TEACHING A LITERATURE CLASS - PART 1

TEACHING A LITERATURE CLASS - PART 1

A few of you asked for details about my literature classes, so I've sat down to reflect on the year.

When I made the decision to start, I had a couple of goals in mind. 1. Keep it on the small side so that all the kids participate. 2. If possible, do it in a comfortable environment. I hold my classes at my home. In the winter we sit in a room surrounded by thousands of books on comfortable couches and chairs. In the fall and spring we sit on a covered porch. Nature surrounds us. It is relaxing and beautiful. 3. Choose books that cover different genres and different time periods. Why?

I completely understand why curriculums pair books with their history focus for the year. I've used several. Some have worked really well for us, but some we dreaded continuing on book after book, because we didn't like the style, time period, etc. (Can someone say Middle Ages?) It is no fun when you feel like you are sludging your way through homeschool days for an entire year. In my book, it's a recipe for burnout for both mom and child! I know not all of you will get this comparison because some of you are math lovers, but as a kid I lived for what I call " the breath of fresh air problems." I can remember around fifth grade looking at my math book with multiple long division problems (the ones with the three digit divisors) and dreading it! One mistake in the entire LONG process and the whole problem was off. It was a proverbial mountain to climb every lesson, but then what a breath of fresh air it was to get to the area problems or pint/quart/pound conversion problems. Don't get me wrong! I believe it is necessary to do long division, and I believe that it is necessary to read books that we may not particularly enjoy, because it stretches us. However, I do not think it is necessary to do a whole year of misery. Do that book, then put a breath of fresh air behind it!

My students work on a five day schedule. Monday we meet for an hour discussion. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday I assign them reading in the book we are working through for 30 minutes. I don't assign chapters. More on that in a minute. Thursday I give them FREE READ DAY. This day is for them to choose a book and read for 30 minutes. I don't care the genre, I don't care if it's comics in the newspaper, graphic novel, etc. There's a reason for this. I am interested in hearing what they naturally gravitate to. When we meet the first question I ask them after greeting them is what did you free read this week? It gives us a moment to share something that they picked before we slide into the deeper stuff. It's an ice breaker. I want to take a moment to say that my assignment sheet that goes home with each student says the days with those assignments, but they know they are free to mix those days up how they please. Free read fits better on Tuesday this week because of sports, etc? Great! 3 days reading the assigned book for 30 min, 1 day of the free read before I see you at class on Monday.

Real life is calling me, so I'll be back with more thoughts later!