Grade 10:
Medieval and Renaissance
History and Literature
Medieval and Renaissance
History and Literature
In our homeschool, we assign this reading in the tenth grade year. As with any of our courses, however, you could plug it in at any time in your four-year high-school cycle. The reading is mostly fairly challenging, and some texts, like Kristin Lavransdatter, might be better saved for senior year or later: you know your student's abilities and maturity level, so that decision is yours. Most medieval tales are available in adapted or "younger readers'" editions, which you are also free to use if your student flounders. At this stage, though it's important to have a taste of the real thing, your objective should be to acquaint your student with the great narratives and people of our cultural tradition.
Reading List
As with all our materials, you are free to choose among many options, to create a highly-accelerated or a more leisurely course of study, to suit your student's aptitudes. Titles given as hyperlinks are available as free e-texts.
Lesson Planning suggestions here.
1. Historical overview, or "spine" for the course
English Literature for Boys and Girls, H. E. Marshall
Sounds kiddie, and was in fact written for Victorian/Edwardian kiddies, but really is not all that kiddie by our current standards of literacy. I had initially thought of using this book with younger children, but on beginning to read it, realized that it was the spine I had been looking for for this year's course.
This reading is meant to provide historical context for all literary reading. The Marshall book has something like eighty-three chapters, ending with Tennyson; for this course, you would assign chapters through Sir Walter Raleigh, saving the rest as an accompaniment to next year's "Enlightenment and America" course.
Note that Marshall was a Protestant, and that you will want to take care with the the chapter regarding the Bible, for example ("How the Bible Came to the People"). The history here is important, and Marshall does cover the monastic foundation of the great universities and much other useful information, but for the sake of truth and balance, you will want to supplement with the Catholic side of the story.
Ditto her treatment of Thomas More. Resources to follow for this as well.
You may also/instead wish to use the second half of the Teaching Company Foundations of Western Civilization course begun in Grade 9, for a broader overview of world history during this period. Though our literary focus will be on England, the historical backdrop is that of European history from the fall of Rome through the Renaissance.
AND/OR:
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples/Winston Churchill
Other texts which provide a larger European context for this course:
How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
A lively, readable, and useful book which could inspire unit studies in the histories of disciplines like science and economics, and obviously the ideal companion to the Marshall text. Reading the two together and comparing viewpoints may give rise to some lively conversation about versions of history, and also to some compare-and-contrast writing assignments.
The Building of Christendom; The Glory of Christendom; The Revolution Against Christendom, Warren H. Carroll
If your student read and liked The Founding of Christendom last year, you may opt to continue with this series. The literary period this course covers encompasses the span of centuries represented by these volumes in The History of Christendom. In the interest of time, you may wish to assign excerpts from these books, rather than entire texts, unless your student is a speed-reader.
Founded on a Rock: A History of the Catholic Church/de Wohl
Have your student take notes while reading or listening -- using the Teaching Company series is an excellent way to acclimate a student to college lectures and to teach note-taking from an aural source. Also require a brief written narration once the reading/listening is finished. This is not graded for grammar, style, spelling, etc, merely checked and given written feedback to stimulate the student to read or listen for a greater level of detail or accuracy. Think of narrations as a written conversation about books and ideas.
You may also opt to have your student keep a timeline notebook, detailing both historical events and literary developments. Some useful ideas here.
2. A Culture Speaks: Primary Sources and Literary Reading
You won't have time to read absolutely everything on this list, but it's here for you to pick and choose and customize. My own setup is to assign a chapter/lecture from the "spine" text or lecture series (or both) for each unit and then use subsequent weeks for literary/primary-source reading and essay-writing (broad essay and research topics to follow). I also devote about eight weeks in the spring semester to a research paper of about ten pages, on some topic which grows out of all the year's reading. Depending on your student, you could opt to give some other kind of research project than a strictly written one, though the college-bound student really needs to become familiar with this kind of work.
End of the Roman Empire:
Citadel of God/de Wohl
Throne of the World/de Wohl
(if not read in Grade 9)
Anglo-Saxon Era:
Background Lecture 1
Background Lecture 2
Background Lecture 3
Student examples of kennings
Resources for Anglo-Saxon Culture:
Monasticism
Virtual Anglo-Saxon village
Anglo-Saxon kings
Anglo-Saxon law
Excerpts from Anglo-Saxon legal documents
Death and burial in the Anglo-Saxon world
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Anglo-Saxon swords (and other aspects of A-S life)
More about arms and armor
Anglo-Saxon and Norse metalworking
Anglo-Saxon society
BBC History: Anglo-Saxons
Art: Anglo-Saxon Art Flickr Photostream
Anglo-Saxon Literature:
The Wanderer
Lecture: Thoughts on The Wanderer
Riddles from The Exeter Book
Exeter Book riddles: questions to ponder
Riddle-Poems and How to Make Them
Student riddles
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Bede (excerpts, especially passage pertaining to Caedmon)
Caedmon's Hymn
Lecture: Things to Consider While Reading Caedmon's Hymn
The Dream of the Rood
Questions to Consider While Reading The Dream of the Rood
Student Commentary on The Dream of the Rood
Beowulf
Digital images of the Beowulf manuscript
About Beowulf
Things to Consider While Reading Beowulf
Beowulf as original audiences would have experienced it
Vikings/Norse:
BBC History: Vikings
The Sagas of Icelanders (excerpts: read as much or as little as you like/have time for)
optional, for a mature reader: The Greenlanders/ Jane Smiley
also optional, for a mature reader: Kristen Lavransdatter/Sigrid Undset
Also, The Ballad of the White Horse/Chesterton
The Middle Ages
Middle Ages Background Lecture/Timeline
Resources for Medieval Culture:
Evolution of Middle English
Middle English pronunciation
The Our Father in Middle English (YouTube)
Food and drink in medieval England
Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham
Internet Medieval Sourcebook: Saints' Lives
The Merry Seamtress: Custom Historical Clothing:
Period-Correct Attire
BBC History: Middle Ages
Battle of Hastings game
Hands-on history
Church Interiors Challenge!
