HS History and Lit - help from Jane in NC, Jill OK, and Nan in Mass?

[momee]

I am seriously considering jumping off the curricula ship and trying my hand at WTM for high school.
I have Human Odyssey by Spielvogel and Kingfisher's encyclopedia but I'm not sure HO is okay for high school (at least 9th grade anyway). That's the first question.

Next one: what about the "work" of this plan?
I'm not sure about what would constitute a credit's worth of work. Do you all randomly assign reports or papers or even quizzes or tests? I see in TWTM she asks students to keep a notebook on dates and important events. Is that all we'd have to do besides read and discuss as directed in TWTM?
Please forgive the ignorance shown here - I am sure it's on page ___ of one of the books I have but it's all foggy at this point.
Thanks for any help you can offer on how you do TWTM or TWEM and Spielvogel.

[Jane in NC]

My son is using the Spielvogel Western Civ text. He reads a chapter, does the associated online activities (quiz and essay questions), and reads literature of the period. He currently has two writing assignments. The first is a paper comparing the journey of Aeneas into the Underworld with that of the pilgrim Dante in Inferno. He is also doing some research (additional reading in books from the library) on the consequences of the Hundred Years War.

Last year, studying the ancients, he watched The Teaching Company lectures on Great Battles of the Ancient World. This year, he has been watching the lectures on the early and late middle ages by Professor Daileader. There are some suggested questions in the handbook accompanying the lectures from which we may select a topic for a paper. Additional TC lectures that we have listened to have included Elizabeth Vandiver's series on the Aeneid (a major focus for us last year) and the Cook/Herzman lectues on Divine Comedy. I feel that TC lectures enhance the quality of our discussions.

I had my son do timeline and context pages with the Ancients. This year, I have found that he is better off focusing on a more specific topic of interest than the context work. There are so many primary source documents available from the Internet that you can also go off on diversions when something interests your student.

If you feel that you need some hand holding, you might want to purchase a study guide to accompany your history text.

Good luck and have fun with this!
Jane

[Jill, OK]

...the plan I posted was for *next* year, and I haven't even decided firmly between Human Odyssey and Western Civ.

So...I'll be looking at the answers you get, too, lol.

Sorry I'm not more help!

[Nan in Mass]

TWTM says 8 works per year is ok, 10 is better, 12 is best. We're doing all our literature aloud together, discussing as we go, so it takes forever slowly. We do about 1 longish work per semester (like The Republic or The Iliad), a few shorter ones (like a play, a few poems or speeches, and (hopefully but sometimes not) something else shortish (like Beowulf or The Inferno). Then I have my sons read another work or two during the summer to themselves. Or they listen to the audio version. I'm not doing things strictly chronologically because we take a break every once in a while to do a Shakespeare play or some poetry, or a short story or two. One semester we read Sophie's World instead of a great book, an rather fun overview of philosophy, although the ending was weird.

As for work, my younger one doesn't do much written work LOL. I try to have him write down a few thoughts here and there throughout the book, or sometimes we have an idea for something we want to try, like writing descriptions of our friends in the style used at the beginning of The Iliad? Illiad? (sorry can't spell). My older one:
Puts the work on a timeline and a map
Does a little "why this book is important" research on the internet (mostly using Wikipaedia)
Summarizes chapters if they aren't already summarized for him
Takes notes or writes in the book when he has something to say (mostly "cool description" or "this guy was warped" or "I don't think this is right because...")
We read the genre section of TWEM together if we haven't recently
We answer TWEM genre questions together orally
And he does a project or writes a paper (he made a reed boat model for Gilgamesh, made a set of drawings for The Illiad, did a comparison of translations for Genesis, etc., but most often, in our discussions, I notice that one of his comments would make a good paper and I point it out and he writes it up)

You just sort of have to trust that by the time you get done reading the book, you'll have an idea for a paper or project. We never have trouble with that. If you get stuck, you can go to the pink monkey site and they have a summary of the book (handy if you get really confused) and suggested essay topics. Just do one of those.

I also have Reading Strands, which contains a list of literary analysis terms, and I try to discuss one of those from time to time.

My children have grown enormously doing this. I really encourage you to give it a try. You can pick and choose your own books this way (very important for our family), and eventually you sort of internalize the general questions in TWEM and notice them as you read.

Have fun!

-Nan

[momee]

wow you ladies are very fast!
AND you make it sound so easy. I have spent the time since I posted re-reading TWTM and I can see there is actual work involved besides just reading and discussing.
I also am getting a better idea of how the history is tied into the great book study.
I'm just curious now that I have your attention, or had it.
Did you all read Gilgamesh? Did your 9th grader understand it? I think my ds is awesome at literature but he and I are both having a hard time getting through what we are reading of the online version.
I read in TWTM SWB says if they're having trouble, move on.
Again just curious if any of your students actually read and understood this.
My dad made me laugh today - he said - Gilgamesh - where's that?

[Jane in NC]

Did you all read Gilgamesh? Did your 9th grader understand it? I think my ds is awesome at literature but he and I are both having a hard time getting through what we are reading of the online version.

It could be the version. Does your library have Ferry's version? Many people seem to prefer it. Both my son and I thought that the Sandars version was readable and interesting.

Frankly I cannot even try to read online texts--reading a screen for long periods of time is torture for my eyes! I really would recommend that you see what versions of Gilgamesh are in your library, being careful to do a quick read in the beginning part of the epic since some versions are rather explicit.

[Susan in IL]

wow you ladies are very fast!
AND you make it sound so easy. I have spent the time since I posted re-reading TWTM and I can see there is actual work involved besides just reading and discussing.
I also am getting a better idea of how the history is tied into the great book study.
I'm just curious now that I have your attention, or had it.
Did you all read Gilgamesh? Did your 9th grader understand it? I think my ds is awesome at literature but he and I are both having a hard time getting through what we are reading of the online version.
I read in TWTM SWB says if they're having trouble, move on.
Again just curious if any of your students actually read and understood this.
My dad made me laugh today - he said - Gilgamesh - where's that?

We did HO in 9th and 10th along with lit. selections that I thought he would like from TWTM. My ds hated Gilgamesh. He had to read it again in college and still hated it. In fact, his 2 semester class is almost exactly what he did in 9th and 10th. Just a different text and but is only reading excerpts vs. the whole books I had him do. He has thanked me no end and said that many of the others have never even heard of some of the books.

Along with HO, we added the Greenleaf Famous Men series, and some other stuff to go into depth. I used Kingfisher a little but he didn't really care for it that much. He had had no world history in ps which is why I split it into two years. It also gave him more time to read more lit. I also used a couple of Smarr guides. I used some of the HO chapter review questions for writing and more research.

Hope this helps a bit.

[momee]

This all helps very much.
We actually got a Gilgamesh version - Gilgamesh New English Version by Stephen Mitchell.
He's asked me to keep reading and when I finished for the day took it from me and is reading about the battle with the bull!
Looks like this TWTM idea may work for us after all.
We'll see.
Thanks again for your comments.
Stephanie
ps We're sticking with HO also!