literature – Page 2

A Little Maid of Virginia from Applewood Books: Review

September 24, 2013 Grace-Filled Writer

Life in colonial America has become a recurrent theme for this year as we prepared for our trip to Williamsburg.

Rose loves all things history and is reading several years ahead of her expected grade-level. The struggle I have is providing her engaging stories written in a way that will challenge her, but also be age-appropriate. The Little Maid series by Alice Curtis has provided wonderful historical fiction at a higher reading level which is also appropriate for her young 8 years. She has read one other book by Alice Curtis which she really enjoyed and definitely looked forward to beginning A Little Maid of Virginia.

I scheduled Rose to read a chapter from the book each day. This was one of the most challenging books she has read simply because of the language style. Written in the early part of the 20th century, the complex descriptions and sentence structure are not easy for our 21st century minds. My sweet girl jumps right into challenges though and is not afraid to say, “What does this mean, Mommy?” I truly feel challenging a child’s abilities gently and intentionally is the best way for them to progress.

Rose enjoyed the historical aspects and it opened many opportunities to discuss life during this time as well as more information about the Revolutionary War. The fact that the story revolves around two girls who are cousins made it very enjoyable for her to read as she is also very close to her cousins.

This also would make an excellent read-aloud choice for family reading. It is a wonderful example of the living books way to introduce history to young girls. Many aspects of colonial times and the Revolutionary War are difficult to express to young children because of their sadness and violence, yet Alice Curtis inspired my daughter to want to know more and gently introduced her to this period of history.

Are you looking for great classic novels to introduce your daughters to history? This is a wonderful series to check out!

Disclaimer: I received A Little Maid of Virginia from Applewood Books in return for an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. This is my own opinion.

Teaching the Classics from Institute for Excellence in Writing: Review

July 1, 2013 Grace-Filled Writer

My favorite subject to teach is literature. In high school I couldn’t wait to go to my senior English class. Mrs. Moore had extremely high expectations, but she inspired me. She clearly loved literature with a passion, taught dynamically, and invested herself wholeheartedly in her students. She was a big part of why I pursued my own degree in education, focusing on teaching English to middle school kids. I am currently blessed beyond measure to teach a small group of middle school homeschoolers one day a week from September to May. I love this and am always looking for new ways to teach literature to my students. Since I am given permission to create my own units and choose which literature we study, I have great freedom to teach what I love.

I always felt literature had much more to offer students than mere literature studies have to offer. Adam and Missy Andrews agree, and have created a wonderful seminar published by Institute for Excellence in Writing called Teaching the Classics: A Socratic Method for Literary Education intended to teach you, the teacher. For $89.00 you receive this seminar taught at your convenience in your own home and includes all 6 sessions on 4 DVDs as well a workbook to use throughout the lessons. It is recorded during an actual seminar setting and you feel as if you are there. Andrew Moore’s dynamic style is engaging to watch and immediately drew me into the presentation.

Using actual literary examples Adam Andrews teaches a new way to look at teaching literature which breaks far away from the typical unit study of literature containing comprehension questions, vocabulary, and hands-on-activity. Adam begins by providing compelling arguments for the need to teach excellent literature in a way which benefits the student and creates a life-long learner. Although he didn’t need to sell me personally on this, I enjoyed his excellent debate for the need to provide young learners with a rich education in literature.

I was pleased to see this seminar shows how to teach the way I have always wanted to and aim to teach my students currently. I also love this is not simply for older students delving into great works of literature, but can be applied to even picture books with simplified questions. The biggest weakness I have when teaching is creating questions which require my students to think, not merely recall facts. I intend to greatly use the Socratic list of questions included in the workbook. While I have attempted to create questions which make my students think, I always felt as if I were falling short. There is value in comprehension questions, but they need to be followed by Socratic questions in order to stretch the student into deeper thinking.

I was also pleased with the description of conflicts. I learned a new conflict which I do not remember being taught in college or in my research as I structured my classes. This is particularly important to me because I discuss types of conflicts extensively with my students as this always promotes deeper thinking and excellent discussion.

