Welcome, Homeschoolers!
Tell us about your goals and we’ll point you in the right direction:
I would like help teaching my own kids.
Teaching literature can be overwhelming.
Maybe you missed out on a literary education when it was your turn. Or maybe you received one yourself, but are unsure about how to help your students read with the same depth you do. Are you already convinced of the importance of great literature, but wonder how to connect the dots between the great ideas in the classics and the squirming kiddo on your lap? Do you despair of ever finding time or money to tool up for the task of teaching literature between your busy life of homeschooling and parenting, and keeping up with housework?
What you need is an efficient and economical way to get up to speed fast so that you can start teaching great books to your children — yesterday!
CenterForLit’s got your back. In fact, we believe parents are peculiarly called to teach the subject of literature to their children. After all, literature is about the Great Ideas, the Universal Things of the human experience, and nobody cares as much as you do that your kids understand these things properly. Why, these conversations may be the very reason you chose to homeschool in the first place! Our company was born to equip homeschooling parents to teach the subject of literature efficiently and effectively, inviting and inspiring their children to join the Great Conversation which unfolds in the literary arts.
We’ve created an easy, approachable, affordable way to help you succeed without losing your mind in the process:
#1: Watch Teaching the Classics.
What if you could tool up to teach K-12 literature with the bedtime stories you read to your littles each night? Learn to read Pride and Prejudice by first reading The Pout-Pout Fish! This award-winning seminar uses children’s stories to teach all ages the structure and stylistic devices of narrative literature, presenting a proven method for leading powerful discussions of ANY story at ANY grade level.
Teaching the Classics is your skeleton key for unlocking the secrets of literature.
#2: Choose a book to teach.
You know you should teach the classics, but what if you don’t know what the classics are? Not to worry, CenterForLit’s got you covered. Reading Roadmaps can help you plot your course through the classics with annotated booklists for every grade level.
Reading Roadmaps promises to:
- Supply you with classic booklists for every grade level, K-12.
- Identify the simple plot, conflict, and theme of every story included in the primary booklists.
- Identify the major literary devices used in every story.
- Provide strategies for implementing Teaching the Classics in six different classroom models.
- Offer lesson planning models to help you plan your year.
- Suggest some preliminary ideas for writing from literature.
- Present a grading rubric for from literature.
- Supply yearly, grade-level teaching objectives for literature to ensure your students acquire the necessary skills to grow as readers and thinkers.
Don’t lose your way: get Reading Roadmaps today!
#3: Apply our simple method in the classroom.
You have a method. You have the booklists. Now all you need is time! Where does it go? There aren’t enough hours in the day keep your family fed and clothed and teach all of the classes on your homeschool roster – let alone prep for them!
Trust us, we’ve been there. After raising and educating six children on the single income of a teacher, we know firsthand the challenges facing the average homeschool family. Sadly, we can’t do your laundry or make dinner for you, but our Ready Readers teacher guides can lighten your load by supplying you with Teaching the Classics-style lesson plans for stories at every reading level!
Every Ready Readers teacher guide will:
- Shorten your lesson prep time.
- Supply discussion questions and possible answers to help you lead a thoughtful, Socratic discussion of the story at hand.
- Summarize the story’s major plot and identify its inherent themes.
- Model the Socratic discussion format on paper by keying questions to the Teaching the Classics Socratic List of Questions.
- Provide key contextual details necessary to understand the story.
- Identify literary devices pertinent to the story and explain how they help to communicate the story’s major themes.
- Provide both a completed plot chart and a blank plot chart for classroom use.
- Make you look brilliant in the classroom!
Ready Readers can help you quickly prepare to lead powerful discussions of any story!
#4: Return for development, inspiration, and support.
Learn more about some of our other resources:
Worldview Detective
Are you worried about the influence of various books on your avid reader? How can you help your student encounter the great variety of competing worldviews in literature without having their own destroyed?
Worldview Detective helps you equip your students with penetrating questions that probe the depiction of reality in any story to magnify the presuppositions it suggests. This means that you can teach comparative worldview philosophy without adding another subject to your already busy schedule.
Classic literature not only describes the fundamental elements of a given set of presuppositions that define a worldview, but also demonstrates their peculiar effects on those who hold them. A comparative study of worldview through literature allows parent-educators to lead their children to observe the imaginary worlds authors build and to identify the real ideas that fuel them, together with the consequences they provoke – all from the relative safety of the family room.
There’s no need to worry about the influence of books on your children. Learn how to make them worldview detectives.
Pelican Society Membership
Are you looking for a community of homeschool parents and educators that use the Teaching the Classics pedagogy? Do you want to gain access to a host of complimentary teaching resources and save money on all of our products and programs? Join the best club in the world!
CenterForLit Press
CenterForLit Press exists to revitalize the culture surrounding books about books. Our goal is to make the conversation about literature accessible and relatable by focusing on the literary tradition’s Great Ideas as they touch down in our real, day-to-day lives. We give precedence to the embodied as opposed to the abstract.
In contrast to our curriculum materials, these books are primarily intended to be enjoyed by the casual reader, but some of them may also be of supplemental use in the classroom.
Current titles include My Divine Comedy, Missy’s memoir about her homeschooling journey; Wild Bells, a literary advent; and Hop, Skip, and a Rhyme, an imaginative picture book study of important literary devices.
I would like to find an expert to teach my kids for me.
No shame in that!
As veteran homeschool parents, we know just how busy you are. Teaching the Classics is fine and dandy, but between laundry and cooking meals and shuttling of kids between lessons, just when are you supposed to read those classics?
If you’re overwhelmed at the thought of teaching the subject of literature to your children and you just CAN’T EVEN, let us help! Our knowledge of the subject – and of homeschoolers – amounts to more than 100 years of collective experience.
Our expert team of teachers lead students in Socratic discussions of selected titles to foster understanding and delight in the classic books, inviting them to become lifetime participants in literature’s Great Conversation. An optional composition component nurtures students’ facility with analytical thinking and writing from literature.
Don’t worry – we’ve got you covered!
Follow these THREE steps, then sit back and relax!
#1: Enroll in our Online Academy
CenterForLit offers year-long online literature courses for students in grades 5-12. Our instructors lead discussions of classic books using the Teaching the Classics method, introducing the structural elements of a story in order to facilitate meaningful conversation about an author’s themes.
Students read the entirety of a work of literature and meet with their teachers for a Socratic discussion about once a month. In class, they participate by speaking aloud, chatting with teachers and fellow students, and watching teachers on video.
A writing option is available at all levels, where students use the Teaching the Classics method to compose soundly-argued interpretive essays.
Our upper-level classes offer high school credit and ample preparation for the college classroom.
#2: Monitor your student’s progress
We use Google classroom as the portal for our classes, allowing parents to easily keep tabs on class expectations and student progress throughout the year.
Our discussion classes require students to contribute answers to two discussion board questions between each live meeting (graded pass/fail for participation), and parents can easily log in and make sure their students are on track.
#3: Request a report card at the end of the year
We know grades are not the true measure of a students’ growth in education, and we respect the decision of some parents to have their students participate in our literature discussions without fear of numeric labeling. For that reason, report cards are only available upon request in our classes.
However, we also understand that grades are necessary for transcripts, state records, and college applications, so we keep meticulous accounts of our students’ progress and are happy to issue report cards or other proofs of participation whenever necessary.
I’m looking for books to read with my kids.
Reading Roadmaps is our official, published collection of recommended reading for grades K-12. However, you may also find ideas as you browse our other resources, including our podcasts, blog, and membership community.