Excellence in Literature

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

 

It isn't always easy for a homeschool child to adjust to the process of writing  needed for college. Excellence in Literature helps with that. In fact, I have seen many literature based curriculum, but generally, they are highly teacher/ parent involved.

 

Introduction to Literature- English 1 comes highly recommended by many well respected experts from the homeschool community. It is packed with everything your child needs. While not targeted specifically to a home school student, it doesn't need any adjustments to be used in your homeschool classroom (i.e. no group projects or games that would be difficult or impossible to do with a single child). Each of the 9 challenging units helps guide the student through an important work or works of classic literature. Not only does this course encourage your 8th- 12th grader to read, but to look at the work(s) for each unit in relation to the time it was written and other relevant surrounding information- such as art. This course can easily be used in a co-op situation (check for licensing specifics of course), traditional classroom or a homeschool high school.

 

Unlike a course that just outlines what a child should do and leaves it up to a parent to get all the supporting material and scramble/ struggle to figure out how to grade the work, a clear rubric is provided for grading and is actually free for anyone who wishes to request it. This can assist with the grading of any English paper your child might have. However, the link didn't work for me when I tried. So, I am not sure when that will be fixed. This course is designed to be used by the student and gives them everything they need or informtion about where to get what is needed! Books are not included. It is recommended to buy the books that are focused on and to get study books.

 

The author, Janice Campbell, has a site : www.Everyday-Education.com with a lot of useful information as well.

 

I was expecting to use this curriculum with my 8th grader- since he is in the range, but it was simply not something he was capable of doing on his own. I am certainly not saying most or some 8th graders couldn't use this text and run with it, though. My 13 yo has some reading struggles and I knew we would both be set up for failure and frustration if I tried to make him actually work through this on his own. 

 

I highly recommend this course or the others offered by Excellence in Literature for a homeschooler or traditional school setting. It is challenging, but realistic and offers much more to the student and teacher than just a list of book selections. Resources are included with links to websites , samples to follow and traditional layouts. It is hard to explain all that is included, but there is a lot more information available on the Excellence in Literature website. A single year course (each unit is covered in 4 weeks) is available for $29.95 +$4 printed or $27 as an e-book. Or you can order the whole series to cover all highschool years for  $139 +shipping (already in a binder) or $135 in e-book.

 

I received this e-book for free in exchange for my honest review.

 

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