LLATL for high school?

[staceyneil]

I am starting to put together materials for Language Arts classes for my dd, grades 8-11. At 11 years old she's a VORACIOUS reader, reads well ahead of her peers, great vocabulary, likes to write stories and poetry on her own time.

So far I have:
Vocabulary from Classical Roots B-E
Glencoe "Writer's Choice" textbooks
TWEM (from which I guess I will pick and choose books to study?)
McGraw-Hill guide to Writing for College and Life

What do you guys think of LLATL Gold for this child? I know nothing about it excpent what the web site says. Will it be too easy? Would it count as a whole American Lit class or would I want to supplement with TWEM books?

Do you have any other recommendations of materials? (We'll be on a boat so space/weight are a MAJOR concern. Also won't have constant internet access.)

Thank you!!!!!
Stacey

[Kareni]

Lightning Literature from Hewitt. The highschool programs are one binder per semester plus four paperbacks. (I think that LLATL might add up to more poundage!)

See this link for more information on Lightning Lit.:

http://www.hewitthomeschooling.com/book/blight.asp

Regards,
Kareni

[staceyneil]

The Hewitt looks really interesting. I like that it has the Latin American and African Lit components, since we'll be travelling there and I want to read some by local writers.

Do you know if there is a religious slant to the lessons at all? I noticed that their Biology course uses "Exploring Creation with Biology".... and we are trying to only use secular materials.

Thanks!

[Laurel-in-CA]

We have World Lit 1 from Hewitt. It has an appendix in the back discussing worldviews, which includes a few comments on various religious points of view, including shame-based vs. grace-based cultures. This is quite relevant as there are a couple of asian books where the ideas of shame are very powerfully portrayed. Yes, Hewitt is a christian company, but I think that LL is consciously written to be a non-religious teaching tool.

[CLHCO]

I LOVE Lightning Literature. My one pause with Notgrass for history is because I don't want it to take away from this curriculum and I don't know if I can justify the cost of both.

It is a Christian company but it is one of those I think will serve for most as a program that can be used secularly as well. However, I've not used the high school program. I do know that the junior high program we're using has not directly referenced Christianity that I've seen so far. The worldview is there (absolute right and wrong, etc.) but no preaching, if that makes sense.

LLATL has a reputation for not being very rigerous, but I don't know about the high school level.

[staceyneil]

Ah.... "not very rigorous" is no good. DD is quite bright (high honors in PS and grade-ahead in math and English) so we definitely want a thorough program. It does not have to be super super in-depth like I am guessing TWTM is, but certainly challenging and thorough enough to help prepare for SAT II subject tests in history and literature, and maybe AP exams later......
Anyone else want to chime in on Lightning Lit for this application?

Thank you all!! What a great forum this is!
Stacey

[Kareni]

Hello Stacey,

As others have answered Hewitt is a Christian company. However, most of the Lightning Literature courses are written from a secular perspective. There are a few that do have a Christian perspective.

Regards,
Kareni

[Deece in MN]

We have World Lit 1 from Hewitt. It has an appendix in the back discussing worldviews, which includes a few comments on various religious points of view, including shame-based vs. grace-based cultures. This is quite relevant as there are a couple of asian books where the ideas of shame are very powerfully portrayed. Yes, Hewitt is a christian company, but I think that LL is consciously written to be a non-religious teaching tool.

I have a question that is a little off the topic of this thread. You mentioned using the World Lit 1. I was wondering what age/grade you used this for? I am considering it for my ds who will be in 9th grade. We were going to do Am. History for 9th, but we may hold off on that while we work through a non-western cultures study that we are adding an African focus to. I thought this would be a great lit. study to go along with our other work. I read on the web-site that it is for 11th-12th grade, but can be used with 9th or 10th if the student is ready. I am just curious if you feel that is accurate?
Thanks!

[Jean in Wisc]

I do not use all of the LLATL Gold books for high school, but I do use some of them. My children do not like them that much, but I like what they learn from them. I add this to other literature and composition material that we use.

The parts I use:

American Lit
The Short Story
10 short stories written by well known authors. This is their introduction to studying literature: characterization, direct/indirect method, narrator, conflict, flat/round character, climax, foreshadowing, plot, rising/falling action, symbol, romanticism, mood, 1st/2nd/3rd person, dialect, allegory and on and on. This is my English 101 class. LOL! Some people may have covered this earlier in the child's school years, and then they would not need it. I reserve this study for the 9th grade year. Some of the analysis is hard to catch without a study guide--my kids always wonder how their analysis was found within the story (LOL), and they always ask why THIS STORY was included, yet it surprises me how often we've referred back to those studies in real life conversations...so I guess the authors knew what they were doing.