I really like each teaching section is followed by a piece of “great literature” is read which gives opportunity for you to practically work through what is taught. This practical application allows the opportunity for you, the student, to see how this works in real-life. Literature by authors such as Beatrix Potter, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, and Harper Lee are used for practice.

The basic elements of literature are discussed in order to teach the best way to teach great literature. The explanation of authorship, style, plot, conflict, setting, character, and theme were incredibly thorough and useful. I have gained some new insights in how to express them to my students as I introduce them as I teach.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the seminar…

We need to “…understand the world from which the story came.”

On the application of using the Socratic List…”Now we have students who are thinkers”

About the Socratic List “Familiarity of these questions gained by long, continuous use, will make the understanding of difficult works easy.”

“The characters are the main link between the imaginary world and the author. The strength of the characters in the story and the author’s description of them…are the best way for the reader to enter the author’s world”

This is an excellent course no matter what level you are teaching. It will adequately equip you to create life-long readers who know how to think through literature beyond rote comprehension questions. Just based on this one course I have decided to further explore the writing curriculum at IEW for my girls.

Check out more reviews of this product and more from Institute for Excellence in Writing from my Crewmates!

Moving Beyond The Page: Review

June 24, 2013 Grace-Filled Writer

Good literature should inspire deeper learning. I have found this to be true of my daughters. When they read a good book, they are inspired to learn more. While my girls seem to naturally lean towards this tendency my experience full-time in the classroom has shown me not all children do. Moving Beyond the Page provides unique unit studies which provide interdisciplinary learning. For those who follow a delight-directed learning path there are so many options from which to choose!

The two units we reviewed covered Helen Keller and learning about sound. These two units were beautifully constructed to engage young learners in a way that makes the learning which occurs deeper and more comprehensive. The connections made between the science of hearing to Helen Keller’s story will last in my daughter’s mind for a long time.

The Helen Keller online unit is $22.87 and the Sound hard copy unit is $37.99. Both units were for the 7-9 year old age range, and there are materials available for ages 5-14 on the website. Each unit came with the needed literature and any hands-on supplements needed. Units vary in price based on the literature used and supplements which come with the unit. Each unit is intended to last around 1 month of learning and all literature units coincide with science and/or social studies. You can see and print sample curriculum by clicking here. Also available on the website are suggestions for reading and math so in essence you can find all you need to start homeschooling at Moving Beyond the Page!

My daughter really enjoyed reading Who Was Helen Keller? She knew of Helen Keller from a previous biography we read, but this one was much more engaging. I like that as we finished a portion I could check I had completed it online. I would have preferred an option of having the unit as entirely a pdf file as I don’t typically like to have the computer out during our instruction time. The worksheets were available as a pdf, but the lesson instructions were not.

Rose’s favorite activity was at the very beginning. She had to do some everyday tasks blindfolded and ears covered. I also put cotton balls in her ears. Although it wasn’t exactly like being deaf and blind, it gave her a small idea of what it was like for Helen Keller. This was such a fun way to start out the unit!

Another activity we used to learn sign language was a sign language DVD we already owned. We talked about how much harder it was for Helen since she could not see or hear.

So much is included in the unit. Fun activities, spelling, vocabulary and comprehension questions make up an excellent literature study which includes so much to make the learning experience fun!

Rose’s daddy helped her put together the 3D ear model included in the sound unit. This was not something she could have done on her own, but she did enjoy being part of the process.

The activities and information included in the sound unit for science were very enjoyable for my daughter. She learned how the ear works, how sound travels, and more! The hard-copy of this unit was beautifully bound so that just seeing the cover inspired my daughter to want to start learning right away. Also included was a biography about Alexander Graham Bell who we had not studied yet.

There were many worksheets, activities, and experiments included to aid in learning about sound and the human ear. Rose enjoyed making a musical instrument with her friend who had come over for the day. The girls worked diligently to make their homemade guitars just right.

They carried their instruments around all day and played all sorts of great music!

I like the combination of science with literature in order to engage learning. While I don’t typically use a unit study approach, I do like this for our summer studies. I have never combined a literature study with science before and I really liked doing so. It is so very important that my girls understand how all of life is incorporated together, not individual pockets of information. I love the many connections Rose made doing a literature and science study cohesively. .