high school literature

Online Homeschool High School Poetry (No Teaching Involved)

November 19, 2018 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I have an awesome online homeschool high school poetry movie or class to tell you about. Also, look at my page How to Homeschool High School for more great tips and resources!

When my boys entered the high school years I admit feeling intimidated to teach poetry.

An online homeschool high school poetry class with no teaching involved sounded pretty good.

Online Homeschool High School Poetry (No Teaching Involved)

Besides fighting my sons’ perception that poetry is too emotional and for girls only, I struggled with the humdrum way I was taught poetry in high school.

I was given this product for free. All opinions are my own and for sure I will always tell you what is on my mind. When I do accept a product it’s because I’m giddy to tell you about it. Read my full disclosure here. Now on to the fun!

High School Poetry

When I saw that Literary Adventures for Kids had an online homeschool high school Poetry & a Movie literature course, I couldn’t wait to get started on it with my third teen.

Movies, an online self-paced course, and a hands-off approach to teaching the Poetry & a Movie literature course piqued my interest. My son not so much.

However, by using this course I’m so tickled that I’ve been able to ignite my son’s interest in poetry.

This course has easily become one of my favorites and must-haves for teaching high school teens poetry.

Online Homeschool High School Poetry (No Teaching Involved). When I saw that Literary Adventures for Kids had an online homeschool high school Poetry & a Movie literature course, I couldn't wait to get started on it with my third teen. Click here for this fun high school course!

Overview of Poetry & a Movie

Let me back up first and give you a bird’s-eye view of this super course:

it’s self-paced and online
there is no physical product and my high school teen loved to pick up and go at his leisure
the literature course has 10 units
it is a study of the master poets and their poetry
it is a study of the poetic devices or literary elements
videos are scattered throughout
it has a grammar component
it’s designed to give your teen the broad strokes of literary elements so there is no overwhelm
you can purchase the books used in the course or borrow them from your local library
a movie suggestion is included for a unit end celebration
there is flexibility to use this course as a full high school credit, one-half of a language arts course, or enrichment

Although studying literary elements is the foundation of poetry over prose, I couldn’t take that usual approach with my son.

Another roadblock of high school programs is that most use a textbook method.

My son is an auditory learner.

Online Literature Course for Homeschooled Teens

You know my struggle through the years with him because taking notes doesn’t work well with him.

I need to blend different styles of teaching to fit his need to learn in a way that appeals to him and make this course a challenge.

Taking information in through audio works extremely well.

The Poetry and a Movie course uses an eclectic method of teaching by combining video, text, and real books. Win!

Besides searching for courses that match his learning style, I had to overcome his perception that poetry is not manly.

If you have boys you know what I mean. Challenge on.

Instead of picking up another boring textbook about literary devices and beginning there, the course begins with a series of videos about what is poetry.

I won’t ruin the videos for your kids, but I heard a chuckle or two from my son.

Poetry and Living Books for Teens

Using the living book in the course that is suggested as a spine or frame for this course is what my son loved.

Remember, a spine is normally a living book that is the foundation on which a course is built.

That is another win for the course because real books should still be used in high school.

Now that I had my son hooked on the course, the next step was to choose a master poet that would help my son let go of his negative perception of poetry.

Before I tell you what I did, it’s important for your teen to cover the master poets in order.

If this is your middle or high school teen’s first introduction to the beauty of poetry, don’t skip ahead like I had to do.

I was tickled to see Edgar Allan Poe listed as one of the master poets.

We moved right to his poems first because my son needed to understand that poetry is not just about love; poetry is about real things in the world like cruelty, war, nature, despair, and friendship.

Because the powerful words of Poe were the first ones that inspired me, I was almost sure his words would not make my teen yawn. It worked.

Next the unit moves on to helping your teen define literary devices by using video to teach them and giving examples.

At this point, your teen will set up his poetry notebook.

Poetry, Literary Elements, and Trivia are the tabbed sections in the notebook.

Teaching Teens about Literary Elements

Guide your teen to help him set up the tabbed sections because they give your learner a way to break down learning into meaningful and fun parts.

