Which literature study is better for high school: more books or fewer/deeper?

[Katia]

I am trying to decide which direction to go with my will-be 11th grader next year for literature: more books, studied lightly with a few papers OR fewer books, studied more deeply with two papers per work?

What do you think? What would colleges want to see? Which would benefit the most?

[DollyM]

And my reasoning is that a robust reading list reflects a robust approach in general, while a skimpy reading list (no matter how well you cover the fewer titles) reflects a skimpy program. That may not always be true with every admissions officer but that's my gut feeling.

But not just ANY book titles - I'm talking about a robust list of meaty classic titles.

[Mesa]

I agree with DollyM. I think more books would be better.

[Brenda in MA]

because for most of ds's high school, we used SL, and thus, the approach of more books, but lightly studied. This semester, he is taking an outside literature class that is studying fewer books, but more deeply. Right now, I can honestly say that I'm not sure which approach I think is better.

I can see the benefits of both -- more broad exposure to different types of works when studying many books lightly, but a chance to really dig deep and understand the author's meaning/context/symbolism, etc. when studying a few books more deeply.

I'm wondering if the deeper study is better at training children in analytical skills, but then I also wonder if most teens have the maturity to truly be able to understand/appreciate/recognize the deep meanings without them being spoon-fed by a teacher.

So -- my ears are open!

Brenda

[brendafromtenn]

I always follow what Susan said in the WTM.....P.487 says, and I quote....."Try to make a realistic assessment of how many books the student will be able to cover in the course of a year. Eight books is a minimum;twelve is better; eighteen is stellar. Choose eight(or twelve or eighteen) titles from the lists that follow. Read them in chronological order."

You must know your student. A 9th grader will not be able the same type of work that a 12th grader does.

We chose to go the "deeper". This year we read a middle ages reading list with a 9th grader.

We read:

Beowulf
Idylls of the King
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court(For fun)
Song of Roland
Macbeth
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest
Canterbury Tales
Imitation of Christ
The Prince
The Faerie Queen
A Henty book (For Fun)
And will finish with a Shakespeare unit reading Henry V, and one other.(read Julius Caesar last year)

I also included my son in deciding which pieces we would read this year. And tried to throw in some weeks of just "fun" reading.

Just my thougthts....eventually, though, you must do what is best for your child. Remember that YOU know him best, not us.

Blessings,

Brenda

[Gwen in VA]

I'm very interested in this thread. What a great question!

My kids have taken "outsourced" English lit classes starting their sophomore year, and they have read relatively few books for their classes. My kids have always read a LOT on their own, so they bring a wealth of background to their schoolwork, but in their classes they have only studied a few books per year, mostly working through anthologies of poems, essays, etc.

Dd only read FIVE for her AP English Lit class!!!!! She did get a 5 on the exam, and I felt she was well-prepared.....I was absolutely schocked by the low number of books read in the course, but she really learned how to dissect a book in that class, and her literary analysis improved a LOT, and her essay-writing improved by leaps and bounds.

My 8th grader will only really "study" about 6 books this year, though he will have been assigned probably closer to 25 and will have read another who-knows-how-many on his own.

[Hoggirl]

You said she had an outsourced class and only read five books, but really learned how to dissect a book. Care to share the books! Pretty please!

[Michelle in MO]

is ideal; choose a decent amount of books, but also select some with which to delve in more deeply.

For example, we're doing Omnibus II this year, and these are our readings:

The Church History
Confessions of St. Augustine
On the Incarnation of Our Lord
The Creeds (short)
The Rule of St. Benedict (also short)
Beowulf
The Song of Roland
The History of the Kings of Britain
Macbeth
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The Divine Comedy
The Canterbury Tales
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Henry V
Richard III
Here I Stand (Martin Luther--substituting for The Bondage of the Will

So, you can see we read a fair amount of books, but I honestly wish Omnibus had had much deeper discussions on the Shakespeare plays; however, obviously I can tweak that myself and go deeper.

