What is everyone using for highschool literature?....

[twoblessings]

I was going to do a poll but, I can't seem to figure it out.

thanks,
Busy

[Cynde]

I design my own curriculm for our dc's high school using a variety of resources including texts, study guides, online sites, and a large stack of wonderful reading to include novels, plays, short stories, and poetry. I also require literary analysis writing. We have done the following years of literature: Ancient, American, 20th Century World, and British. Here's a link to a previous post of mine in which I listed some of my favorite resources just in case anyone is interested. http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16238#post16238. I hope that worked.;)

Such a fun subject ... only one problem ... too many fabulous things to read and not enough time.

[Nan in Mass]

TWTM, slowly, aloud together, using TWEM.

[Sandy in Indy]

I use the SMARR lists as the basis for our lit.

[MelodyInTx]

We use various things. We used Abeka last year for World Literature. This year we are using Lightning Literature and next year we will use Perrine's Structure, Sound and Sense. The pick of literature to read is based on WTM, English teachers websites and 101 Great Books from the collegeboard.com

[Brigid in NC]

When I began piecing together a 9th grade English class, I found it a challenge to select the number of books for my ds to read in a year, and to determine a logical order (not just time, but genre, themes, etc.) for the choices.

I would suggest that the easy part is finding worthy books. The WTM, Tapestry of Grace, Sonlight, the College Board web site, and a myriad of other sources and internet sites offer a wealth of choices of worthy classics for high schoolers. So I think the challenge is to narrow down the lists to a reasonable number, and provide some sort of organization and order to the four high school years.

I took a bit of an easy way out, and used the rhetoric-level lit selections recommended by TOG in the 3rd and 4th years (basically 19th century and 20th century) and, with a little substitution here and there, used those lists as my 9th grade and 10th grade lit selections.

The benefit of at least looking a rigorous curriculum like TOG -- and I believe it is top notch -- is that it helps with pacing. Trying to determine how many books to read in a year is difficult, since we don't want to overwhelm our kids, but we also want to provide a suitable rigor. By using TOG's list (and we studied 19th and 20th century history in parallel), I felt a bit more secure when my ds would "appear" inundated with work. I found that by sticking to my guns, my ds rose to the challenge. He and I found that he was capable of stepping up -- which is part of what high school requires -- in the quantity and quality of reading. So whether you USE TOG or not, I think it is a good model of what it is reasonable to expect from a high performing high school student.

A caveat to TOG -- it tends to assign more books than most programs, so there is less analysis time per book. I like that approach. I think we get enough time on each book. But if you want to spend more time talking about and writing about books, then you would want to pare down the number of books. My philosophy is "so many books, so little time," so in 9th and 10th we only spent one to three weeks on each book. ;) We have cut down the number of books a bit in 11th -- and are spending a little more analysis time on each.

I hope this helps. Best of luck! ~Brigid

[twoblessings]

l

[Denise in NE]

This year for 9th grade we are using Lightning Literature 8. I wouldn't recommend this for 9th grade unless your child is weak in this area. I decided to go this route with my dd because she is working through the IEW Student Writing Intensive Continuation Course with a couple of other families and taking a really intense Speech course at our local cooperative. She is also doing Sonlight (which is reading intensive anyway).

Next year we will be using Greenleaf's Ancient Literature course (5 books) along with 3 or so more books I have yet to choose. If all goes well, we will go on with the Greenleaf Medieval Literature that is soon to be released. If not, we will switch back to Lightning Literature doing either the Medieval and/ or Shakespeare courses. Either way, she will still have lots of reading to do with history!

Denise

[AngieW in Texas]

This year, we're doing SL Core 100. My dd is reading the books that come with the Core. That's actually quite a bit of reading. We're not doing any literary analysis with it though.

Next year, we're going to be doing part 1 of a 2-year world history study (my dd's choice). I don't know yet what our spine text will be, but probably Prentice Hall Connections to Today since I got a copy of it at Goodwill for $6. My dd hasn't voiced any objections to it yet, but she hasn't really spent much time looking through it either.

My plan for next year is to use Glencoe Reader's Choice Course 5 with World Literature Selections. I got a copy of it for just $8 + $4 shipping on amazon a few weeks ago. It looks pretty good. I'm slowly reading my way through it to figure out which selections to skip. I like the writing suggestions, vocabulary, and literary analysis in the book. My dd will also be reading a lot of books from SL Core 6 (she was in ps when I covered it with my other kids) along with some of the books from the list in WTM for the time periods we're covering. I figure we'll do the textbook for 1-2 weeks at a time and then switch back to novels for a month or so before going back to the text. The text is only about 1000 pages, so it shouldn't take all that much time to get through. We won't be reading everything in it anyway. I've crossed out about 1/5 of the selections I've read so far, just because I didn't like them.

[Anne in Hawaii]

We used Omnibus I last year and are in II this year.

[Happy]

We've done both Trisms history/literature and Lightning Lit during our high school years. We liked how Trisms tied the lit to the history and culture being studied.

During our study of the Renaissance, we chose to study Shakespeare using Lightning Lit. Loved it! It was a wonderful introduction to the world of Shakespeare for my reluctant reader son. The assigned writing was thoughtful and not too overwhelming for him.

Both of these curriculums have brought my son good experiences and we value what we have learned from them.

[Anne/Ankara]

We're going to do Ancients next year, ninth grade, with the reading list from WTM, but also some High School Ancient Literature anthologies, so we move right along. I don't want to get bogged down if some of the longer book-length works are too tedius for us, so I want the option of reading only "selections" from some of these Great Books.