Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Review: American Literature Student Text&Teachers Edition by: James P. Stobaugh

 About the Book:
 Overview:
Students will be immersed into some of the greatest American literature ever written in this well-crafted, 34-week presentation of whole book or whole-work selections from classic prose, poetry, and drama.

Features:
Each weekly chapter has five daily lessons with clear objectives, concept-building exercises, warm-up questions, and guided readings

Equips students to think critically about philosophy and trends in culture, articulating their worldview through writing

Easily combined with the American History course from Master Books to take students through historical settings and philosophy, as well as a critical analysis of literary thought across centuries.

Literary content covered in this volume includes works by: William Bradford, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederick Douglass, Stephen Crane, John Steinbeck, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, and many more selections of the finest in American literature. Additional readings not included within this text are available at local libraries or as free downloads.
 About the Author:
 Dr. James Stobaugh was a Merrill Fellow at Harvard and holds degrees from Vanderbilt and Rutgers universities, and Princeton and Gordon-Conwell seminaries. An experienced teacher, he is a recognized leader in homeschooling and has published numerous books for students and teachers. He and his wife Karen have homeschooled their four children since 1985.


My Review:
 As homeschoolers that decide to homeschool through high school we tend to go a little over board sometimes from the shear overwhelming fear of thinking, "Have we done enough to equip our children?"  Teaching a high schooler isn't too much different than teaching a middle school student except it is time to start counting those dreaded credits. It is worth noting that this course counts as two credits. One full credit for writing and one full credit for literature. So using this course is definitely an asset to our children and their current needs.
 Mr. Stobaugh prefaces the teachers edition by saying that American Literature is a rhetoric-level course. And that there are two things that are very distinctive about these type of courses; one they are content-driven, and two they presume higher-level thinking. While doing this course in particular the student is going to have to read in excess of 200 pages per chapter. So it is advisable to allow the student to read the material before actually beginning the course.
 One of the main things that draws me to a particular curriculum besides if it is right for my child is how the teachers edition is laid out. It needs to be user friendly for both the student and homeschool parent as well. This course is very well planned and laid out. All the guess work is taken out of it. The author has broken everything down as far as grading goes so you will have several options for that. How to grade and points allowed are also listed.
If you would like to learn more about this awesome resource that you could add to your children's high school curriculum go to this link. This book is published by Master Books, a division of New Leaf Publishing Group. The main link to their website can be found here. If you are interested in reading more reviews on this book you can go to this link.

**Disclosure** I received this book for free for my honest review through New Leaf Publishing Group.



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