After all, learning poetry should have an organized approach so as to not miss one tiny detail.

The teacher in me needs to be sure my son comes away from high school with a foundation in literature and appreciation for figurative language and not just analytical writing.

The trivia section in the notebook helped my teen to see that poetry is lively, upbeat, and challenging.

I mentioned before that this course uses many different teaching styles, but it equally incorporates different homeschool approaches.

The study of poetry is both a classical and Charlotte Mason feature.

Charlotte Mason touts studying one artist or composer for a while.

Studying one master poet thoroughly is the same approach in this course.

Instead of quickly shifting focus, poetry requires lingering on words and digging deep for the intentions of wordplay by master poets.

After my initial fast forwarding to a point in the course to hook my kid on poetry, we benefited from staying focused on one poet for a considerable length of time.

Mastery is also a unit study feature and that was one huge benefit for us in this course.

Living Books and Online Poetry Study

Having a culminating activity like watching a movie together or having teatime with your teen keeps it fun.

Of course I didn’t dare mention teatime to my boy, but popping some popcorn and lighting the fireplace before a movie made it memorable.

Although the course is designed so that your teen can learn independently, don’t miss out by not reading the poems together. Poetry is supposed to be read out loud.

Mentoring your teen doesn’t stop in high school.

If you want him to appreciate figurative language and rhyme, then he needs to hear your voice.

I enjoyed reading the poems out loud with my teen, but you don’t have to.

Another benefit of the program is that he can read it along side the narrator on each video.

I have to admit, my voice was no substitute for the narrator reading “The Tyger” by William Blake. Your teen will love listening closely as the poem is read to him.

Although you can use the course for writing lessons, my goal was to use the time to kindle my son’s appreciation for poetry.

5 More Things You Should Know About Poetry & a Movie

One/ The specifics of the course are the introduction, the master poets which are Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Langston Hughes, William Wordsworth, William Butler Yeats, Dylan Thomas, and Robert Frost.

The last section is a Final Project writing essays.

Two/ You will need to determine beforehand how much credit you will assign to your teen.

Of course this depends on how extensive you want to use this online language arts course.

Third/ Each poet has been planned for a month-long study. Because I wanted to get the flavor of the course, we initially skipped around as I explained earlier.

Now, my son prefers to cover one master poet in-depth.

Four/ There is unlimited access to the course and I see this as a huge savings.

If you don’t know by now, curriculum for older kids is more expensive.

We’re preparing teens for adulthood and curriculum shouldn’t just impart knowledge or rote facts; it should stir a teen’s mind to be included in the bigger picture of life after high school.

Teaching a teen how to think using poetry as an analysis cements beautiful thoughts in our kid’s mind and reciting poetry is a memory aid to use into adulthood.

You don’t want to miss covering poetry and it’s especially fun when there is no stress planning.

In addition, this course can be used in a few different ways to get your money’s worth.

The master poets and literary elements can be introduced in middle school.

In high school, use the course again, but fold in the grammar and essay components for high school credit. It’s a two-fer.

The best part is that you can use this with all of your younger kids. What a deal for a course that is prepped and ready to go.

Five/ Literary Adventures for Kids is owned by a homeschooling family. Y

ou know how much I prefer curriculum prepared by a homeschooling family because they get it when we need curriculum easy to teach and that appeals to a variety of learners. Another win for me.

Poetry Study for Homeschool High School

Poetry & a Movie may be a good fit for your family:

if your child needs multiple approaches to learning
if your child prefers using real books instead of a textbook
if you want to foster independence with your middle or high school teen, but want your child to have a framework to follow
if you fear teaching poetry and want to learn alongside your teen
if you prefer an online self-paced course over a physical product
if you need a course prepped and ready to go with minimal teacher planning

Bottom Line: I’m extremely delighted with Poetry & a Movie and any apprehensions I had that my teen son may find poetry only a girl’s subjects has been put to rest. Hearing him repeat part of the poems he learned as he goes through his day is a proud mama moment.

I am so pleased with this course and I just can’t think of anything that needs to be changed.

