I am very excited to share today's sneak peek with you!
This is because today's sneak peek deals with an topic that I dearly love and that I spend much time throughout the year preparing!! If you haven't guessed already, today's sneak peek deals with the area of literature... British Literature to be exact. First, before sharing our selections, I wanted to recap our journey toward the literature plan that we've come up for the new U.S. History II guide. I shared much of this journey when we introduced our high school literature plan for the World History Guide and U.S. History I guide, but I will share it again below to set the stage for our literature plan for the new U.S. History II guide.
With our oldest son (who graduated two years ago), we did a variety of things for his high school literature study. We did all of Smarr's Intro. to Lit, did a meshing of Smarr and LLATL Gold for British Lit, did BJU with novels for American Lit., and during his senior year did more of the approach we are taking with our high school guides for literature. While each program definitely had its merits, our son far and away enjoyed his final year of literature the most!
The question then becomes, "Why is this true?" From my perspective, it is true because for his senior year my son was able to read and enjoy the book without as much forced interpretation (from me)! He was able to linger with a book a bit more, allowing himself to take time to think on those parts of the book that struck him. This is because he had the responsibility for making the connections, instead of waiting for the quiz show question approach coming right after his reading to tell him what to notice. The question, question, question approach often tells the child that he/she only needs to pay attention to the answers to the questions; rather than forcing the student to really think for himself/herself.
We had our older son do both Common Place Book entries and annotate as he read and both went well! The Common Place Book entries kept him looking for quotable lines as he read. It also made sure that he didn't miss beautiful descriptive passages, significant quotes, or subtle nuances that may otherwise be glossed over in a rush to get done reading. In essence, it allowed him to stop and take note (because that was the goal of the assignment). The annotating was a personal way that connected our son with the reading, and it helped him note what stood out to him. Both of these exercises placed emphasis on the reading, rather than the follow-up. That is as it should be!
We've also discovered that a brief introduction of something to watch for or note in the day's reading was helpful. That set the stage a bit for the reader, focusing him/her on the story keeping the student from just jumping in and reading without thinking. This combined with Common Place Book entries and annotating made the reading purposeful.
We will be providing these brief introductions as appropriate for the student.We've also found that some guidance in reflection after reading was good, but it was better if the guidance really directed the child to reflect (rather than guiding the child to answer a question that required one right answer). Since reflection is often personal, journaling the response was a great way to reflect upon the day's reading.
We'll be guiding the reflection within our plans.Last, we met with our son after the book ended and discussed the story elements, but more importantly we discussed the book's theme and how that theme compared to what God tells us in His Word. We left these discussions pretty open to our oldest son and found that with his maturity (being a senior) this worked well.
This type of discussion works best after the book is all done, as it allows for fully developed themes and plots to have revealed themselves and allows opportunity for more sifting and sorting through the entirety of the story to find the meaning. As you can see, the plan above focuses on the book first and the analysis last. It doesn't interrupt the book with constant questioning or with continual essay-writing projects. It still gives you as the teacher a system of checks and balances, and makes it harder for the student to zone out of the reading by just finding the answers.
After the year of testing this type of literature program with our oldest son, and now with our second oldest son through the U.S. History I guide's literature, we are thrilled with the results. We pray you will be too as you embark on this study of literature along with us in the U.S. History II guide. If you think about it, this type of literature program would be very difficult to circumvent through the use of Cliff Notes or Spark Notes (which are so often used in placed of actually reading the literary work). The continual reflection, annotation, and Common Place Book entries would not be easy to do unless you really read the book. Both oral narrations and written narrations would also be tough to pull off without reading the book. The discussion at the end of the book would be hard to participate in very much, if you hadn't really read the whole work either, as much of it will be interpretation. So, through this type of program, the child is being encouraged to pay attention, read purposefully, linger, select, reflect, draw conclusions, infer, synthesize, evaluate, and interpret.
In the end, the final reason we chose to do literature this way, was because as we looked at all the literature programs available and contemplated their use, we discovered many barriers. Often the program drew the reading of the book out too long, or (on the other hand) read the books much too quickly. Other programs asked way too many questions, or required a huge amount of essay-writing and written work (de-emphasizing the reading to the point of the writing taking over). Some programs didn't use full-length literature, or emphasized way too much poetry or contained purely excerpts and short stories. Still other programs were very focused on vocabulary exercises and one-right answer questions, leaving the students with little to reflect upon. Selecting a pre-made literature program also required me to use books that I would not really choose to use with my own children, and this did not sit well with me either!
I finally realized that to do any other literature program meant that the program would drive the book choices. Instead, we wanted the book choices to drive the program. This meant that in true Charlotte Mason style, the booklist should come first and be of the utmost important. So, this is how we arrived at the plan we have now.
While it is important that students gain practice in reading more difficult literature, it is a worthy goal for students to still being able to enjoy the experience as much as possible. High school level literature can often contain many adult themes that may leave a student feeling hopeless, depressed, and/or searching for meaning. So, in our book selections, we realized it is important to temper that without totally running from it. This means that we need to allow students to grapple with more difficult, adult themes without allowing the themes to become so heavy that they overtake the story until the child is weighted down in the reading. With this in mind, some books (in my opinion) are just better read as a mature adult.
For the literature portion of the new U.S. History II guide we are using a combination of novels, plays, poetry, short stories, and allegory that often fall under the literature category. Since this particular guide will focus on British literature, it is important that students be exposed to a variety of British authors. Selections for British Literature (in the new U.S. History II guide): - marching forward in loose chronological order are as follows:
The War for Mansoul: A John Bunyan Classic told by Ethel Barrett (an allegory)
Hamlet by Shakespeare (with study guide and audio) (a play)
The Hawk and the Dove by Penelope Wilcock (vignettes)
Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot (a play)
The Devotional Poetry of Donne, Herbert, and Milton (with study guide)
The Moonfleet byJohn Meade Falkner
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (with option of DVD)
The Elusive Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (with corresponding DVD)
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
A huge amount of time, prayer, and effort has gone into our book selections for literature. Each selection has a definite role to play and themes that are relevant today.
I realize that we are using two selections that were previously a part of other guides (Pride and Prejudice and A Christmas Carol). We will be replacing these selections in the other guides so that we are able to use these two titles here where they fit very well for British literature instead. Blessings,
Carrie