How I Prepare and Teach a Homeschool Literature Lesson for Middle & High School

[@cyn_co]

Can you make a flip through and review of Excellence in Literature and how you used it in your home? It’s so hard to find anything on it

[@mypracticallyimperfectlife]

Sure can! My 10th grader is actually going to be going back to Excellence in Literature for her Junior year (using their British Lit course).

[@schultesweeties]

This was really helpful! I’ve been thinking about BJU literature ever since I watched your curriculum videos, so I’m glad to see how you use it and a bit of a flip through!

[@mar04728]

Thank you so much for sharing this video! It was very helpful to see how you use it. I have been looking into it but wasn’t sure how to go about each lesson since it is designed for a school setting. Thank you!

[@jennizerpa1313]

Thank you so much for this extremely helpful and detailed video! Can I ask what you use for the 3 novel studies you add in throughout the year? That sounds like a wonderful combination!

[@mypracticallyimperfectlife]

I usually try to add in one Shakespeare study, one classic, and then one either more modern novel or that I think my teen will find interesting. He loved The Hobbit last year so this year he’s doing LOTR The Fellowship of the Ring as one of his novel studies. For the novel studies, I will peruse Teachers Pay Teachers. I’ve also found great studies from Memoria Press. I did a video last year where I shared some of our past novel studies and I believe I linked where you can find them. If you search my channel for Novel Studies it should pop up for you!

[@dracorex8058]

What are your thoughts on starting 9th grade literature without having done the middle school textbooks with BJU?

[@mypracticallyimperfectlife]

You would be fine. It’s pretty easy to get used to how they have their textbooks arranged and the flow of the units

[@C_X_L812]

Do you just do one lesson a day? We prefer to do a 4-day school week since we have co-op 1x week. Can this curriculum accommodate that?

[@mypracticallyimperfectlife]

Yes- I find that the BJU lit tends to spread things out more than necessary. Their lesson plans are for 180 days but often there are 2-4 days spent on one reading selection or whole days set aside for vocab or a writing assignment. I condense these as I see fit in order for us to work in at least 2-3 separate novel studies in between BJU units. On average I probably condense it down by 40-50 days, so you should have no trouble covering it in 4 days a week

[@schultesweeties]

Do you prefer BJU over EIW?

[@mypracticallyimperfectlife]

By EIW, do you mean Excellence in Writing? We haven't used that one but my daughter did Excellence in Literature her 9th grade year (I feel like EIW and EIL get mixed up a lot!). EIL had a lot of classic literature and some tough novels with weekly writing assignments. Some weeks were shorter writing assignments than others. Overall, we did like it but I knew it wouldn't be ideal for my son. His attention span is just too short for the large amount of reading he would need to do every day. Also EIL breaks down the work by week instead of by day, so he would have to sort of self schedule when to do things (and that's just not one of his best skills yet). I do think BJU is a thorough program though and he has definately improved on identifying literary elements.

[@schultesweeties]

@@mypracticallyimperfectlife Yes! Thanks for clearing that up because when you said Excellence in Literature, I immediately thought of EIW-Essentials in Writing...and went to their website and they do have a literature option! I had no clue there was a different one! Glad you cleared that up!