Do those of you using VP history add additional formal literature studies?

[Wendy in ME]

I have purchased the complete homeschool kit so I will have guides to 4 or 5 books built into the teacher's guide. I personally want to only dig deeply into 4 or 5 books a year and just let the boys enjoy reading all other books with just some simple narration to check for understanding and to make sure they read. What are the lit guides included in the curriculum like? Should I plan on buying additional separate guides?

Thanks:)

[cajun.classical]

I have purchased the complete homeschool kit so I will have guides to 4 or 5 books built into the teacher's guide. I personally want to only dig deeply into 4 or 5 books a year and just let the boys enjoy reading all other books with just some simple narration to check for understanding and to make sure they read. What are the lit guides included in the curriculum like? Should I plan on buying additional separate guides?

Thanks:)
Wendy,

It really depends on your goals. Each year I choose 6 works to officially study. All other reading is for fun. Six books is also the recommendation of Veritas. In a 36-week school year, that means a book each 6 weeks. I've found this quite doable even including discussion time. The Veritas Guides vary greatly depending on who wrote them. Their main emphasis is on fact-recall comprehension of the story and practice writing answers in complete sentences. They usually include some activities; most of which I don't do, with the exception of making Turkish Delight for The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. That was fun! Some of the guides (the ones by Emily Fischer and some of the ones by Ned Bustard) do include some very gentle literary analysis: prediction, cause and effect, some basic themes, literary background info. Nothing heavy though.

I taught in a Veritas-inspired school, so I have all these guides. I don't really use them much, however. We read; I point out things that I think are important, they narrate, we discuss using Socratic Diaologue. Sometimes I introduce a few gentle literary elements and occasionally I use something from the guides. Like this week, I'll use a worksheet from The Hobbit guide that lists quotes from the first 8 chapters and the student has to identify who said each quote.

It really depend on your goals, as I said. It won't provide much in the way of literary analysis, but it will provide lots of practice of writing answers in complete sentences and could be of good use if you had your dc reading independently and wanted to be able to easily check for comprehension. We read the books out loud so it's pretty easy for me to check, but I could see if I had more children at more levels (we combine for literature) that I might have a need for something like that. For what it's worth, Veritas Academy reads the books out loud (that's why the selections seem advanced). Sometimes students are assigned a few pages to read alone and then answer the questions. There are lots of different ways to use the guides.

If you have some titles in mind, I could probably tell you what's in them. I don't have all of them, but I have most of them.

I see now that you asked what the guides are like in the History TM. They are strictly comprehension questions. No activities or literary analysis. Veritas teaches lit in a separate class than history, so they just check for comprehension in the history class and formally study literature in the Lit class. Hope that helps some.

[Wendy in ME]

Angelina, thank you for your very detailed description of the guides. My goals are to deeply read a few books (I guess 6 will be a good number) and start some literary analysis gently. We also plan to read aloud and combine literature for 5th and 6th grade dss. I was a science major and am still uncomfortable with literary discussions without a guide to hold my hand. I seem to miss some of the subtle things. I do like some straight comprehension questions for complete answer practice but I want some discussion and literary terms as well. I am not looking for projects. Literature is the final piece I need to figure out for next year. Some of the books I am planning on are The Hobbit, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and King Arthur. I am having trouble deciding which others to do. I was thinking about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe but I'm not sure if I should plan on doing the whole series together at some point. I will feel so good when I figure out this last part. Thank you again for your insight.

[cajun.classical]

Angelina, thank you for your very detailed description of the guides. My goals are to deeply read a few books (I guess 6 will be a good number) and start some literary analysis gently. We also plan to read aloud and combine literature for 5th and 6th grade dss. I was a science major and am still uncomfortable with literary discussions without a guide to hold my hand. I seem to miss some of the subtle things. I do like some straight comprehension questions for complete answer practice but I want some discussion and literary terms as well. I am not looking for projects. Literature is the final piece I need to figure out for next year. Some of the books I am planning on are The Hobbit, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and King Arthur. I am having trouble deciding which others to do. I was thinking about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe but I'm not sure if I should plan on doing the whole series together at some point. I will feel so good when I figure out this last part. Thank you again for your insight.

Wendy,
The guide for The Hobbit is a pretty good one. King Arthur is included in your History guide and is straight comprehension. The guide for Robin Hood is straight comprehension and vocabulary as well, no projects, no literary analysis. The Narnia guide is okay, good comp. questions, some projects, no analysis that I recall. When I taught MARR we did Rolf and the Viking Bow. This is really good and the guide is good as well. It's a tough read and would need to be read aloud, checking carefully that students are following the plot, but I really enjoyed that one. The Mixed up Files... is also a really good guide and an easy read if you wanted to alternate hard and easier books. The Alice in Wonderland guide was very good as well. We really enjoyed that one last year. I stopped trying to line up all my lit selections with history. That way I can cover more classic children's literature. Dangerous Journey would fit your time period and the guide for that one is good. Covers some themes. You might also consider Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. Fits your time period and Logos School has a nice guide for that. We are using that one next. And if you are doing the Hobbit, you could do the whole Lord of the Rings. Veritas has a guide for that although I have not seen it.
My degree is in literature. Can you tell? I could make recommendations all day. Sorry.

[Wendy in ME]

I forgot about Rolf. I was planning on that one too. Dangerous Journey sounds great but is it too short? They read The Mixed Up Files this year. I also forgot about Lambs Tales. I have the book so I will look at the guide you suggested. I am embarrassed to admit that I have never read Lord of the Rings myself. It is on my list of things to do and I would like to study it with the boys but I think I want variety this year. I also don't feel as though I have to link literature to history all of the time though the boys have enjoyed the connection this year. Do apologize for all the suggestions. I really appreciate the help and the time you have taken to respond.

