Literature

I'm going to need either a cirriculum for both American Literature and English literature or a bunch of good reading guides for each. Anyone have any sources?

To set a little background:

Chris will be in eighth grade. Because of his migraines and the fact he just plain doesn't like to read, we(neither the public school or I) haven't required him to do more than the bare minimum of either reading or writing essays. He can read, mind you, he just doesn't have much of the experience of reading an entire book from beginning to end. He also doesn't write coherent paragraphs (much less entire essays) though grammar is not a problem.

To remedy this, I've decided that next years language arts will consist of nothing but reading and writing essays. Yes, I realize it will be like pulling teeth, but by the end of the year I expect him to have learned how to communicate in writing.

One thing we found out by accident is that he enjoys Shakespeare. That gives me the idea that we either haven't found reading material he enjoys or what he's been given isn't mature enough to keep his attention. Either way it's got to be fixed.

Sooo, suggestions are welcome!

 

Thanks!

I would love to instill in him a love for reading. From two parents who read constantly we ended up with one reader, one non-reader and one who is ambivilant.

But, his non-reading thing is genetic, inherited from my father who had to be made to learn to read (he tells us he could never figure out as kid why anyone needed to read. ). To this day my father only reads what he has to read.

But, I still believe part of Chris' problem is finding material challenging enough to keep his attention. If Shakespeare does that for him, I'm all for it!

 

If it's printed on paper he doesn't like it. He's pretty big into photography and we have all sorts of photography books/mags in the house. He won't read 'em.

He reads just enough to get through his schoolwork and he's done. Been this way since he was was tiny. Never would sit still for a story and if I was reading, he was trying to pull the book out of my hand. I wondered if he'd been switched at birth!

He does like Shakespeare (surprise!), but I don't feel confident teaching it without some sort of guide. Found a nice generic guide online at one the university sites for reading and discussing poetry, so I can make do with that for the sonnets. Still need something for the plays.

 

Thanks for the info, Don. I pretty much screen everything and have a fairly high tolorance for violence and language so long as it is used in such a way as the reader is left with a clear understanding that that this is inappropriate. So a "bad guy" cursing would be in character and cursing would help identify him as such. Violence is pretty much the same thing.

It crosses my line when the "good guys" are acting as bad as the bad guys.