Highschool Literature Questions

Don’t know why this last post repeated again, my computer was being weird while I was at work.

I’ve never used any other part of LL besides the student guide.  I can’t speak to how useful it would be but I really can’t imagine what anything else would be for (I never did use the 7th or 8th grade parts–is it something to do with those?  I never saw a workbook or anything, any time I’ve ordered.)  If you use LL, the guide has a schedule, which I sticky-note so my child can find it easily. It assigns work by the week, usually several chapters a week.  I don’t care hwo the student organized the work during the week–that’s their job.  Something to learn how to do before college!  We do follow the weekly schedule, barring complications.

As for just books assigned, I figure out what a reasonable load ought to be, in consultation with teen, and then instead of assigning chapters, I really expect them to work the equivalent of an hour to an hour and a half a day for language arts/literature/writing.  I don’t assign chapters at all.  That would be handholding, babying a kid bigger than me!  LOL IMO a teen is way past the age of “On Monday read chapter 6.  On Tuesday write a narration.  On Wednesday read chapter 7.”  I ask my kids how their independent work is going, and they tell me, and barring an exception (being sick, being gone, something coming up) I would expect them to make steady progress every week on a book.  If they didn’t, and had spent, oh, say twenty minutes that week on a book, I’d be having a talk with them on Friday about it and asking them if they thought they had put forth their best effort in that subject that week.  🙂  I DO set paper deadlines, though.  So they’d better be doing a good enough amount of work to get that paper done!

With my teens, I do literature in 2 ways…we have an assigned booklist of things I want them to read throughout the year.  We discuss/narrate these.  We also study 3-4 resources more in depth.  I am a fan of Peter Leithart’s books “Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide to Six Shakespeare Plays”, “Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature” and “Miniatures and Morals: the Christian Novels of Jane Austen” as a jumping off point for deeper analysis.  I write out a scope and sequence of what I need them to do and they work on it 2 days a week throughout the year.