I would highly recommend it if you have a teen that needs to learn outside the box, but don’t have time to prepare a unit study.

Poetry & a Movie is a keeper in my home and I plan on going over it again both as a standalone course and to use as a review tool.

I look forward to seeing my son build on the foundational skills he learned in this poetry course. This has been a rewarding experience and has helped my son enjoy learning to write and read poetry!

Thanks to Literary Adventures for Kids for this excellent product to serve the homeschool community!

Go on over and give it a look see. I’ll know you love it as much as I do!

How to Purchase It.

Product Name: Literary Adventures for Kids – Poetry and a Movie

Website: Literary Adventure for Kids/Hide the Chocolate
Grade Level: 7th grade and up Note: There are products for your younger kids too.
Type of product: These is an online course. No physical product will be shipped to you.

Also, you’ll love these other helps for high school:

Hugs and love ya,

Get It Over and Done: How Do Homeschoolers Graduate Early

July 22, 2018 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

When one of my sons told me he wanted to be over and done with high school, I was setback. I felt like a failure especially because we’ve homeschooled from the beginning. I wanted him to love the academic part of high school as much as my other graduate, but he had a different mindset. I know homeschoolers graduate early all the time and it’s not a surprising fact, but my kid was not having any part of accelerated academics or it seemed like it at the moment. To me, he had the get it over and done with attitude.

Looking back now after my older sons have been graduated for a few years, I have a different view of the get it over and done with mindset.

At the time a kid cops this attitude, it seems like his whole future will be ruined. I’m here to tell you that is not always so. You need to look past your initial gut reaction if it’s negative; try to remember years later when you are having coffee together as besties this will be a memory for the right reason.

Your kid’s journey can still go from mediocre to memorable, but only if you handle this stage reasonably.

Moving Past the Four-Year Homeschool High School Plan

Look at these 3 points you need to think about. Then, I have a few tips and tricks.

One/ Try to understand what your teen is thinking about regarding his future.

Don’t jump to the conclusion that get it over and done means laziness or lack of motivation. It may be right now, but your teen’s maturity level is still changing.

Too, after I had an in-depth talk with my son, I understood his reasons for wanting a simple framework so he could graduate early.

At the time, my husband had just suffered a terrible health set back and all of my kids matured significantly that year. I have mixed feelings on my kids giving up some of their carefree childhood years, but that is another thread.

All of my kids understood the fragility of life and my son was ready to navigate his future. He wasn’t content for choosing subjects each year for a four-year high school program. He wanted to plot what was absolutely essential so that he could graduate.

I needed to focus more time on letting him explore what he wanted to do for the future. Doing that partially satisfied his feeling of uneasiness.

Have you seen these two great resources, Career Exploration for Homeschool High School Students and What Color is Your Parachute for Teens?

That brings me to my next point which is you have to be ready when homeschooling high school to decide what is your bottom line.

Two/ Rise to the occasion and decide what is your bottom line for graduation requirements.

I’ll admit it. I was unprepared for my minimum requirements because for so long my son was filling all of my requirements. I want you prepared.

Here is a general rule of thumb;

A graduation certificate is generally awarded when a teen has between 18-19 credits at the minimum. I’ve also seen 16 credits as the minimum. Look here at Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School.
Then up to to 22-24 credits and higher for college readiness.

So choose a number of credits, but base it on subjects that will benefit your teen the most.

Three/ Be creative and think outside of the 4-year plan. Mix and match community college with online courses and self-guided learning.

Although I’m on board with any of my kids wanting to get a start on their career or college path, I wasn’t prepared for an alternative route other than the CLEP route I had prepared for him.

The point I’m making is to understand clearly what your teen is wanting to do. More listening than talking was hard for me. Not easy, but I did it.

My son knew the value of preparing for a career; he was just ready to get on with it now, not later.

There are many ways to fill high school graduation requirements besides the four-year plan.

