Lightning Lit & Comp
(third edition)
American Literature:
Early-Mid 19th Century
Hewitt Homeschooling
Resources
$29.95 student guide
$2.95 teachers guide
I have been blessed to have
the opportunity to review this product. This product is a full year
literature curriculum recommended for high school / grades 9-12.
They do offer a junior high course as well. With this high school
course your student will acquire college-level composition skills by
responding to great literature. The student guide and teachers guide
were both used in this review. There are four reading books needed
for this course. They are not included, but can be purchased or can
be found at your local library which is a free and easy source. A
list of the required books are located in the front of the teachers
guide for your convenience.
The
student guide is a nice 178 page softcover book. It has
an introduction section for the student to read that explains why we
need to learn how to write. It explains outlining and it talks about
brainstorming, alliteration, simile, metaphor and vocabulary, just to
name a few. It tells your student how to use this course and how to
get the most out of it.
The teachers guide is
56 pages that are stapled together. They three hole punched for easy
use with a binder (not included). In the front of the teacher's
guide there is an introduction on how to use this course. It
explains each section: introduction, comprehension questions (which
can be used as tests if desired), literary lesson and writing
exercises. It has some discussion questions as well. This course
gives grading tips and includes a check list to help with correcting
the students paper. It also comes with a few point sheets (or
grading sheets) to keep track of what percent/score to give for the
papers, units and a final grade. These are reproducibles. Both of
these books are reusable.
For this Early-Mid 19th Century, a few examples of books
that were required were: 'The Autobiography (Benjamin Franklin) and
'The Scarlet Letter' by: Nathaniel Hawthorne. The course required
the student to read, answer questions and then do a writing
assignment. They broke the reading and questions up into parts. The
child would read a certain amount of pages, then answer questions on
that part before he went on to the next reading assignment. See
example below.
Lesson plans are included in
this course as well. But rather than daily plans, they are written
as weekly lesson plans.
For example:
week 2:
*Read pages 89-180 and
answer the Comprehension Questions.
*Read the Literary Lesson
for Unit 1, Lesson 1.
*Choose one exercise from
“Writing Exercises” for Unit 1, Lesson 1 and write at least a
rough draft of your paper.
What I thought:
I really liked the 'weekly
lesson plans' method. My son gets overwhelmed when our schedule gets
interrupted, so this gave him an idea of what was expected for the
'week' and not 'daily'. He could look ahead and decide for himself
what he needed to do and how much time he would need for his
assignments. I feel that this not only helps to teach them
responsibility but helps with time management skills as well.
Something that high schoolers may need to learn for themselves. :)
I think that this course
would work with an independent student as well as a group setting.
My son is only thirteen (but doing high school work) and he didn't
have any problems with understanding the dialog. So age modification
is also an option.
I like that there wasn't a
lot of teacher prep time required. I helped with any questions he
had and corrected his work with the teacher guide. Instead of
purchasing the books, I downloaded them to my Nook Tablet for easier
access.
I would recommend this
course to any student who loves to read. The writing makes the
student think and they have a little bit of independence on what they
write about. For example, the writing assignments give a few choices
on what to write about so that the student isn't stuck writing about
what exactly is requested. My son liked having that choice.
I used the course pretty
much like it is meant to be used, but I did alter the schedule a
little bit. I allowed a few extra days for some reading or writing
here and there depending on our schedules. Being flexible is a great
quality in any course!
Disclaimer:
As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I received this product,
at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are
mine.
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