Week 9 R Literature discussion

[April in CA]

Hi Christy and any others who may be interested!
Today our online co-op discussed the short stories assigned in week 9 along with reviwing the Romantics (sounds like a good name for a band...) The students had lots to say about the stories. I was a little surproised to find that some of the girls actually liked Queen of Spades best; a couple of the boys did as well. My sons really enjoyed Irving, especially the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Perhaps they were influenced by me! (by the way, there is a typo in the anthology - the story is there titled The Legend of Sleep Hollow - I thought you would want to know) One young man like Rene best, because of the emotions portrayed in the descriptions. We had an interesting discussion about the protagonist Rene - some saw him as an anti-hero, some as perhaps a frustratd Byronic hero, and then we agreed that he was exhibiting signs of depression. I love it that we are thinking about these things and getting thoughts and opinions from students ranging in age from 13 to 17!

We also spent a considerable amount of time discussing Democratic Literature and America and if our literature is Democratic and is that a good thing - the students got fired up as we talked about the internet and television and becoming a nation of sound-bite addicts, and... You might want to plan to spend a bit of extra time on that issue when you do your class!

Tomorrow, I plan to do some final review with my own boys and then give them the tests for both history and literature. It should be an interesting day!

Our co-op moms got together on-line recently to discuss our schedule for unit 2. I will only be leading one lit discussion (Poe). I will be leading history discussions for three weeks, though, which should keep me from going into too deep a decline - lit withdrawl may prove tough! Can you tell I am enjoying this?
Blessings,
April

[cjsomerville]

I can definitely tell that you're enjoying this. ;-) We just had our Week 9 discussion yesterday. My students also really enjoyed Sleepy Hollow (thanks for the anthology correction note! I will pass it on) and Queen of Spades, but none of them liked Rene at all. I can't say I blame them. :-P They also didn't seem to get into the whole democratic literature debate much, which surprised me. Like you, I expected to get some fire and brimstone out of them on that one. ;-) What did spark their interest, however, was the worldview of the Romantics and biblical analysis thereof. So we spend a good bit of time talking about that. :-)

At the end of class I found that I had managed to get through all my material (a first!), so I went around the room and asked them to say what they liked best from all that they've learned this unit. One said that she has really enjoyed seeing how artistry can be separated from content and how we can enjoy artistry on one hand and still biblically critique content on the other. Two or three said that they had never realized the extent to which literature is affected by the historical times and the beliefs current in the times in which they are written. One (a boy no less!) said that he used to dislike poetry a lot but now he likes it more because he's learned more about how it works.

It was a sweet moment for me to hear how much my student's have learned in the last nine weeks, and to enjoy their leaps and bounds in literary understanding. Not all of them, of course, are as quick as others. It's a big class and I have my slow students just like any other teacher. Like you, I also have quite the age range: from fourteen to seventeen. Nevertheless, everybody seems to be getting things out of the course. What a joy and what evidence of grace!

Thanks for sharing and letting me share, April. I enjoy these weekly updates. :-)

Christy