I noticed that there is a section on Literary Analysis in the student book. Is this topic covered well enough to not need another program like Lightning Literature or Windows to the World??
I have piYH and IL at home for evaluation. I am not sure piYH will be needed for dd and I’m not sure what I think of IL just yet. I am torn between Excellence in Literature, IL, and LL. I think I’ll end up hodgepodge for the coming year. I want some but not all of any of the programs.
For high school I’m using Power in Your Hands for writing instruction. For “literature” we’re doing a mixture of the three programs listed above – Lightning Lit, Excellence in Literature, and Illuminating Literature. I have a list of the books and my two boys choose which book they want to read and we use that portion of the program. Pick the next book and use the program that talks about the book. Does it go in order? No. Will there be terms here and there they don’t know? Yes. Will they figure it out? Sure. Sometimes we’ll work for several sections in one program then move to the next. We might stay focused in Brit Lit for a bit or bounce back and forth between historical time periods (mostly they choose the books, but sometimes I do). I’m focusing more on helping them love literature than strictly following a plan.
I’m beginning to think that that is the way to go, crazy4boys!
I did purchase The Power in Your Hands, as I have been drawn to that program for quite a while now and I think it will be a good fit for my ds. I’ll probably purchase the new guide as well. I’m finding that all the guides have books my boys have read already and probably don’t want to read again anytime soon, so that means we may need more than one guide! That actually sounds better than feeling like we’ve got to make this one guide work, or else. Cost is a consideration, but hopefully I can find some used guides this coming year.
Now I feel excited about what we are planning for the coming year and not so frazzled by all of the choices. Plus, I was reading a bit in the Hearing, Reading, Telling and Writing by SCM and I truly believe in Miss Mason’s ideas. I’m going to try to not allow the “programs” to interfere too much with cultivating the love for literature and the power of narration but use them for the structure and knowledge they can provide.
My health has been a real problem for me lately and I’m needing some planned programs to alleviate the stress that planning on my own can bring.
thanks, ladies, for helping me work this out, it’s much appreciated.
I am using PiyH to prepare for LL. I used it for the instruction on how to write a literary analysis paper. We will begin actual study of literature and regular papers for LL in the fall. I did NOT make it all the way through PiyH in one year. I intend to work out of some other sections before he begins taking SATs later.
I will be using Power in Your Hands w/ my 9th & 11th graders this fall, mostly to “sure up” the different styles of writing, as they both have done written narrations for many years, including some SAT-type essays. I don’t see us making it all the way through the course in one year b/c we will be spending the first 2 weeks working on study skills and Jan-Feb doing a public speaking course by Jeff Myers, Secrets of Great Communicators, which has lots of great writing instruction pertaining to setting up effective arguments, organizing speech/papers for maximum impact, etc. So I think we’ll pick-and-choose a bit from PiYH.
Also, a suggestion for literature guides/courses: We have used, and will be using more, study guides from 7sistershomeschool.com . They have a variety of study guide PDFs for around $3.99. You can pick which ones you want to cover or they have combined 8-9 into courses, like British Lit, World Lit. etc. The authors’ objectives are to avoid overkill, still enjoy the story but guide in analysis as well, often focusing on just 1 or 2 analysis aspects in each novel. They also include some questions that could be used for essays.
I have looked at 7sisters, as well, and can see how just choosing one of the guides for one particular book would be very simple. Now that I don’t feel like it has to be one guide, or else, I can more easily see that we can use multiple guides, if that is what works best for us.
For me, it had been the cost of multiple guides and wanting to get the best “bang” for your buck. But I can tell that, for us, using more than one guide over the years is going to suit our needs best.
my3boys, I contacted Sharon about PiyH regarding the lit. analysis. It does not teach annotation skills, which WttW does.
Thought you’d want to know. I know that Excellence in Lit. seems to require that as a skill (or at least one would benefit greatly for having it) from all I have read.
I did pick up a used copy of PiYH yesterday for $10 but haven’t had a chance to look through the lit portion, so thank you. I do plan on purchasing WttW at some point, but I’d really like to find it used because I seem to like a bit of everything!
Annotating is covered well in WttW. But after extensively going through WttW, I’ve decided that it’s a bit overkill in the analysis department. I have PiYH and IL here to look through, too.