Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Monday, September 19, 2016

Reading High School

This is the beginning of the third week of high school for our oldest, and the question I ask her most evenings is, "How's your reading going?" She's working through a somewhat modified version of the approach my parents took when they homeschooled me, and so this year I'm in charge of curriculum for her. I started the year with a list and a spreadsheet. The list contains the reading assignments that I want her to get through for History/Literature during the course of the year, the spreadsheet contains some additional refinement, adds other subjects, and breaks everything up into weekly assignments.

So, for example, the first week of school was:

Humanities:
Starr, A History of the Ancient World Chapters 1-3 (pages 3-69)

Science:
Six Easy Pieces, Essentials of Physics Explained Intro and Chapter 1

Math (resuming with the series of books she was using last year):
Key to Algebra 4 page 4-18

Grammar:
Warriner's English Grammar & Comp (Complete Course) Ch1, Ex 5, Review Exercise

Religion:
Didache Introduction to Catholicism Chapter 1

German:
As assigned by tutor


For the first week I went and broke this up into daily assignments, telling her how many sections of the math book to cover each day and to spent three days reading the three chapters of ancient history and two days covering science. (She compressed the reading so she could take Friday off.) At the end of the week I asked if she needed me to deep doing the daily breakdowns and she said she was fine on her own, so now it's just one line of the spreadsheet every day.

I've got the first 18 weeks of the Humanities Program worked out into weekly assignments, and it runs as follows:

Week Assignment
1 Starr, A History of the Ancient World Chapters 1-3 (pages 3-69)

2 History Begins at Sumer ch. 1, 2, 6, 7, 13, 16, 17, 25, 37, 39 (about 80 pages total)

3 Epic of Gilgamesh Tables 1-11 (pages 1-99)

4 Never to Die pp. 15-58, 63-96,101-165

5 Starr, A History of the Ancient World Chapters 4-7 (pages 75-160)

6 [break]

7 The Bible Genesis

8 The Bible Exodus 1-23, Joshua 1-10, Judges 1-16

9 The Bible 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel 1-10

10 The Bible 2 Samuel 11-24, 1 Kings 1-11

11 Starr, A History of the Ancient World Chapter 9-10 (pages 185-226)
The Iliad Books 1-4

12 The Iliad Books 5-12

13 The Iliad Books 13-20

14 The Iliad Books 21-24
The Odyssey Books 1-4

15 The Odyssey Books 5-12

16 The Odyssey Books 13-20

17 The Odyssey Books 21-24

18 [Break]

As we get closer to that roughly halfway mark, I'll assess how well we're staying on schedule and decide how to cover the rest of the Ancient Greek reading list.

4 comments:

bearing said...

Please tell how Six Easy Pieces goes. I am teaching physics this year too, albeit from my own college textbook.

Lisa Carson said...

"eldest"!'

Anonymous said...

Which translation of the Illiad and the Odyssey are you using, and whose would you recommend to an adult reader? Fagles? Fitzgerald? Pope?

Darwin said...

Bearing,

Will do.

Lisa,

You're right.

Anon,

For the Illiad I think we'll try the new Caroline Alexander translation, if only because we just picked up a copy. I've long been a fan of Lattimore, but that's mostly because his translation seems to keep very close to the Greek and as a struggling Classics student I would find that kind of thing helpful. I generally don't recommend really old translations like Pope or Chapman because they layer on a strong period English feel which I don't think conveys the original well to the modern ear.

Alexander does not have an Odyssey, so I'll probably let Eleanor read the first pages of Lattimore, Fagles, Lombardo and Fitzgerald and make her own pick.