Shannon,
Your post touched a chord with me, so I apologize for the length of my response.
Hopefully, there will be some things that will be of use to you as you ponder. A couple of things that stood out to me in your post that you may want to consider as you ponder how to go forward. First of all, I agree that it would be wise to have your son in Rev2Rev read his own storytime books. While he likely does prefer nonfiction, as many boys do, it is also likely that he would prefer to move through his school day quickly with as little extra time added as possible. By the time my boys were 13, they preferred to read to themselves. Reading the book to oneself aids in comprehension, builds vocabulary, and goes much more quickly. So that would be my first piece of advice for you to try.
Your son could also consider stretching the story time books out over 5 days each week instead of 4 days, spilling over onto his free fifth day to finish the week's readings if desired.
Secondly, you mentioned that CM advocated shorter readings, which she did at the younger levels. However, as students matured, she assigned much longer readings and expected students to hold that information in their mind from a single reading. As we near the high school years, it is important that students move toward being able to read and process longer readings. So, Rev2Rev is a step in that direction. If your student is college-bound the preparation that will be needed to handle the level and volume of reading required to complete college coursework is something we are stair-stepping our way up to doing through the HOD guides. So, longer readings were definitely a part of a CM-education, and they are a part of the increasing volume in HOD.
Thirdly, as it sounds like you are just beginning Rev2Rev, I think it is important to remember that there is always an adjustment period when beginning a new guide. Rev2Rev is definitely a step up in all ways from RTR, so there may just be some frustration in the upped level of expectations coming from your son right now. Perhaps it would be helpful to split one day of plans into two days for awhile, doing half-speed for a few weeks as your son enters this new guide. That may make the workload a bit easier to handle for awhile until he hits his groove.
Next, I can also see that your son would enjoy documentaries and youtube video and those are something you could definitely add if desired. My own boys enjoy this type of learning as well. However, if you end up dropping all sorts of things within the HOD guide to add youtube videos and documentaries, you will quickly find you are losing many of the skills by dropping things in the guide. So, I would stay away from skipping too much or you will quickly lose the flow of the guide. Adding videos on the free fifth day each week or in the evenings may be a good way to fulfill this need in your son.
Fourthly, I will say that it is often feels more challenging to the child to complete a literature-based education than it feels to complete a more traditional text-based approach. The reasons for this are because assignments in a literature-based education feel less predictable, have less of a pattern to follow to get the answer, and often are more open-ended allowing more than one "right" way to respond. The assignments also aren't easy for students to skim and "find" the answer, because the student is often having to share what he/she learned in a more open-ended fashion. For some students this can be overwhelming at first especially as they move into longer readings with more material, because they may never feel sure if they have done it "right." However, as students become more used to using this method of learning and more used to the upped level of readings, they do find there is a structure to their learning even if it is more open-ended. As students become more aware of this structure, they become more comfortable with this type of learning.
Fifthly for some students, and especially boys, a literature-based education can sometimes seem like it draws out their school day (and they would prefer to just move quickly through their day to get-it-done). With boys, the desire to move through their day and get it done is huge!!
They prefer to have free time over school any day. This can be difficult for moms with sons to accept! I know, because it was for me! However, it is imperative that you do not expect your sons to "love" their school like your daughters often will. The difference between boys and girls is accentuated in school, and if you happen to have daughters the contrast between your sons' and daughters' attitudes toward school will often be stark. I always keep this in mind with my boys, knowing that they do not want me to add extra things to their school day, do not want me to go on bunny trails, and do want to work as efficiently as possible to get done on time. This is why they do want to read their own books (as it is quicker). This is also why (as they get older) they do want a quiet space to work with as few interruptions as possible. They do want me to move through checking things very quickly, and they do not like to be called away from their school to do a wide variety of household chores or tasks or other things that I may randomly call them to do. Although, they will do the tasks I assign without complaint!
They also don't want to hear my ramblings about various topics if it lengthens their day, although they will listen politely, and they are often watching the time slip away with consternation if I deviate far from the plans.
I share to this to show that with boys if you can keep in mind that task completion is often a huge goal, and you can help your boys toward that goal with few interruptions, more efficient conversations and correcting, few to no bunny trails, and a "How can I help you move through this more quickly?" attitude, your boys will enjoy their days much more!
Also, my own boys sincerely appreciated me asking them if they would like to do an hour of school the night before to get ahead for the next day (and then have the option of sleeping in an hour later the next morning) or whether they would rather get up earlier to work in the morning and have their nights off. Buy-in to the schedule is huge at our house too!