Decide what courses your teen will take and remember that community college can be a great advantage for teens who want to progress. For example, your teen can take two years of basic math and take two years of math at the community college. It’s called dual enrollment. Ages vary by college. He’ll receive college credit at the same time. This option made both of my older sons feel that they had choices. Your goal of high standards and your teen’s goal of moving on can be met. You just need to be sure you and your teen understand all the options.
Although this is the son that normally prefers hands-on and interactive learning, he enjoyed using PAC (Paradigm Accelerate Curriculum) because they are a set number of booklets or worktext to complete. Instead of unrestrained exploring, my teen had a definite finish to the course. No extra books were required for reading. Do the worktext and be finished. This went a long way to making him feel that he could see a definite finish.
Also, I had to determine my goals for language arts. Reminding myself that we had spent many years with quality literature, I was happy to find the Dover Literature Guides a great fit. They promoted self-learning and independence. Questions are right there in the book for literary analysis. It was up to my teen and me to decide how many to read for literature purposes. What is a good rule of thumb for how many books a teen needs to read in each grade? Some providers choose anywhere from 15 to 20 books for the year with about 6 being used for analysis. Again, you determine based on your child’s interest how many he should read and how many should be for analysis.
Lastly, don’t forget dvd based learning and easy online courses like HippoCampus and Khan Academy to fill whatever else you may think your teen needs in order to complete his high school.

Can Homeschoolers Graduate Early?

Look at some of these insider’s tips, tricks, and things to know if your homeschooler graduates early:

Your teen may be ready to move on with his career choice, life choice, or college choice. If so, balance his high school subjects as much as possible so that you don’t close the door to any future opportunities. This means decide your bare essentials for graduating. Two years is a good start — two years of language arts, two years of science, two years of math, and etc. Most states have relaxed homeschool laws which means you determine the number of credits and prepare the transcript. If your state does not require a certain number of years or credits, then design your transcript.
There is nothing wrong with taking a gap year. Let your teen take off a year. Although gap years normally happen at the end of a senior year, your teen may be ready now to explore his future choices. When we moved to South America, unintentionally, it turned out to be a better thing for my discontented teen than I realized at the time. I knew the whole family would benefit, but I had no idea. The shift in focus allowed him a break, it put emphasis on the family, and it gave him a shift in focus he needed at the time.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think any parent is prepared for having a teen hanging around the house with no direction and too much time on his hands. Discussion needs to be had about why you’re agreeing to shorten the time. Whether it means your teen is wanting to move ahead with his career choice or college track, there needs to be a plan. If you and your husband decide to switch gears and try the direction your child is wanting to go, you need clear expectations and consequences. I knew my son was wanting to go ahead and start taking his college courses on line. With that choice he made, my son felt like he was moving faster toward his goals, but he also understood that he wasn’t graduating early to hang around the house with idle hands.
If your child wants to graduate early to be done with school because of his attitude, it’s an uphill battle, but winnable. If that is the case, I recommend that you cut back his academic load, allow him some time to pursue work. Mix in some community college classes so he is with adults and gets a taste of the real world. Try to not shut down communication, but don’t make any promises you’re not willing to keep. For example, if he doesn’t learn now that he has to finish what he started, he will take the easy way out in a lot of decisions as an adult. By easing up on his academic load, you’re giving him time to mature too. He may need time to decide the direction he wants to go and hopefully you’re guiding him to what you want for him too.

Don’t let something that could potentially break the peace you have with your teen wreck your household.

Teens still very much still try to push the bounds or limits.

If you’re firm on what your absolute minimum is most teens given some time will come around to seeing things from a reasonable standpoint.

If your teen sees that you’re trying and you’ve said you want the best for him, you need to be willing to let him start making decisions for what is best for him.

And remember this, which was the hardest thing for me at the time — as long as you maintain a close relationship with your teen and show him your positive attitude toward learning, he can return to whatever path you’ve laid out for him.

Now that my son is close to finishing college at his pace, on his own terms, and I add giving a hundred percent and advancing with excellent grades, anything he told me in his teen years pales into comparison.

It wasn’t the end, it was just the beginning of him taking control.

