True confession: I really admire people who do literary analysis, but I simply wasn’t capable. It seems odd that someone who is such a fan of literature based curriculum should say that. I primarily used Sonlight, and later The Well Trained Mind. Sonlight was the easiest to use, but after a while we had read most of the books, so I switched to The Well Trained Mind reading lists and other “reading lists for the college bound” and tried to tie in the reading with the history. We didn’t do any “literature analysis” we just enjoyed the books. My kids loved it so much they both signed up for the great books and honors courses in college and did very well with it.
Blessings,
Lee
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The HomeScholar Helper » Hey, Someone Else Who Hates Literary Analysis! says:
[...] I Hate Literary Analysis – Part 1 I Hate Literary Analysis – Part 2 I Hate Literary Analysis – Part 3 I Hate Literary Analysis – Part 4 [...]
August 27th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Cynthia Morris says:
Wow Lee! Thanks for sharing this. It was so helpful to me to hear someone confirm what I’ve always thought and felt and was afraid to admit! This sets me free. We’ll enjoy studying literature and history more this year, than we did in the past I think! We read the books that are interesting and I won’t feel guilty about not requiring my son to read the books I think he would hate anyway!
June 27th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Wanda says:
Thank you, Lee, for providing needed affirmation of the direction I’ve decided to take our highschool literature studies. Its so good to hear confirmation from you of what I already knew to be true– that forcing a teenager to do a lot of literary analysis of great books can turn them off reading altogether, which was my own experience.
In the process of being forced to painstakingly dissect book after book in high school, I lost all interest in reading, though I’d been an avid reader in elementary grades. I want to prevent this from happening to my teenage son!
August 21st, 2010 at 4:07 pm