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SallyT
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| Posted: March 05 2012 at 8:06am | IP Logged
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I thought this might be of interest, as many of us are planning for next year. I've been slowly putting together a website devoted to the self-made humanities curriculum we use for our high-schoolers, and currently I'm writing weekly plans for my rising ninth-grader.
We do ancient-and-classical history and literature (myths, epics, drama, historical fiction) for ninth grade, using Warren Carroll's The Founding of Christendom as a spine (though at my husband's suggestion, I think I'm going to work in some reading from Christopher Dawson to flesh out the Greek component of the course -- that's why there are currently some holes in the syllabus!).
At the Abandon Hopefully site, I have a whole big reading list for this course, with hyperlinks to free e-texts. The plans I'm sketching out for my son are on a blog, here, though later I plan to transfer them to a more permanent page on the curriculum site. I'm still working on them -- up to Week 14 of a 36-week year so far -- but am building in things like essay questions, which might be useful to others.
Anyway, I thought I'd throw this out there, in the hopes that it might be helpful, and also for any input -- how could this be better?
Thanks!
Sally
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amyable
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| Posted: March 05 2012 at 6:00pm | IP Logged
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Thank you for sharing that Sally -- it looks wonderful! I plan to have a 9th grader doing ancients and up next year so the timing couldn't be better. 
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SallyT
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| Posted: March 05 2012 at 7:06pm | IP Logged
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I'm continuing to bang out the weekly plans for a 36-week school year, so do check back!
Sally
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Angie Mc
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| Posted: March 05 2012 at 11:07pm | IP Logged
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Best wishes, Sally! I'm sure your efforts will bless man.
Love,
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Angie Mc
Maimeo to Henry! Dave's wife, mom to Mrs. Devin+Michael Pope, Aiden 20,Ian 17,John Paul 11,Catherine (heaven 6/07)
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SallyT
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| Posted: March 06 2012 at 6:57am | IP Logged
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I hope so. My daughter at UD has thanked me for making her read "all that hard stuff" like The Iliad in the 9th grade.
I recently had a heartbreaking conversation with my own high-school English teacher, who has remained my friend for the last 30 years. She was, and is, one of those life-changing people, and I credit the education I received from her, specifically (as well as one or two other teachers), with much of what I'm able to do today. Obviously God gets the glory, but He sure chose some singular people to throw in the path of my misspent youth.
Anyway, she still teaches at my old school, which in my day was a sort of semi-classical girls' preparatory school on a broadly Christian model: we had chapel twice a week, and many of my favorite (and least-favorite) hymns are classic ones we used to sing there. The humanities education I received there was pretty rigorous: ninth grade was the standard "introduction to genres" course (though we had ancient history that year, and I've always wondered why our English class didn't mirror that), but from tenth grade on, we were reading the Great Tradition in English literature, from Beowulf to Shakespeare to Milton to the Romantics . . . Much of what I read in my English classes in college I'd already read in high school, which helped me tremendously: I'd already learned to think critically and write about serious literature. And I knew that the tradition of Western Civilization existed.
Well, she told me, no more. They've thrown out the Western canon in favor of student-choice classes, which sound cool enough -- a seminar on fairy tales, for example -- except that it's now possible to pass through that school (at great expense) and come out the other side having no idea of our own cultural patrimony. And the odds are that unless they go someplace like UD or TAC, they'll never read that literature or think about the fact that our current culture, good and bad, came from *somewhere*. Welcome to cultural amnesia.
So that's what's been driving my compulsion to create a high-school program for my own kids, and to share it -- as a Catholic, I care profoundly about the idea of an intellectual tradition, particularly since so much of it is ours, and even what isn't ours happened in reaction to ours, or else was looking for the truth which ultimately came to us . . . One way or another, it's all shaped us, and to read our way through eras of history and the literature they generated is to understand both what we are and what we are not.
OK, enough of my little apologia! Everybody go read The Iliad!
Sally
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MichelleW
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| Posted: May 09 2012 at 12:40pm | IP Logged
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Thanks so much for doing this! I really wanted to do Ancient History with my soon-to-be 9th grader, but have been struggling to find something. This is awesome!
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Michelle
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SallyT
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| Posted: May 09 2012 at 3:08pm | IP Logged
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Thanks! I'm hoping to get my second semester 9th-grade weekly plans up soon, too. So far I've planned 18 weeks' worth of study, including other things we're doing as well (algebra, religion, etc). I'm still casting around for a few more history resources to fill things out for myself, but really, the literature goes a long way on its own.
Very glad to be of help to somebody besides myself!
Sally
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4Real Forums : High School Years and Beyond
Topic: Updates to My High-School Humanities Site