[HappyGrace]

I found it very helpful too! Dd8 will be doing some VP history next yr in co-op. I had a couple of the comp guides (Milly Molly Mandy, etc.) and was not impressed-mainly just fact regurgitation. It's good to know there are some others that are better. Dd is advanced and ready for some gentle lit analysis. I'm looking at DITHOR and Teaching the Classics to help me out with this.

Small question-Can you tell me the difference between historical fiction and literature? I wasn't aware there was a difference until I heard someone talking about it.

[OhElizabeth]

Are you saying you bought the kit for the VP history or the Scholars lessons? First I thought you meant scholars, but now I'm realizing you meant just the history. We never use the guides included in the history sorry; we just read those books. But we DO like the VP lit guides. There are only so many hours in the day, and you're going to find what things meet your goals and what get streamlined out. For us, the lit guides are an easy way to sneak in more writing, and they just happen to be enjoyable. The history guides on the other hand seem to go into a lot of detail and add labor to something that is inherently enjoyable to my dd. In other words, they add work but no value for us. Maybe someone else is just the opposite. Just do what you think best.

I'd encourage you to join the VP_Elementary list and talk with others using it if you haven't already! :)

[OhElizabeth]

HappyGrace, the books with guides in the history program vary. Some are factual books (Landmark, MacCauley book on the Pyramids) while others are HF. As I said in my other post, we skip those and just read the books. And like you, I didn't find a need for the guides in 2nd grade either. In fact, they don't really have a need now, except as a way to up her daily writing in an enjoyable fashion with NO EFFORT on my part. She likes them and they work for us. Yes they're easy, but they're doing what I want. The activities included are fun too. (We just made comfits for Alice In Wonderland, etc.) They don't have any value to us as comprehension, because dd's comprehension is fine. They do have tons of value to us as an additional writing requirement.

[Wendy in ME]

I just ordered the Logos Tales From Shakespear guide. It looks great. I bought Lamb's Tales already but I wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

[cajun.classical]

I just ordered the Logos Tales From Shakespear guide. It looks great. I bought Lamb's Tales already but I wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

Great. You're welcome.

[cajun.classical]

I found it very helpful too! Dd8 will be doing some VP history next yr in co-op. I had a couple of the comp guides (Milly Molly Mandy, etc.) and was not impressed-mainly just fact regurgitation. It's good to know there are some others that are better. Dd is advanced and ready for some gentle lit analysis. I'm looking at DITHOR and Teaching the Classics to help me out with this.

Small question-Can you tell me the difference between historical fiction and literature? I wasn't aware there was a difference until I heard someone talking about it.

Hmm. Well, historical fiction IS literature. Literature consists of many varied genres. Historical fiction is one type of literature. Perhaps the speaker you heard was trying to make a point about quality. Just like anything, historical fiction can be well done or poorly done. Or maybe, they were trying to say that students shouldn't read just historical fiction but literature as well. And by that, they would have meant Classic children's literature. Sorry that I can't be more help without knowing what was actually said.

[HappyGrace]

writing, so the VP guides were serving no purpose-too easy, like you said, and just rote fact output. I have some PP guides for Door in the Wall, Whipping Boy, etc. (we're doing Mid Ages/Ren/Ref this yr) and I simply preread the guides and use what I find there as talking points while we read. This has worked VERY well as an informal lit intro this year. I also use some of the Christian Novel Studies sold by Rainbow Resource, which are inexpensive and quite good for this purpose. I want to get DITHOR and TtC to give myself as the teacher even more of a leg up as to talking points I can use while we read next year. I'll probably use the PP guides again too.

My question to Angelina was asking her to explain the difference between literature and historical fiction, because apparently in "true" classical circles such as VP considers themselves to be, they do make a distinction. One would be remiss in teaching a lit class and using historical fiction therein, was the gist I got from the conversation.

[HappyGrace]

In my last post, I put the gist of the conversation, that it wouldn't be acceptable to teach historical fiction in a "literature" class. It left me wondering what the diff was, since I always thought like you did, that HF was a type of lit! Thanks for taking the time to answer-it's been on my mind for awhile and I didn't know who to ask, and you were the perfect person since you said you're a lit buff and taught at a Veritas-type school! So I feel a little better that I wasn't way off base. I'm guessing too that they meant children's classics, like you said, would be considered lit. Thanks so much!

[OhElizabeth]

Happy-I'm not sure whom you overheard. Obviously it would have more credibility or weight if it were from someone at VP than from a random volunteer mother of a co-op class, kwim? (There's a difference between knowledge and opinion.) My assumption is they're using literature in the sense of classic, long-term value stuff, something that will remain in print from year to year. A lot of HF available these days is, um, not exactly high literature. The Promised Land Diaries would be a prime example of HF that doesn't qualify as literature, lol. But VP SELLS the Promised Land Diaries, because they have value for what they are.

I think it would get old as the hills to only do reading connected to history. I'd diversify and read other genres, etc. You'll see this in the grade level recs of the VP catalog, where they list TONS of books under the history, some that overlap with the lit guides, but then have other genres thrown in for variety. So I guess just saying HF isn't lit is a little vague.

BTW, the other thing we ran into this year is that I realized I only had time to do SO MUCH in a day. For me, the literature study like you're talking about, with more discussion, literary elements, etc., really had to take back burner to my desire to focus on punctuation, editing, etc. So I slighted what you're talking about, knowing I would come back to it in another year or two. You have to chose what is most important to you at the moment.