Also, I have many other tips to share with you. Don’t get overwhelmed, you’ve got this:

Hugs and love ya,

Modern U.S. and World History High School Literature

May 2, 2018 | 48 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Let’s face it! Whether you’ve homeschooled your kids from the beginning or started part way through, choosing high school literature can be intimidating. Until I started using Beautiful Feet Books a few years back, I made the high school years unnecessarily stressful. You want the peace of mind knowing you prepared your teen well by using great books whether he chooses a career or college track.

So using modern U.S. and world history literature by Beautiful Feet Books not only filled a general literature credit Tiny needs, but also allowed us to meet a modern world history credit.

I stalked the mailman waiting for these books. I was given this product for free and I was compensated for my time. However, paid for my time does not mean paid off or that a company will receive a glowing review. I don’t roll that way. ALL opinions are my own and for sure I will always tell you what is on my mind. When I do accept a product it’s because I’m giddy to tell you about it. Read my full disclosure here. Now on to the fun stuff!

How to Narrow Down Your High School Literature Scope

Understanding that you have to have goals or reasons other than needing literature in high school makes it easier to narrow down your choices for literature and curriculum providers.

That may be an obvious statement, but there are many factors that you want to consider when choosing a program for your junior or senior teen.

Let's face it! Whether you've homeschooled your kids from the beginning or started part way through, choosing high school literature can be intimidating. You want the peace of mind knowing you prepared your teen well by using great books whether he chooses a career or college track. You’ll love these high school literature books along with the literary analysis. CLICK HERE to read about this curriculum!

I have several reasons for using and believing in Beautiful Feet Books:

foremost is our love for literature-based history to avoid a boring and blah approach to history,
thought-provoking books which may conflict with our world view or tug at my teen’s emotions are part of my job in preparing him for adulthood,
the role of the teacher is valued, respected, and encouraged with this curriculum to shape the teen’s understanding,
as the supervising teacher, I need to be the one to decide when and how we will deal with sensitive adult themes,
all of my sons need to be exposed to literature which may be covered in higher education,
a passion for history of any time period is awakened and appreciated through the use of living books, and
although non-fiction is important for a framework of facts, advanced literary criticism happens when a teen selects from excellent fiction literature to analyze.

My reasons may or may not include classic books, but they always include good books or living literature.

Too, having the opportunity to cover modern world history was not something I even thought about covering with my first high school graduate.

Sticking to the commonly held belief that high school teens need to have an emphasis on American history or U.S. government, I over emphasized those time periods with my first graduate.

Of course, hindsight gives you perfect vision. So I knew with my second and now third high school teen that I could tailor and tweak to suit their needs because Beautiful Feet Books is flexible when it comes to covering history.

Most of the middle school and high school curriculum includes two history eras. I never appreciated this fact until I switched from a strictly classical approach to a more eclectic approach with an emphasis on unit studies.

At first notion, this dual history period approach may seem hodgepodge. However it’s quite the opposite for a true historian. And there are two main reasons.

1. Past history and today’s current events always have multiple world powers and key players in action at the same time.
While it’s true that an in-depth study of any civilization would make a fascinating study, my goal for high school is for my sons to have a framework of key events in a time period.

2. Being able to pull back and look at events happening in the world at the same time helped my teens to make a meaningful connection to what they’re learning.

Juniors and seniors especially have the maturity now to see that one area of history is part of a much larger piece of the history puzzle. Being able to pull back and see the broad strokes of history like the events in the U.S. and world history simultaneously works well for both a history lover and history hater.

For my history lovers, it gives them additional topics for rabbit trails. For my one history hater, (yes I can’t believe I had a child that came from me that wasn’t wild about history) he got an overview of key events without overwhelming him about details which didn’t interest him.

That is exactly why I love the way Beautiful Feet Books designs their courses. All of the benefits of teaching it to adjust to each of my teens likes and dislikes along with my need for minimal teacher prep makes it a superior high school literature program.

