Literature Program to use with M2M for high school?

[arstephia]

We will be doing the Missions to Marvels next year with our oldest for 9th grade - high school credit. What high school level literature program are you leaning toward using or recommending for the high school level?

[blessedmomof4]

I remember an older thread where Carrie or Julie said that you can use DITHOR 6/7/8 with grade-appropriate books and it would be enough for 9th grade. There was also mention of Learning Language Arts Through Literature, which has an American Literature and a British Literature book for high school. I would love to hear if Carrie has other recommendations.

[Carrie]

Steph,

Lourdes did a great job of answering your question. You can use DITHR for grade 9 of high school, simply by selecting higher level literature to use along with the Student Book. For families who have not had much in the way of formal literature instruction prior to high school, this is likely what we will recommend for starters. Here is a link to possible books that could be read along with the various genres to make the lit. level high school worthy. viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7765&p=56997#p56997

Next, since Missions to Modern Marvel's target age range is for 7th and 8th graders, with extensions mainly in the area of history (and some other areas that will cross over as well), we won't be scheduling another literature option outside of DITHR for this guide. However, with our own oldest son I will say that we used Smarr's Introduction to Literature (with some book substitutions and a changed sequence) for his freshman year and really enjoyed it.

For our oldest son's sophomore year, we are doing British literature. I worked my own plan together for it, doing a combination of Learning Language Arts Through Literature Gold (replacing a couple of books in it) but doing all the poetry, doing the writing assignments from LLATL Gold Brit. Lit, adding some Smarr Brit. Lit. books and Smarr guides for those books, doing Jane Eyre with a Covenant Home guide, etc. I must say with trying these various methods of reading and discussing literature, we still prefer Smarr's approach for several reasons.

We find that the Smarr guides provide great vocabulary exercises that really cause the student to think! The exercises mirror those used on SAT's and ACT's and are much more than just fill-in-the-blank. The questions that follow the reading each day, while often comprehension level questions, are still very good (as so much of reading and enjoying higher level classic literature is truly based upon getting the literal comprehension of what is going on in the story first). Then, there are often one or two higher level application questions to discuss. Last, there are notes on many days that give more insight into the historical context of the story. These are true gems! Plus, Smarr has a full answer key (except for the higer level thinking questions, which don't have one "right" answer...much like DITHR). A last caveat I like about Smarr is it's pacing of reading the literature. The pacing moves quickly enough to keep the student engaged in the reading, but not so fast as to overwhelm the student with readings that are too lengthy. There is much to like about this program, and I must admit I like more now that we have tried some other methods.

As far as what we'll schedule for high school literature in our high school guides, I have to say that at this point I am leaning toward using Smarr to design an Intro. to Lit. year, a British literature or world literature year, an American literature year, and a final year that has one semester of a choice of Leithert's Austen guide or Leithert's Shakespeare guide.

We will have already read some Austen and some Shakespeare by that point, so I'm thinking that 4 books will remain in each Leithert guide, and the choice can be to do either guide for a semester doing only 4 of the works. The last semester of the senior year, we are leaning toward doing Lightning Lit. British Christian authors. So, with Austen/Shakespeare one semester and British Christian authors one semester that last year could be a Brit. lit year or just listed as .5 credit in Austen or Shakespeare and .5 credit in British Christian authors or Brit.lit.

Anyway, this is just my thinking at this point, and as always this is subject to change. We won't follow the traditional Smarr course line-up, but will likely mix and match to make our own Smarr plan from Smarr's available guides. We're also considering Wordsmith Craftsman as a possibility for composition spread out over several years along with Smarr. We'd do Smarr's writing lessons at some point for a year as well. Our oldest son did them as a freshman, and they were excellent (and tough).

Anyway, this is likely much more than you needed but I know many of you are pondering options for high school level lit. and comp., so I thought my ramblings might be of some help.

Blessings,
Carrie

[flackattack]

Hi,
I was just curious if you had a link for the Leithert's Austen or Shakespeare guides. I have tried googling that, but I don't seem to come up with anything that makes much sense. I found some biographies, but no guides on books. I was just interested in getting more info on those!
Thanks,
Katie

[LynnH]

The Shakespeare guide is called Brightest Heaven of Invention.

[Prairiegirl40]

I think this might be the other book mentioned....

(Updated by Carrie to reflect book title is Minatures and Morals by Leithert)

[beverett]

I was just going to add that per Carries recommendations, we did DITHOR with some of her book suggestions for 9th grade an that went very well. Then for this year (10th) we are doing SMARR (Introduction to Lit. pack)_, and absolutely LOVE it. Carrie had suggested either Smarr or Llatl and we went with Smarr after much thought and looking at both...but I would agree that for 9th that Dithor was great for us also!!

[Carrie]

Brandi,

I just had to pop-in and thank you so much for sharing! It was so helpful to hear that you found DITHR for grade 9 to be a good fit and also that you are enjoying working through Smarr's Intro. to Lit. this year. We enjoyed it ourselves, and I love to hear feedback from those who have tried a similar path!

Blessings,
Carrie