2 Q on Lit bks: share or one each? version?

[Kathie in VA]

Okay I just looked thru our home library and found 7 bks from the WTM rhetoric list, although some have different authors/trans. Plus I also fround parts of two listings in anthologies that we had in the library. Pretty cool. However I'm planning on doing lit with my rising 9th grader dd and rising 8th grade ds. (I haven't read any of these yet.) So should I just plan to use these or purchase more copies? If more copies should all three of us have a copy? Oh, and if I get additional copies, how important is it to get the same trans?

Here's what I found... do I have any trans that we should avoid? :confused:
Bible (we have a few versions here)
Homer, Iliad - some of it in an Anthology
Homer, Odyssey - (Robert Fitzgerald)
Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays (Fagle)
Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Fagles)
Herodotus, The Histories (some of it from an anthology)
Euripides, Medea (Philip Vellacott)
Aristophanes, The Birds (in the anthology)
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War (some of it from an anthology)
Plato, The Republic (same as suggested in WTM!)
Virgil, Aeneid (C.D. Lewis)

TIA!!
:bigear:

[Lori D.]

We've done our high school Great Books studies for 2 years now (gr. 8/9 = ancients; gr. 9/10 = a mix, with emphasis on 20th century). We read aloud/discuss together, so we only needed 1 book for all of us.

So, just my opinion, but unless you're planning on a lot annotation -- or each of the 3 of you will be solo reading at separate times and think you'll spend a lot of time fighting over the book -- I'd say you'll only need 1 copy of each work. Esp. as the ancients are pretty heavy, and also because you're just starting out doing the Great Books, you may want to do quite a bit together -- which again, would suggest needing only 1 copy of each work. I'd suggest later on, slowly, over the course of the high school years, you can move more toward independent work, and thus multiple copies of the literature.


You've got a hefty list there, but doing a lot of it out of your anthology will help keep it manageable. The only objectionable/mature content thing I can think of is in the Oedipus plays ("kill your father, sleep with your mother" prophecy/theme). We did 2 of the 3 plays (Oedipus the King and Antigone) -- Fitzgerald translations -- with 8th/9th grade DSs, and it was fine as far as the tactfulness of handling of mature content. I think the boys were more struck by Oedipus gouging out his own eyes (done off-stage, and hence, off-page) when he realizes he has inadvertently fulfilled the prophecy. Medea would be the only other work I'd be concerned about -- but that's because I haven't read the work itself, just read *about* it.

Enjoy your Great Books journey! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[Kathie in VA]

Thanks Lori, for the great advice. The list is long only because I pulled all the books off our home shelves that came close to what was on the WTM lists. I think we'll strive for about 8 plus some lit readings that go along with CW Diogenes and then some bible and fun based books like Screwtape Letters, Best Things in Life are Free, Ten P's in a Pod, etc. I will try to remember SWB's advice to drop a book if it is reallllllly too much and instead just move to the next one.

How did you do the plays? Did you just read them aloud also? I thought it might be clearer if we took parts to read... so either I'd get extra copies of those, or perhaps we could just pass the book (or sit real close ;) ).

Oh and our public library has The Teaching Company's TGC: Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition, 2nd ed (vol 1-7). I was thinking of maybe viewing some of these lectures after we tried our own prep, reading and discussions following methods in the WTM, WEM, and the Teaching the Classics CDs I've viewed. ... or would it be better to view them first??

tia

[Laurie4b]

It depends on how you structure things. Will you and your students be able to shift one book around between you and still stay on schedule? That can be hard.

When you do the discussions, it is really nice to be able to refer to a page number when you're discussing something that some in the group may not quite remember. I've been in co-op discussion groups where it was quite a pain to get everyone at the same place in the text (with just a small number of kids, but with different translations--still the financial benefit was worth it to most in the group.)

[Lori D.]

The list is long only because I pulled all the books off our home shelves that came close to what was on the WTM lists. I think we'll strive for about 8 plus some lit readings that go along with CW Diogenes and then some bible and fun based books like Screwtape Letters, Best Things in Life are Free, Ten P's in a Pod, etc. I will try to remember SWB's advice to drop a book if it is reallllllly too much and instead just move to the next one.

Sounds like you've got a great plan! Enjoy your ancients! :)




The Teaching Company's TGC: Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition, 2nd ed (vol 1-7). I was thinking of maybe viewing some of these lectures after we tried our own prep, reading and discussions following methods in the WTM, WEM, and the Teaching the Classics CDs I've viewed. ... or would it be better to view them first??

Lazy me... I would just watch them with the kids. :tongue_smilie:



How did you do the plays? Did you just read them aloud also? I thought it might be clearer if we took parts to read... so either I'd get extra copies of those, or perhaps we could just pass the book (or sit real close ;) ).


Either I just read them aloud, or we'd pass the book. Doing parts does make it come alive! :)