May. 28, 2009 - Teaching Literature
On my local homeschool loop, someone posted a question asking HOW to teach literature, in this case, to a 6th grader. Here are my thoughts on "teaching" this subject:
I think the most important thing for literature is to read good books. Read them, tell about them (oral narration), discuss them with someone else who has read them, write about them (written narration), etc. You can also learn a little something about the author and the time period that he/she is writing in or about, and the region he is in (that adds history and geography). Study guides such as the ones from Proginy Press are nice to do occasionally if you want to add in some vocabulary and such. I would not do all of this for every book, just for some. Sometimes they just need to be left alone to enjoy the book without the pressure of a "lesson".