The Nitty-Gritty of Modern U.S. and World History Literature

I know you want the nitty-gritty like I do. Look at what this level includes and the details:

it’s designed for Junior and Senior levels of high school,
it covers American and modern world history from the 1850s into the 2000s,
you can award one American history or modern world history credit and one general literature credit,
it’s a one year study, but we go a bit longer because we school into the summer and we like to spread it out,
it is Christian-based, but as with all of their literature and questions, it’s easier than some other providers to tweak to what I want my sons to know,
these beautiful books: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Rifles for Watie, The Red Badge of Courage, Virginia’s General, Up From Slavery, Around the World in Eighty Days, A History of the Twentieth Century, The Jungle, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Yanks are Coming, Stalin: Russia’s Man of Steel, No Promises in the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, Hitler, Churchill, The Hiding Place, Night, Unbroken, Victory in the Pacific, Hiroshima, Lost Names, America and Vietnam: The Elephant and the Tiger, Red Scarf Girl and The Kite Runner,
and it has a general literary analysis study. My goal was to be sure that Tiny had a general grasp on literary concepts. We used another language arts resource to enhance this one. Although literary analysis is very important to me at this age, it can be fun. For us that means learning it from books we love.

My emphasis on literary analysis leads me into another valued part of this curriculum which deserves the spotlight and it’s the Study Guide or teacher’s guide.

Modern U.S. and World History Literature Study Guide

I hesitate to call it just the teacher’s guide because at this age your teen needs to be independently delving into the Study Guide. Of course, it’s a teacher guide too.

Because the Study Guide is jam-packed full of teaching tidbits, supplements, and background information, you’ll want to take your time understanding how it’s set up.

The Study Guide is divided into five history periods:

Part I. Antebellum and the Civil War
Part II. Reconstruction, the Industrial Revolution, and the Turn of the Century
Part III. The First World War, the Depression, and Segregation
Part IV. Building Towards War, the Second World War, and the Atomic Age
Part V. The Struggle for Freedom in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

To help your student hone his ideology and principles there are themes in each section. Some of them are:

A Study in Freedom and Responsibility,
A Study in Conviction and Triumph,
A Study in Fortitude and Forgiveness,
A Study in Ambition and Courage,
and a Study in Conscience and Fairness.

In addition to the extensive notes in the Study Guide with background information, points in each lesson guided us on each discussion.

After reading the books like Stalin: Russia’s Man of Steel or Virginia’s General: Robert E. Lee and the Civil War it made for some great discussions about topics like freedom and prejudice. I loved having the themes to guide my teen to comprehend the theme in each book which is a part he has struggled with in the past.

Because my high school kid worked on his own on part of this, I have to rely heavily on the Study Guide for the answers, questions, and some of the background information. Although it’s not easy to flip back and forth between time periods and books, you can easily with the way this is laid out.

Also, some of the books my son read right away and wanted to delve deeper into those topics. World War II is one topic that my son knows well and never gets tired of talking about. Besides reading the books in the curriculum by Albert Marrin, one of our favorite history authors, the Study Guide has more recommended books and videos in the back to feed my son’s love for the Second World War.

Yet another reason I loved using this is that we needed more help in literary analysis. I’ve never been keen on assigning book reports although I know they have a practical purpose which is to train a child to write critically in the older grades.

Because I’ve never forced Tiny to do a formal book report, but have worked on reading a lot of good books I needed to be sure he has a good grasp on literary concepts.

There are six books highlighted to use for literary analysis:

Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
The Red Badge of Courage,
To Kill a Mockingbird,
Night,
Hiroshima,
and Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood.

Learning literary analysis should be repeated like grammar and it’s best taught in context or while using examples from literature. As an example, earlier I mentioned ideologies listed in each section. The reason this was important is because even at this grade level students can still get confused between the plot of the story and its theme.

Exposing my sons to the basic elements of fiction like plot, setting, character, point of view, mood, and theme are the foundation of literary analysis, but I wanted to be sure we touched advanced concepts as well.

In addition, there are some literary concepts that can’t be recognized until your child is older. Some figures of speech and poetry devices confuses my teen. So the books used gave him a good overall grasp of basic and advanced concepts.

It’s not necessary to break down every novel, but it’s important to choose a few to do. I try to be balanced when teaching literature analysis because I don’t want to suck the joy out of reading, but it’s important for our teens to become critical thinkers too.