In many ways I appreciate the "more books" approach of Omnibus, but I also really appreciate the thoughts of Memoria Press as a publisher on this topic. I believe Memoria Press (and Highlands Latin School) take a fewer books/more in-depth approach. By the way, I believe they have a pretty hefty summer reading list, so the kids are reading quite a few books, but I believe the school's lit. studies are very in-depth.

This is a fascinating thread and discussion!

[kleahey]

My suggestion would be to read as many books as possible without feeling as though they are being superficially covered. Move at a quick pace, but be sure to digest each book. In my experience, the difference between high school and college literature classes was that, except in the case of courses with very narrow focuses, e.g. , a preceptorial on Joyce, college class expect the same depth with more books in less time. Perhaps it would be best to ease into this philosophy so that it won't be a shock later in your child's education. Just my two cents.

[Plaid Dad]

I'm firmly in the multum non multa camp: I would much rather a student study a few excellent, challenging books in depth than zoom through a long list. Notice that I say "study" here. I would expect a student to read many worthy books for pleasure, but I would only ask them to study, in depth, a very few a year.

I really can't imagine what a high school student is getting out of reading a dozen or more Great Books in a school year - and that only for literature! I do not believe more is better if the result is superficial acquaintance rather than real knowledge and understanding. If somehow you can manage both quantity and quality, great, but I've yet to see a way to do that that didn't exhaust the student and the teacher. There are only so many hours in the day.

[kathleen]

I think a combination is best. My son took Western Literature to Dante with Scholars Online, and they read tons of works/books. They didn't do a whole lot of in-depth study, but got a lot of exposure. The next year he took English literature--they read only 4 whole novels, I believe, but covered an immense amount of poetry, many short stories, plays, and essays. They went a bit deeper in study that year. This year he has taken AP English literature, and, like Gwen's daughter's class, they read relatively few novels (7), but studied them in great depth, along with explicating a lot of poetry and something like 23 short stories. I think both methods have value, and with 4 years of high school, there is room to do both.

[Karin]

What I intend to do is study a fewer number of books in-depth, but have mine read more books than they actually study and analyze. I think the number a university/college would expect would vary, in part, with what your dc plan to major in. I wouldn't expect most science departments to be looking for 18 literary analyses per year, for example.

My plan is to do 6 for dd's 8/9 year (we loathe this, but I have "seen the light" on why now, so am no longer reluctant). Then 8 for her full gr/9, official freshman year. If we can do 8 a year for 40 years, plus the 6 in the 8/9 year, that's 38 books analyzed. Quite a few to have analyzed by 18, IMO. But read far more, and not just in literary classes. I think reading should tie into subjects and fit in context. Our literature/great books will tie into our history, but not only that. e.g. We'll read non-fiction tie-ins such as about the history of math with math, the history of science with science, etc.

[Nan in Mass]

Considering that it took us 3 months to get through The Republic, which isn't very long, and that we discussed it lots but probably not in a very deep fashion, I guess I agree with Plaid Dad. It takes us forever to get through anything. We'd probably go faster reading them to ourselves, because we wouldn't talk so much about them, but I can see us just sort of reading them and not really paying much attention to them that way. I'd rather read a few and savour them than read lots and not really make them part of me. How about not many and not deep? Can I vote for that? LOL
-Nan

[Gwen in VA]

No, I can't give you the names of the five books dd studied for AP Lit -- because I can't remember them! :001_huh: Isn't that sad?

One was Jane Eyre, and one was Hamlet, but otherwise I am drawing a complete blank!

[Barb F. PA in AZ]

We went with more books rather than deeper and will do so again. My reasoning:

1. Reading will get done with or without me, dissecting won't. While I have lofty goals, I also have numerous interruptions, emergencies and distractions. I figure a lot of reading and a little dissection is better at the end of the year than a little reading and well...a little dissection (if we're being brutally honest here).

2. A student who goes into Math or Science may never see another Literature class after High School. I would rather launch such a student with a wide foundation in classic literature than an excellent and deep knowledge of a few books.

