most or all of the literature covered, but that was at least 25 years ago {yikes!}. I could look up Cliff's Notes or something like that for each novel, but would have preferred more guidance regarding possible answers for the questions/essay topics. Either way, I just found a copy of Excellence in Literature on homeschoolclassifieds.com, so I'm going to take the plunge and check it out more deeply.

 

The second volume, which I gather includes more composition instruction, is due out this summer.

[Julie in CA]

I ordered Excellence in Lit~British Lit on Monday. It may come today. If anyone has any questions I can look through it when it gets here for you and hopefully answer some.

 

Sorry, to hijack the original post as the subject seems to have changed. I do have an OLD Stobaugh Literary Analysis and didn't find it useful at all. I've heard the new version is much improved.

I also have an OLD Stobaugh Literary Analysis, and though I liked the content, there were format problems and typos in such abundance that the curriculum was unusable, imo. Perhaps it's been improved in newer editions, but I've never checked.

[April in WA]

Julie,

 

Would you please come back after reviewing the EIL book and give us your comments. I have looked at this program also, but had the same concerns you've expressed. Fortunately, I have at least a year to make a decision. I would love to hear what you think.

 

Thanks,

April in WA

[Harrison_B]

I ordered EIL last week (Intro to Literature). I'm waiting for it to arrive. One thing that helped me with literature analysis was "Teaching the Classics" workbook. In the back of the book, Adam Andrews lists many questions you can ask concerning any book. I'm finding these questions helpful, even if I don't know anything about the book. My son and I had a wonderful discussion on "1984" and I must admit I haven't read the book since my high school days. I was able to draw out pertinent information by using those basic workbook questions. If you can find a use copy of the workbook (w/o buying the entire program), it might help you out with your literature analysis (IMHO). I'll post once I receive EIL and my initial thoughts about it.

[Guest CarolinaMom]

What were the format problems you found in James Stobaugh's book?

I looked up and found IEW's Windows to the World, Teaching the Classics, and Excellence in Literature. I am not familiar with IEW books. Can you jump right in to the H.S level books without using previous levels? Do they have the lit selections right in the book? Do you read any novels? Is there writing related to the reading?

What I'm looking for is something that includes reading literature and writing about it, including all the literary elements like plot, theme, irony, etc.. I looked into Smarr Literature, but it didn't look like they did much literary analysis.(?)

It would be great to have it all under one cover. That's what interested me in Stobaugh's Literary Analysis book.

I am open to other suggestions for literary analysis / writing for high school, not only Stobaugh's book, so please continue.

But if there are any Stobaugh users out there, I'd welcome the comments.

Thanks

[hollyhillhomeschool]

I have used the IEW Teaching the Classics along with Stobaugh's Literary Analysis. The IEW is good, teaching the basic key literary elements up front and then covering each one of those in more detail following. It starts by teaching the element and then having the students read an easy sample (usually a child's story) to grasp the concept....and then moves to more difficult pieces of literature to survey. The structure is based on the literary elements, and the readings are to exemplify one particular element that is covered in that specific lesson. The readings move into higher high school classics. It is not a comprehensive literature reading list, nor a comprehensive literature analysis curriculum. However, it does offer framework by which one can analyze any piece of literature.

 

As far as being the homeschool mom, I struggle with the same issues noted above. Some TOG'ers I have interviewed rave about the lit analysis part of TOG. I do agree that the questions in TOG lit analysis are very good ( and extremely, extremely helpful.) However, I think with any book, it is a completely better experience to discuss it with the student after having had the teacher herself/himself read the book.

 

My analogy for this is a bit like getting a Mapquest set of directions to find out how to go somewhere vs. looking at the whole map of a state, conceptually understanding how everything fits together, and then looking up the specific directions. Unless you have the macro picture and familiarity with the geography and context, you are simply driving blindly, step one to step two and so forth. IMO, this cannot be as rich of a literature analysis discussion.

 

Do I personally read every book I require my kids to read? No. And it pains me! I guess I need a chill pill! But I have cut back on the number of books we read, so that there is more chance that I can read them too.... I am concluding that more is not better....that quality of analysis and depth of study to some degree is better. Particularly if training up a mind, building analytical skills, and motivating the reader are all more closely aligned to our educational objectives than a long list of completed reads.....

 

Stobaugh's does not give an overall framework upfront. The IEW (for a visual or framework-type of mind) is more useful for rubric purposes to analyze literature. Stobaugh's chapters are somewhat helpful--some more than others. The Stobaugh summaries in the worldview chapter are good, but somewhat confusing (he mixes a bunch of them together and does not lay out this content particularly clearly.) He has some sample lit that exemplifies the particular element that lesson covers, but oftentimes supplements with his own little essay. I haven't been particularly impressed with several of his essays thus far. And the sample literary analysis essays (from his daughter) in the text were unhelpful models for the kids I was teaching.

 

We also had the additional problem of matching the literature reading list with our TOG/WTM curriculum. I really wanted to stay with chronological literature, to match our history time-period. Perhaps I will have to give this up sometime in the future.

 

Overall, I would give Stobaugh's curriculum in terms of conceptual value-added, an A. Actual execution, a C. User-friendliness, a C-.

 

I fell in love with the Stobaugh stuff at a homeschool conference, bought it on the spot, and was excited to use it. Somehow, actually using it has been a tougher challenge. I still use the book (I don't have a better option) but it is not as turnkey as one would initially think.

 

Sorry for the mixed review :(

Edited May 1, 2009 by hollyhillhomeschool

[asta]

I have used the IEW Teaching the Classics along with Stobaugh's Literary Analysis.

 

[...]

 

We also had the additional problem of matching the literature reading list with our TOG/WTM curriculum. I really wanted to stay with chronological literature, to match our history time-period. Perhaps I will have to give this up sometime in the future.

 

[...]

 

Sorry for the mixed review :(

 

DS is using IEW (TWSS) along with Trisms, and I am running into the same thing you did with TOG: not enough analysis. I've looked at Teaching the Classics (again and again), but I can't seem to jump on it precisely because it doesn't follow literature chronologically. I know that I could eventually use the tools, but we don't really have time to take a class that doesn't mesh with the rest of our curriculum (high school is a bear like that).

 

As I am getting things together for next year, I suspect I am going to end up choosing books, and then finding analysis lessons specifically for them (exactly what I didn't want to do).

 

Sigh.

 

Thank you so much for that review - it was very helpful.

 

 

asta