Simply requiring my son to write down the term, define it, and explain it to me is a simple method, but it’s the same one I’ve used since I first taught him to read. Too, we wrote a few on index cards for review because just writing it down once didn’t mean he remembered it. Making a notebook like we have as we’ve used Beautiful Feet Books work best for us.

In addition to the literary concepts we focused on, we also chose a few of the essay topics. Essay writing was not my exact focus for him because we’ve done a lot of writing. When we wanted to, however, the Study Guide made it easy for us to choose writing topics.

The Study Guide is much more than an question and answer guide. It is the backbone at this level and it’s all-inclusive.

Our Experience with Modern U.S. and World History Literature by Beautiful Feet Books

Even at the high school level, there is no one-size-fits-all curriculum. As the parents, we still have to be involved when choosing the right curriculum for our teen.

This is my third high school teen to use Beautiful Feet Books because I love their literature and easy approach to teaching. I’ve never been disappointed with the high quality literature, guides, and help for the teacher. This level is no exception.

As the teacher, I don’t think you ever stop worrying if you’ve prepared you teen enough for whatever track you ultimately decide. However, I do know that my first two sons are doing well in college after using Beautiful Feet Book. I know my third teen is equally well-prepared.

You’ll love reading these other posts for how I used

Read about Medieval History for Middle School
Read about How to Teach Science Through A Story – Middle & High School
Read about When We Used Beautiful Feet Books as our History Spine

How to Purchase It.

►Product Name: Modern U.S. and World History pack
►Website: Beautiful Feet Books – BFBooks

How to Transition a Child From Reading to Literature

August 14, 2017 | 1 Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

When I was in 8th grade I had an English teacher who loved words and literary analysis. I picked up her love of words and reading, but not so much her affection for literary analysis. Later in life, my fondness for literary analysis and literature was ignited but my earlier aversion affected how I started teaching reading.

Determined that my boys would not be aliterate, I did some things right and some not so right when I first began to teach reading.

What I should’ve done with my first son was to introduce elements of literature earlier than I did. I’m grateful I didn’t totally mess up my kid because his love for excellent literature is apparent today.

From Reading to Literature

Let me back up first because understanding what is literature and what is reading can be confusing to the non-professional. It was to me.

And because there are so many facets about comprehending what is literature, it can seem almost over the top to grasp.

I’m going to speak in broad terms here because it’s important to see the big picture before you know how to transition a child from reading to literature. Teaching a child to read has these elements:

from the time he can sat on your lap, you begin reading aloud;
you teach him to associate symbols, which he later understands are letters with sounds;
you teach him that grouping together more than one letter helps him to blend sounds;
you begin to engage in formal and direction instruction which is phonics;
you continue with assisting him in learning phonics to about the fourth grade if necessary;
while you’re teaching him letter sounds, he cements those sounds by reading them in books, which gives him a purpose for reading;
you progress from early readers to chapter books; and
all throughout the years, you should be very picky about the quality of literature so that you hook an emerging reader on to lifelong reading.

Not focusing just on how to read but fostering a love of it in the early years is the key. That’s a tough enough job.

Here is one of my favorite programs to teach reading!

Switching gears to teaching literature is a gradual process as I’ve learned. It’s my opinion that whether or not you take a literature course in college, you’re not really prepared to know when to introduce all the features of literature to a young child. Of course, if you’re an English teacher that is different.

Before I go further, it’s important to also look at the elements of teaching literature which gives you a starting point in how to teach it. Here are some easy to understand features:

it’s about using good books that inspire readers;
it can effect the lives of people;
it may be praised for its literary value;
it may be famous for its historical value;
it’s about learning genres along with the elements of fiction;
it’s about exposure to a higher level vocabulary;
it’s learning how to extract meaning beyond what the author is stating;
it’s appreciating why literature can move us;
it’s about choosing a method, whether it’s an oral discussion only or part worksheet or part oral discussion to find one that suits your child’s learning style; and
it’s about moving from soft or fun literature to sophisticated literature which may not always be so fun.

As you can see, literature is an immense area to study. Knowing when to transition to teaching literature and not teaching reading is not an exact science.

