Moving away from a boxed curriculum and toward TWTM approach for lit and history.

[outtamyshell]

I'm considering a couple of options for next school year, which is going to be Senior year. I'd love your thoughts on obstacles to transitioning to TWTM style history/literature for the last year. DD works independently and is taking math and science at the University for her Senior year.

We've been using Classical Conversations for 10th & 11th and public school for 9th. DD wants to spend more time reading the classics and less time preparing for someone else's classes. I'm considering a couple of different approaches.

TWTM obviously lays out a great four year cylce. But we have had more 'traditional public school approach' so far with world history, american history, american literature, and british lit. I'm not sure if we should focus on a specific year or take a broad sweep approach.

I would love to hear from someone using the Ambleside Online highschool curriculum. Could we use their choices for a combined/abbreviated 11th & 12th grade year?

I'm also considering joining a Great Books of the Western World reading group. This would give us a built in conversation on a regular basis to read/study the classics. I imagine we could fill in all kinds of additional reading in our school schedule beyond what the group is reading.

Here are some of my concerns.

How much can be done independently with this learning approach? I work full-time and DD works independently. We talk on a regular basis, but she won't have me standing over her shoulder guiding her daily work. She's a good kid and interested in learning. But we won't be reading aloud or talking for hours on end about her reading. Though I can keep up with her reading so we can include it in our daily conversation.

How do you choose what to cover? She's got a pretty good handle on history in general, so there is no period of time I feel like we NEED to focus on... I'm tempted to do a 20th century history tying in current events. On the other hand, she hasn't read the ancient classics (virgil, etc).

Any thoughts or ideas on how to get a slightly ADD kid into the rythm of this kind of studying? She's very academically focused, so once she gets into it, she will enjoy it. I guess I'm just floundering because there are so many great choices and not enough time to do it all.

What are your thoughts? How did you decide what to do?

[Beth in SW WA]

Have you read The Well Educated Mind? That would be a perfect place to start in your study of Great Books w/ your dd.

[Jane in NC]

Read Nan in Mass's old posts! She uses WTM/WEM methodology to develop well meaning conversations.

Jane

[Jenn in CA]

How much can be done independently with this learning approach?

How do you choose what to cover?

I think a motivated learner can do a lot independently. She could keep a daily reading journal, if you want daily feedback. She could write a weekly essay about her reading. The Well-Educated Mind would be a fabulous resource for self-study.

As to what to cover, I bet online somewhere you could find a list of the 20 or so "greatest of the Great Books", or even just 10 if they're long works. I've seen a list by Bill Bennett of the 30 works a high school grad should have read.... of course nowadays, hardly anyone has... but it includes Homer, Vergil, Chaucer, Dante, Shakespeare, as well as more modern works. I think it would be fun to pick the ones that intrigue your daughter the most. Or you could pick a core of 5 and let her pick the rest.

My top picks would be:
Homer, Odyssey & Iliad if possible or just one
Vergil, Aeneid
Dante, Inferno/Purgatory/Paradise
Milton, Paradise Lost
Shakespeare, a couple each of comedies, tragegies, histories
... and that's as far as my kids have gotten in their Great Books reading! So someone else could finish this list.

It is hard to choose, but if you pick ones your child likes, perhaps she'll keep reading them on her own in the future.