If you are already thinking about the reading list you will assign to your students next fall, congratulations – you are way ahead of Missy and me! But let me offer one piece of advice as you assemble your curriculum: Assign children’s picture storybooks to all of your students in the first few weeks of the school year…
Picture Books…for High Schoolers? Read More »
On our first BiblioFiles podcast episode, Ian posed the Desert Island Question: If you were confined to a desert island with only three books, which would you choose? He and the rest of the CenterForLit staff laughed when I struggled to name three. I couldn’t decide. I was paralyzed. How could I possibly narrow it down to a mere three titles?…
A World Without Books and Other Catastrophes, or Why I Hate the Desert Island Game Read More »
Ernest Hemingway’s prize winning 1953 novella The Old Man and the Sea opens on Santiago, an ancient fisherman, who is mired in an epic streak of bad luck. He has not caught a fish in many days – so many, in fact, that he is near starvation and has been shunned as cursed by the other fisherman in the small village where he lives and works. The novel tells the story of his last voyage, in which he travels farther out into the Sea than anyone has ever dared, and catches the greatest fish in history. As a master fisherman, Santiago draws on his expert knowledge and long experience to hook the giant fish, who then drags the tiny boat out into the heart of the Sea…
Christian Books and Christian Reading: Part Two Read More »
If you have never read Jack London’s classic 1908 short story, “To Build a Fire,” you should put it on your winter reading list. This harrowing description of a man’s struggle for survival in the sub-zero temperatures of the Yukon Territory will make this season’s coldest day seem balmy by comparison…
Christian Books and Christian Reading Read More »
In award-winning author Wendell Berry’s novel, Jayber Crow, twice-orphaned Jonah searches for answers to the eternal questions: What is the nature of God? What is prayer? Is life a random series of disconnected events, or a linear, purposeful, meaningful path? These universal questions all converge upon Jonah’s more personal questions of identity: Who am I? Am I what I do? Do I, in fact, choose my profession, thus bearing the immense responsibility of making myself? Or am I born to a calling? Crow describes this undetected pressure to create an identity for oneself as a kind of subtle bondage…
Just Another Reason I Homeschool: A Meditation on Jayber Crow Read More »
What if you only have time to read one book with your student this year? Should you throw your hands up in despair and enroll him in the local government school? Well, it’s up to you, but you might be missing a great opportunity. You would be surprised at how powerful just one lesson can be. In fact, a well-designed discussion of a single book can dramatically affect the way your student reads all other books for the rest of his life…
Making One Lesson Count Read More »
Don’t look now, but summer is just around the corner. It’s almost time to engage in that most ridiculous of all homeschooling rituals: planning next year’s curriculum while simultaneously trying to finish last year’s curriculum. It’s totally unrealistic and invariably overwhelming, but most of us do it anyway – or at least feel guilty for putting it off…
Between a Rock and a Hard Place Read More »
It was spring of my oldest son’s eighth grade year, and I, like homeschool moms all over the country, was planning for the fall. Except this time, my son would be starting high school. This time, it would “count.” Panic replaced my usual plenary excitement as I wondered what colleges would be looking for on high school transcripts and how I was going to prepare my homeschooler to convince them that he had mastered everything. I flew through reams of paper creating a plethora of booklists, each one longer and more ambitious than the previous, and frankly wore myself out with worry in the process…
Freedom from the Law of the Booklist Read More »
Sometimes the simplest interpretive detail can give us amazing insight into a classic book. A question as basic as “who is the protagonist?” can often unlock the whole story and help us avoid unfortunate misinterpretations…
Post-holiday doldrums can be a drag, especially for homeschoolers. After all, you don’t just send the kids off to school – you have to produce it, starting now, every day. It can make you long for spring break before you even take the tree down. During these dark days of winter, Missy and I try to remind each other of the big picture before we delve into the minutiae of textbooks, lesson plans, and weekly schedules. We try to remember our overall goals for the year and the progress we hope to make – not in our students’ notebooks and report cards, but in their hearts…
The Lesson of Job: Literature’s Luckiest Protagonist Read More »
