Literature

This school year the older girls and I have been working on an American literature class. When we first began I had hoped to use the Great Courses on Tape series. The university professor on the videos was so boring we quickly ditched that. The great part though was it has a wonderful outline of books in chronological order. We have read Puritan poetry and other incredible prose that has really given them an political and social understanding of the time periods we have studied. We are to Moby Dick, which was a bomb when first published but some hail now as THE great American novel. It is interesting all the symbolism they attribute to the authors genius. I really want the girls to have enough cultural literacy that when things are referenced to and quoted that they "get" it. This has been a fun adventure so far. Although Maliea will probably never listen to the heartbeat sound on her sound machine again. I used it last week as emphasis for The Tell Tale Heart as I was reading.