3. I myself went deep rather than wide in high school. It only served to prove that classical literature was tedious and difficult. I still struggle with intimidation when thinking about picking up any book that is supposed to be 'important'

4. A student who goes on to study Literature in college will go deeper into books he or she may have already read. The student may be less apt to desire this if he's already done it once. Yet the same student may be excited to dig deeper into a book that she has already experienced on a shallower level.

5. Reading lights the fire, dissecting fills the bucket. There are many who may disagree with me, but this is the way it feels in my house.

Barb

[LisaNY]

We went with more books rather than deeper and will do so again. My reasoning:

1. Reading will get done with or without me, dissecting won't. While I have lofty goals, I also have numerous interruptions, emergencies and distractions. I figure a lot of reading and a little dissection is better at the end of the year than a little reading and well...a little dissection (if we're being brutally honest here).

2. A student who goes into Math or Science may never see another Literature class after High School. I would rather launch such a student with a wide foundation in classic literature than an excellent and deep knowledge of a few books.

3. I myself went deep rather than wide in high school. It only served to prove that classical literature was tedious and difficult. I still struggle with intimidation when thinking about picking up any book that is supposed to be 'important'

4. A student who goes on to study Literature in college will go deeper into books he or she may have already read. The student may be less apt to desire this if he's already done it once. Yet the same student may be excited to dig deeper into a book that she has already experienced on a shallower level.

5. Reading lights the fire, dissecting fills the bucket. There are many who may disagree with me, but this is the way it feels in my house.

Barb

I couldn't agree more! I want to expose my dd to as many Great Books as possible over the next two years before she goes to ps in 10th gr.. (Although, I'm still holding on to a small hope that she may decide to stay home.)

[womenfly]

Any of you who "go deeper" have a secret to do so at home (as opposed to an outside lit class)?
We are just entering the Jr High years, but I'm hoping if I can start the process of "going deeper" on a smaller scale now - it won't be quite so intimidating as the literature gets more complicated.

Any online resources? Or curriculum resources for the analysis part of literature?

Thanks!
~laureen

[Maura in NY]

Gwen - Could you tell us what program your daughter used? Was it online?

Thanks,
Maura

[LisaNY]

Any of you who "go deeper" have a secret to do so at home (as opposed to an outside lit class)?
We are just entering the Jr High years, but I'm hoping if I can start the process of "going deeper" on a smaller scale now - it won't be quite so intimidating as the literature gets more complicated.

Any online resources? Or curriculum resources for the analysis part of literature?

Thanks!
~laureen

I highly recommend The Well-Educated Mind. I even used it last year when my dd was in 6th gr. It is an excellent self-education and homeschooling text.

[Karin]

We went with more books rather than deeper and will do so again. My reasoning:

13. I myself went deep rather than wide in high school. It only served to prove that classical literature was tedious and difficult. I still struggle with intimidation when thinking about picking up any book that is supposed to be 'important'

5. Reading lights the fire, dissecting fills the bucket. There are many who may disagree with me, but this is the way it feels in my house.

Barb

Ah. We're going to dissect fewer, but not take it so deep that it does this. Maybe only with a very, very few books. Read more than we dissect, though. In our house, we hate, hate, hate dissecting books, but it is an important tool, so we are going to do some. Our problem has always been that reading too much fiction makes my dd cranky, so we're going to have too find a way around this or do non-fiction great books for this.

[Nan in Mass]

I've used TWEM with a younger student, too. We really like it. It makes it easy to have good discussions.

[womenfly]

I just got TWEM from the library last week to see what it's all about - I am reading it for myself right now (just barely started - I've only read the first two chapters).
Am I understanding that if you "use this with your kids" - that you are having them read it and do the exercises that SWB recommends?

Any chance that anyone here has gone through Teaching the Classics from IEW? Would the end result be something similar - or comparable - in terms of literary analysis?

Thanks for your patience with a rookie...