Sometimes I use their book studies if I do not want to go into great depth (The Red Badge of Courage, Old Man and the Sea, The Pearl).

I ignore the essay part.

I've asked and asked for suggestions on doing poetry on these boards. I've bought the Progeny Press study guide on poetry (much easier poems studied than LLATL) and I use The Grammar of Poetry with each child (great on studying the mechanics of poetry and could be done in junior high or lower if not done in high school), but the LLATL perspective is hard-chewing poetry (esp. Brit Lit) that I am so thankful to have the answers to in the back of each chapter! I've not found anything that does what they do--Emerson, Longfellow, Dickinson, Robinson, Crane, Frost, Williams, Ransom, Cummings Auden.

British Lit
Romantic Poets Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley
Victorian Poets: Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Hopkins, Hardy
Modern Poets: Eliot Owen Graves

My kids struggle with many of these, so we usually read the harder ones out loud together and do the questions orally so that we have a chance at understanding their meanings. LOL! They can read and understand Song of Roland and Oedipus Rex, but these poems seem to be much more illusive than the books we've read. I would not do this type of poetry if I did not have a teacher's guide to help me...

We've done a few of the novels, but I not used their guides much--Animal Farm (we did this in junior high), A Tale of Two Cities (I have a book with a study guide in the back that I use),Time Machine, Emma, Time Machine (my kids read these on their own),

And as I say, I keep looking for something that does it better, but so far, this is the best I've found. We struggle through the older selections (esp. the British Lit) and the vague, hard-to-understand poems (not all of them are hard to understand, though)--but I figure it is worth their while to see some of these more difficult selections.

I've put 2 kids through them and have one more to go...

:-)

(Adding a note here--it is written from a Christian perspective, since I see you were interested in that)

[HS mom]

I'm not familiar with LLATL or Hewitt, so can't give you an informed opinion on either. But chiming in on poetry, since it's an interest... John Lennard's, The Poetry Handbook is a wonderful book for teaching about poetry. I believe all the poems are found in the Norton Anthology of Poetry (and you could haul that in a dinghy). Or, if you own the book, I think you'd probably be within your copyright to scan them onto CD to use on your computer (but what do I know?) We also just borrowed Mary Oliver's, A Poetry Handbook from the library. Looks interesting, but can't comment on it yet.

The Teaching Company has a a series of classes on poetry. The instructor speaks about word choice and imagery; then, when reading Wadsworth's Daffodils, describes them as (if I remember correctly) Vegas showgirls. Wadsworth:Las Vegas? And we had some other quibbles. ;) We passed on the rest of that course.

Other stuff:

We used Warriner's Grammar (when we did grammar).

We use college English handbooks- Concise English Handbook, and Heath's Handbook of Composition for use/reference as we go. One of those would serve you well.

We're using The New Oxford Guide To Writing by Thomas Kane. That was recommended in the revised Well Trained Mind, and we like it very much.

The Well Educated Mind has books listed by genre. The Well Trained Mind has chronological reading lists. Here's a list on this site:

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/greatbooks.html (http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/../greatbooks.html)

(There are lots of informative articles on the site, when you're in the mood for browsing, including a three part series on writing the Research Paper.)

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/articleindex.php#Great%20Books
(http://www.welltrainedmind.com/articleindex.php#Great%20Books)

Back to add: The Elements of Style (as recommended in The Well Trained Mind), would be well worth the space to store it onboard.

[Kareni]

I have a question that is a little off the topic of this thread. You mentioned using the World Lit 1. I was wondering what age/grade you used this for? I am considering it for my ds who will be in 9th grade. We were going to do Am. History for 9th, but we may hold off on that while we work through a non-western cultures study that we are adding an African focus to. I thought this would be a great lit. study to go along with our other work. I read on the web-site that it is for 11th-12th grade, but can be used with 9th or 10th if the student is ready. I am just curious if you feel that is accurate?
Thanks!

I can't answer your question having no first hand experience with the World Lit syllabus; however, there is a Yahoo Hewitt group where questions are answered by one of the LL authors.

Here's a link to that group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hewitt_Homeschooling/

Regards,
Kareni