Sixthly, I will share that puberty definitely impacts how a school day goes. Sixth-eighth grade were the years that we noticed our boys desiring to have more say in how their day was structured. It was also a time when lengthening their school day with redoing too many assignments or with too many expectations of work done perfectly brought on negative bursts of energy. So, keeping that in mind is necessary as you look at how to best help your boys get through their day efficiently. Grace is needed during those years of school as young men are definitely wanting to start moving toward more independence and less being tied to mama's apron's strings for their school needs. However, they also want to feel that you are there to partner with them to help rather than to constantly judge. So, it can be a difficult balance. During those years, I try to sense frustration and remain available to jump in and help my boys get things done when they begin to lag behind.
Lastly, as we have traveled all the way through graduation with our two oldest sons, I will share that while at times it might seem tempting to use a more strictly fact-based approach to learning, the benefits of a literature-based education in the long-run for us was worth the extra effort! As part of this type of education, our boys learned to process and hold in their minds a variety of readings for purposes other than completing a chapter review or studying for a test. If you think back to the things that you remember the most, it often will not be learning that was done for a test or to pass a class but instead was something you took away from a reading that resonated with you.
As students sift and sort through information in living books to discover what is important, they weigh and discard ideas, construct a framework of what they read, and discover what is personally important to them and file that away. This process of sifting and sorting for personal use is something that is often lost in a straight textbook type education but it is the process that is important as it makes things memorable!
A literature-rich education stretches a student in many positive ways. It makes them readily able to read, appreciate, and take away something from almost any kind of reading material. This is because they have learned to appreciate a wide variety of authors with a wide variety of styles, and consequently they often find delight in a wide variety of reading materials.
My older boys choose to read everything from classic literature to magazine articles to theology books to light reading just for fun. When my little guys move on to a new year of HOD, my older boys jump right in with a desire to reread their favorite books from long ago just one more time. While my four sons are all very different from one another and all have very different strengths and weaknesses, the more years we travel down this literature-rich path the more convinced I become of its merit. If you ask yourself whether you would ever lovingly choose to re-read your middle school textbooks, you will know why a literature-based education is different.
A literature-based education also makes students readily able to respond in a wide variety of formats to what they've read. This is because they have been exposed to so many good writers over time that good writing eventually pours out of their own pens. To begin with the students mimic other writers, but eventually they develop their own style. While this process can take years, it is a process worth seeing come to fruition! My oldest son as a preschooler used to cry if he had to write more than one 'A,' in middle school always wanted to orally tell me the answer rather than write it down, and only in his last years of high school actually turned into a writer. In college, this same son is majoring in history with emphasis in literature and leadership and loves courses now that require a lot of written output.
My next son who just graduated is planning to major in graphic design/digital media/web design and has always loved to write. He used to copy a poem a day for fun when he was only 5. My third son, who is 14 is truly allergic to all things related to a pencil. Yet, he is growing and gaining too as he journeys through the guides. As he is on the verge of high school, I am taking deep breaths and trusting the process because I have already seen him make great gains.
By the time a student graduates high school, the seeds that have been sown through years of an HOD literature-based education come to fruition. For me, with each of my older two sons, the senior year of high school was a time of pure joy in this capacity. Meeting with the boys during their senior year, as they shared their thoughts, reflections, and narrations was just plain fun! During the senior year of each of our oldest boys, my husband and I got an opportunity to see how much each son had grown. As they animatedly shared with us, we got a chance to see the books that spoke to their hearts the most. Honestly, by their final year of high school our boys were able to move through their work much more quickly and concisely and had become able to do almost anything that the guide asked of them. This made their senior year an easy one compared to previous years! Lest you think that it is only my own "brilliant" students of whom this is true, I will share that it is also true of so many of the families that we have talked to who are graduating their students through HOD this year. Their students have grown and changed so much! It is simply a product of years of a literature-based education.
So, in closing, I would encourage you to persevere with a literature-based education. While students will have special strengths of their own (and areas of weakness too), their experience will be richer for the books they have read and they ways they have been asked to respond.
Their education will also be deeper for the variety of authors they have pondered. When in doubt, compare your education with the one that your students are receiving, and you will often see a marked difference. While not easy, a literature-based education is worth pursuing. I hope this encourages you as you journey. We only get this one chance to educate our kiddos!
Blessings,
Carrie
!