[Nan in Mass]

I read it myself. Then I decided what books we'd read. We read the books, read the genre part (if we haven't already done it that year), and answer the questions. They don't read the book themselves, except in bits if I don't have time to read the genre part or the questions aloud, or if we are working in the car and I'm doing the driving. If you do a search for Nan in Mass and TWEM, you'll find a post I wrote where I explained exactly what we do. Near it, I'm pretty sure, is a post where people are discussing IEW and TWEM and comparing them. I think. I didn't pay that much attention to that part of the post because I haven't seen IEW and couldn't help compare. TWEM is a bit different from other lit programs because it has a set of general questions for each genre, rather than questions specific to a particular book. This somehow makes a better discussion in my family than if I ask specific questions. My teens tend to answer book-specific questions with short specific don't-lead-anywhere answers like "yes" or "no". TWEM questions somehow lead us into giving examples and disagreeing or not knowing and having to think about it and work towards and answer - in other words, having a discussion. I also see that as we read more books, my children are internalizing TWEM questions and thinking about them as they read a book. I like that.
HTH
-Nan

[Jean in Wisc]

I find it interesting how many people have long lists of books their children will read during the high school years; I simply cannot imagine making our way through 25 books in a one-credit English literature class that also includes composition, grammar, and vocabulary.

This year I had my 11th grader do a semester of literature and a semester of composition/grammar. We covered only a few books, but he also had a longer study of poetry that took several weeks: Uncle Tom's Cabin, American Poets, The Old Man and the Sea, The Great Gatsby. In addition to these, he read several on his own: The Scarlet Letter, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Red Badge of Courage, Lewis and Clark, Huckleberry Finn, and The Pearl. I would normally require that he do a few more books with me, but it just didn't happen...and he tends to read classics for fun, so I switched at the semester break and moved into comp & grammar.

Throughout the high school years I usually have a yearly study on poetry, short stories, a few novels, a play or a speech...we also do a study of literary analysis, usually in 9th grade. If we cover 10 units in a year, I call it a big success--but I usually have only 8. We discuss what is happening in the story each day when we meet; we usually use a study guide that gives us discussion questions. They always are required to write a paper on the unit studied--by the time we do this, we just don't have time to do piles and piles of books!

I must say, I've never figured out how some of you do so much!

???
J

[percytruffle]

I guess I don't see this as a black and white decision, at all. Why should one have to choose between the two approaches. We have always melded the two into one.

We study several (5-6) full length works in a year using various means: one on one discussion, Progeny Press guided discussion, Pete Leithart's books to generate discussion...etc, followed by a lit analysis essay, possibly a movie version, etc. But, we also use an analogy to cover the literature time period much more broadly. The selections include excerpts, short stories, and poetry. We answer questions, look at vocabulary, discuss authors, etc. All of this is going on at the same time. While the dc are reading the longer work and we are discussing it, they are also making their way through the anthology: reading, thinking, learning (MFS's terminology is ingrained in my brain!).

So, why should we choose? Why can't we do both? We have been and it's working out just fine. Am I missing something here?

[lv2sing]

I agree with reading a very long list of classical books, but I am finding that the books that I am rereading with our children as an adult, I am understanding now because I have LIFE experience. When I was 15 and read Beowulf, I got an A and thought I understood. Ridiculous. We read 35 books for the Middle Ages study, but only delved into about one per month. I have the getting bogged down and trying to be utterly comprehensive problem so we have to make ourselves keep moving. My 2 cents worth.

Ronda

[HollyinNNV]

I am trying to decide which direction to go with my will-be 11th grader next year for literature: more books, studied lightly with a few papers OR fewer books, studied more deeply with two papers per work?

What do you think? What would colleges want to see? Which would benefit the most?

Before reading all the posts, I'll respond. I think you have to do both over the course of a high school career. I think that students need to learn to read fast and broad. But, they also need to learn to slow down and read deep. I think that this is the recipe for a great reader and critical thinker.

I would guess that a college would want to see many books and a broad coverage. However, any professor will want a student who can study a work deeply.

If you only have a little time left before college I'd assess what your child has done and focus on the area they are weakest in. If you are unsure, I'd go with reading broad and fast because you need lots of speed to well in college IMHO.

Holly

[womenfly]

Nan,
Thanks for the advice and the heads up about the other thread - I did look it up.
I'll work through TWEM myself this summer and print out your approach to keep beside me ... I'm looking forward to figuring out what it will all look like in our house ...