Taming it doesn’t have to be a struggle if you know what to focus on at which ages or levels.

Now that you have an overview of the difference, here are a few strategies that won’t overwhelm you.

One/ Introduce genre in a natural way and not like I did with a workbook.

Even though I messed up with one child, I still had time to for a do over.

Instead of pulling out a worksheet to match genre types for books which your kids may not have read, simply explain the type of book it is.

As we read together from about third grade on, I saw the need to start explaining the genre and setting.

Now that two of my sons are young adults, I get different opinions from them.

One son critiqued me and wished I was more formal at the time when explaining the type of literature we were going to discuss and to include more worksheets. The second son critiqued me and said he wished there were no worksheets at all.

Teaching literature should take your child’s learning style into consideration but I also remember that I’m doing the teaching. And just because something is forced, it doesn’t mean it’s not good for my sons.

A balance between discussion and workbooks I feel gives a well-rounded approach and I ended up adapting to both learning styles

Two/ Book reports are not always required but you’ll want to determine a standard in how to analyze a reading.

What you would expect from a middle school student is not the same that you would expect from a high school teen.

Instead of doing book reports, take time to discuss the book with them. This means they read and come back to tell what they learned. I know it takes time, but literature is about taking time to let it move you.

In the beginning, they will just want to tell you what the book is about. Believe me after hearing the retelling of To Kill a Mockingbird numerous times, I thought I would lose patience. But seeing expressions on each of my son’s faced as they read it, made each time feel new. Each kid will identify with the protagonist, Scout, whether they agree with her or not. And understanding a six-year-old with a great wit is what drew my sons into learning about the story.

Three/ Analyzing and teaching literature is a gradual unfolding.

I did this part wrong too. When Mr. Senior 2013 started middle school, I thought that instantly he was going to understand things like a figure of speech, the elements of fiction, author’s point of view, and etc.

I needed to slow down and realize that from about middle to high school, analyzing literature is a gradual process. Just like higher level math requires a more mature thinking, so does literature.

Don’t be locked into grades, but evaluate each child’s reading level and comprehension.

If a child can’t read well yet or is still struggling to comprehend, it’s hard to delve into a deeper meaning of a novel.

Let him lounge in the learning to read stage a while longer.

If You Can Read, You Can Teach Literature

Although I didn’t completely turn my son off to excellent literature, I almost made the mistake by several educators which is to make learning about it too mechanical.

With my next sons, I added in hands-on learning in the elementary grades and middle school.

For example, while discussing the setting of a book, my sons drew what they thought a time period looked like.

When we read Winnie-the-Pooh they drew a forest for the Hundred Acre Wood. A simple map brings the setting of the book to life.

More Language Arts Resources

I didn’t know using puppets would be such a great hit with understanding If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

Those are just a few tips in such a broad topic but I wanted to dive into sharing with you what worked and what didn’t work for me.

I’m going to continue on this topic by sharing some upcoming posts with tips about teaching your kids to high school.

Would you like to get some more tips? Tell me what kind of help you need the most.

Hugs and love ya,

Free Middle and High School Homeschool Language Arts

January 30, 2015 | 28 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I am sharing free middle and high school homeschool language arts resources. Also, look at my page homeschool middle school and how to homeschool high school page for more fun tips

Update: You know I love ya so when I round up freebies, I round up everything I can find.

I do not have the answer keys to these free resources below.

Free Middle and High School Homeschool Language Arts

Kindly said: Please do not email me asking about the answer sheets, other teacher guides or tests. If and when I find them, I will post them for you and me.

These workbooks are ones that I have kept up with and used through the years with my sons as enrichment.

The links have changed and as I have found them, I have updated my links.

Too, I have found new resources to add, but never had them in one place.

Middle and High School Homeschool Language Arts

After using some of the books, they are pretty nifty enough to almost be used as stand alone curriculum.

Too, kazillion (new invented word alert) resources exist for helping you out in preschool, kindergarten and early elementary and after that, free resources seem to thin out.

Determined to have plenty of free homeschool language arts program through middle and high school, I hope you can use a few of these with your kids.