Name: Spreading the Feast Gathering
Start: 2025-07-11T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-07-12T23:59:59-05:00
Location: LaGrange, KY

This topic has 42 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 8 years ago by KeriJ.

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March 28, 2016 at 5:47 am
Melanie32
Participant
Robin-we’ve just started using the Glencoe lit guide. I’m simply planning on using a few of the components to dig a bit deeper into Animal Farm. We will do most of it orally. I plan on trying out an essay question from either the Boomerang guide or the Glencoe guide. I’ll let my daughter choose which one she prefers and have her write an essay answering the question. It will be my daughter’s first lit analysis essay so I have no idea how that will go! If she struggles with it too much, we may just discuss that topic as well and save this type of essay until she’s a bit older. She’s just finishing up 8th grade.
March 28, 2016 at 9:11 am
smartypants
Participant
Melanie:
This is how we’ve done the Glencoe guides, too. I was just curious how you planned to use them…wondering if I should try something different.
Literary Analysis essays are tough. My son is 18 and still struggles with these, but we plod on.
We probably won’t do any more papers like this. He’s done enough. We are going to focus on a few useful essay types as a quick review and do a research paper before he graduates in June.
Thanks for replying.
Robin
March 28, 2016 at 10:16 am
smartypants
Participant
Melanie:
More questions…
Are you having your dd narrate her literature selection daily as well as do the lit guide?
I realize the lit guide is probably broken down by chunks of chapters…at least the one we are doing is (A Tale of Two Cities)…so we only discuss after the chunks have been read. Are you doing the Active Reading pages? Or just orally discussing the questions? I’m not sure how useful the Active Reading pages are…busy work perhaps?
Would doing daily narrations be overkill?
I’m torn between having ds do straight narrations on the chapters he reads each day or having him focus more on various types of writing.
I guess I could assign a specific type of narration here and there to cover different types of writing???
I hate overloading him because he works part time and also does ACT practice along with other subjects. Plus, I have some final field trips for us to do 🙂 before he’s through homeschooling 🙁
Thanks again,
Robin
March 28, 2016 at 2:23 pm
Melanie32
Participant
Hi again Robin! I do have my daughter narrate her readings as well. We are just starting the Animal Farm guide and so I haven’t really planned out exactly what parts we will use. I was going to wing it. 😀
I have my daughter read and narrate a chapter each day. When we finish the assigned number of chapters, we do that portion of the guide during the next day’s literature scheduled time. I’ll go look at the guide and come back to let you know which parts I think we’ll use.
In this case, we will read the introduction to the book, skip the rest and move on to do the personal response questions that I find relevant orally. I’ll do the same with the Analyzing Literature section. I don’t like the writing assignment from the first section. I’ll pass on that. I’ll probably only have my daughter do one writing assignment from the whole book and I’ll allow her to choose a question from one of the guides (either the Boomerang or Glencoe) to answer for her assignment.
I actually like some of the charts they assign to be filled in. I may have my daughter do a few-only because of the subject matter. I really want her to understand how communism works and to be able to recognize propaganda when she sees/hears it.
I really think the Glencoe guides are overkill for the most part. I plan on using the Bravewriter guides for most books. I just wanted to delve deeper into Animal Farm than the Boomerang guide went. If I used the Glencoe guides for a less allegorical book, I would use it very sparingly. I don’t want to kill any love my daughter may have for a book by overanalyzing it.

March 28, 2016 at 3:01 pm
smartypants
Participant
Melanie:
Thanks so much for your reply.
You’ve been most helpful.
You’d think I’d not worry so much since I’ve graduated one from our homeschool already.
Robin
March 28, 2016 at 3:09 pm
Melanie32
Participant
Robin,
Lol I know how you feel. I’ve graduated one as well. 🙂

March 28, 2016 at 6:57 pm
beccawalker2000
Participant
And this is exactly where I have my biggest doubts and struggles in beginning this CM journey! Thank you for your testimony of staying the course, @Robin. I too would love to hear more about how you broke down the subjects through the years with your son.
March 29, 2016 at 4:24 am
Melanie32
Participant
Becca-CM works! I have recently begun a short, more formal writing curriculum and have pretty much found it to be unnecessary. We have ended up skipping a lot of the writing instruction because she really doesn’t need it. However, the real fruit doesn’t show up until late middle school and high school. I should say that there will be fruit before then but it will all start to come together at that point.
As Robin mentioned in another thread, much of the instruction is organic while correcting written narrations and copywork and dictation.
I have only recently begun formal grammar instruction, writing instruction and lit analysis with my daughter and she is finishing up 8th grade. We are keeping writing instruction and lit analysis to a minimum. We are just kind of skimming the surface of both. 🙂 I am finding that my daughter already gets a lot of it intuitively from using Charlotte’s methods for all these years.

June 7, 2017 at 5:59 am
Melanie32
Participant
Bump!
June 7, 2017 at 1:19 pm
bethanna
Participant
Melanie, Did the Bravewriter guides for the other books work for you better than the one for Animal Farm? I echo (and sigh!) your comment about some resources being so expensive!
June 7, 2017 at 2:22 pm
Melanie32
Participant
Hi Bethanna! They are fine. Nothing grand and nothing terrible. We used one and I put the rest in my too large stack of material that will probably never be used.
I have gone back to simply reading classics and discussing them together and have been delighted with my daughter’s growth.
If I were to pick my favorite of the lit guides I have tried, I would go with the free Glencoe ones. The Bravewriter guides just don’t have enough substance. You basically have a few days of guided dictation followed by some lit discussion at the end of the guide. The Glencoe guides have so much to choose from and are free so you can simply pick and choose which parts you want to use. They are definitely overkill and I wouldn’t work through a whole guide. I would simply choose a few pertinent questions and maybe use a particularly helpful chart.
I have my anxious moments when I try lit guides and composition programs but I always end up coming back to CM methods. They truly do produce wonderful fruit! Not to mention, look at all the extra time our kids can spend reading great books when they don’t have to use it up on dreary lit guides! 🙂

June 7, 2017 at 2:31 pm
bethanna
Participant
Okay! You made me feel better! Thanks!
June 7, 2017 at 2:42 pm
KeriJ
Participant
I wanted to add that I have been reading through The Reader’s Odyssey which is basically a detailed discussion of this exact topic. It lines up very nicely with CM literature philosophy.