Literature

[momof2]

Hello,

I was just wondering how you tackle literature in the higher grades. (jr high and high school) I was thinking that just reading the books out loud, or let the student read the book himself is not enough. Do you read the books yourself and discuss them with your kids? Or do you use a program?
Anyone used Lightning Literature before? Or heard/read reviews about the program?

Thanks!
Karine

[Susie]

funny you should ask... I've just ordered a couple of things from Rainbow resource center. I want them to be reading more great books, but they don't want me reading aloud all the time (we do it a couple of times a week though - David Copperfield), and I don't want the books dissected rather just appreciated. so I'll let you know when they arrive: Teaching with 50 Great Short Stories and 150 Great Books.

[Emily in IL]

we've used Lightning Lit 8 in the Jr High level, ds read and we did the excercises and essay work, we're using Stobaugh's Reading Companion to 50 classics currently over 2 years for Literature - ds son is probably a community college/trade bound; we discuss comprehension questions, vocabulary and have a project or essay to do for each book, it's made me read something other than job related material and been a good overview for us both. Most of the literature we read over a 2 week period per selection and write the next week, while beginning a new book. www.forsuchatimeasthis.com for Stobaugh's Literature programs

[tinyfeet]

i haven't gotten to that stage just yet. my kids have just started. but i help out a friend who has high school kids. with some of that. book reports might just be a good idea. give them a chance and practice to doing them for when they go to college. some other kind of reports.

but if you're looking into some good books to read. i suggest all of the sonlight literature books from there hs cores. i know to many adults former homeschooler friends who say they wish they read more of those classics and those books when they were in school. cause now in college they have to do reports or such on them and they never read them.

[Jimmie]

Originally Posted by momof2

Hello,

I was just wondering how you tackle literature in the higher grades. (jr high and high school) I was thinking that just reading the books out loud, or let the student read the book himself is not enough. Do you read the books yourself and discuss them with your kids? Or do you use a program?
Anyone used Lightning Literature before? Or heard/read reviews about the program?

Thanks!
Karine

Karine,
We're not quite there yet in homeschoool, but I did teach high school and middle school. One thing you want to start doing WITH the books is analyzing them. Vocabulary and comprehension tasks are things you are probably doing all along. That will continue, of course. But in higher grades, you want to introduce the elements of fiction (plot, setting, character, theme, conflict). And you want your child to be able to WRITE about those things, using the text itself as support (rather than his/her own opinions).

So look for some writing about literature materials and elements of fiction resources.

Here are some links to get you started:
http://www.readwritethink.org/materi...ents/overview/
http://www.enotes.com/documents/char...is-chart-35205
http://www.hslaunch.com/mypage/userf...6267519897.pdf
http://harmonyartmom.blogspot.com/20...reminders.html

And here are my elements of fiction bookmarks. These are geared toward intermediate learners since that's where we are now.

[tkbbmomof4]

We've used some Reading programs and SL/WP readers along the way, but this year for 8th I decided to get more serious in preparing dd. So, we selected Lightning Lit 7 (we chose to go down a grade bec we hadn't read the books in the selection and bec we knew we would be supplementing the lit). We are also using the following resources: Literary Genres; Figurative Lang and other Literary Devices; and Forms and Elements of Lit.

DD is really enjoying the LL program and wants to con't with it next year. So for 9th she will use LL 8 along w/ CLE 9th grade Lit which has great reviews. Then for 10th we'll move into the LL high school courses. Our accountability group really likes BJU's lit program, but I don't want a course that's built solely on anthologies rather than full works. In addition to the works that we use for Lit we still con't to read WP, SL and other books that consider classics or what I read in school just for knowledge and discussion - not analysis.

I have a few college texts that my oldest has used for his lit courses and plan to pull some ideas from those as well. I don't think that it's enough at the high school level to just read and discuss but that my dd needs to be able to look critically at and analyze the literature and be able to express her opinions in writing using the lit to showcase examples.

[momof2]

Thanks so much everybody. That was very helpful!

Karine

[urbanbutterfly]

I am searching for resources for analyzing and writing about literature as well, so this was a really helpful thread for me. Thanks! Here is another link I found helpful. It walks the student through a series of questions about the literature. http://www.ferrum.edu/thanlon/StudyQ/Litguide.htm

I'm also going to start using Teaching the Classics soon.

Thanks again!

[BevG]

I have this book on my Amazon Wish List. I thought it sounded interesting. I can't remember if I read a review of it or not.

Skills for Literary Analysis: Encouraging Thoughtful Christians To Be World Changers

My oldest son took a Advance Placement Lit Comp class in public high school that about "undid" him. He has always been an A student, but was making D's and C's on the writing assignments. Some how, he pulled out a B for the course. I think it prepared him for just about anything they might throw at him in college. I would love to have something similar for my "home" boy. He is just a 7th grader now.

[laurelmarie]

For Highschool, I used Learning Language Arts Through Literature (LLATL) the British Literature one. It was not overwhelming but covered the things needed to be discussed about literature. For my next go around with High School I am going to use the American Lit and the British Lit ones. We did read more books then they discussed though because I wanted my son to read certain books from each category that LLATL did not include, basically the SL reading list for these subjects. We did not discuss the extra books, I just had him read them.