Restore Wells Cathedral to its Medieval glory
Courtly Love
The Hundred Years' War
The Wars of the Roses
The Online Froissart (medieval chronicle; you may wish to excerpt. We like the bits about war with the Scots)
The Black Death
Art: Medieval World Flickr photostream
The Quiet Light/de Wohl (St. Thomas Aquinas)
The Joyful Beggar/de Wohl (St. Francis of Assisi)
Lay Siege to Heaven/de Wohl (St. Catherine of Siena)
Chivalry/King Arthur:
The Knight's Code of Chivalry
Introduction to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
A taste of Middle English: edition edited by J.R.R. Tolkien
Sir Gawain in modern prose
This page includes another modern translation in .pdf format
Study resources: includes a link to Sir Gawain paper dolls!
Le Morte d'Arthur
volume 1
volume 2
Chaucer/Canterbury Tales:
Canterbury Cathedral
The Comprehensive Geoffrey Chaucer Webpage
includes text of Canterbury Tales
Another e-text, with Middle English/contemporary English en face
read:
General Prologue (v. helpful introduction here)
Pardoner's Tale
Nun's Priest's Tale
(study guide pending)
Also, Murder in the Cathedral/Eliot
Medieval Drama:
History of drama, with overview of medieval drama
More about miracle and mystery plays from Catholic Encyclopedia
Still more mystery-play background
Second Shepherd's Play/Wakefield Cycle of Mystery Plays (modernized)
Read about Everyman
Then read Everyman (in a modern translation)
Medieval Christmas Resources:
A Medieval Christmas
Medieval Christmas Traditions (stresses pagan origins of various traditions, but interesting)
Tales of Christmas in the Middle Ages
Medieval Carols:
Angelus ad Virginem
Adam Lay Ybounden
The Cherry Tree Carol
Hundred Years' War
Shakespeare's Henry V
Saint Joan: The Girl Soldier/de Wohl
Reformation
Characters of the Reformation/Belloc (free download)
How the Reformation Happened/Belloc
from the Homeschool Connections archive (subscription required):
Roots of the Revolt (1417-1650) with Philip Campbell/6 video sessions
Tudor England
Resources:
Mantlemass novels by Barbara Willard (good for girls especially)
Wars of the Roses.com
Wars of the Roses Timeline
Timeline of the Tudor monarchy
Time-Traveller's Guide to Tudor England
Henry VIII, King of England
Edward VI
Mary I
Elizabeth I
Saint Thomas More
A Little More More
The Life of Sir Thomas More/Roper
Saint John Fisher
Saint Edmund Campion
English Martyrs 1535-1681
Also . . .
Martyr Poet:
Robert Southwell
(unit study available from Emmanuel Books)
Additional resources:
Good film to watch at this time: A Man for All Seasons, starring Paul Scofield
Good novels to read at this time:
Edmund Campion, by Evelyn Waugh
Come Rack, Come Rope!/Robert Hugh Benson
The Sonnet
Sonnet Introduction here and here (writing a sonnet)
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Sir Philip Sidney
Edmund Spenser
Everything Shakespeare
Wyatt: Translation of Petrarch's Rima, Sonnet 134
Sidney: Astrophil and Stella sequence
Spenser: Sonnet 75 from the Amoretti
(note that he uses a rhyme scheme all his own -- there is such a thing as a Spenserian sonnet, as well as a Petrarchan or a Shakespearean)
Shakespeare:
Sonnet 130
Sonnet 60
Sonnet 55
Sonnet 18
You will notice that virtually all the sonnets listed here have numbers in their titles: that's because most of the time their authors didn't title them at all. Later printers arranged them and numbered them for easier referencing. Otherwise they're known by their first lines.
Because poets who wrote sonnets generally wrote a lot of them (kind of like Lay's Potato Chips. You can't write just one), it's important to read through a number of a given writer's sonnets if you want to get a feel for that writer's mind. Therefore I am strongly suggesting that in addition to the sonnets listed here, you choose one of the above poets and read more of that poet's sonnets. It is easy to find sonnets by Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare: they're all really famous, they've all been dead a long time, and their texts are readily available in libraries and online. So read ALL of Wyatt's translations of Petrarch (or as many as you can find); or read ALL of Astrophil and Stella, or all of Shakespeare's sonnets. You don't have to read them all in great depth, and of course sonnets are short.
Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama
Shakespeare Lecture Series (not Catholic, but good and useful)
All Things Elizabethan Theatre
No Fear Shakespeare
Macbeth
View scenes from a 1979 production of The Scottish Play, starring Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench:
Here
Here
Here
and here.
Also, The Quest for Shakespeare/Pearce
(be aware that reputable, faithful Catholic scholars like Robert Miola disagree with Pearce. In fact, Miola is the more credible scholar, and certainly one does not have to believe Shakespeare to have been a Catholic to be a faithful Catholic and lover of Shakespeare oneself. But in the interest of . . . interest in this question . . . )
Additional list of interesting historical and literary figures to star in one-page papers, research projects, dramatic monologues, historical stories, human timelines, or what-have-you:
Saint Alban
Saint Columba
Saint Augustine of Canterbury
Venerable Bede
Caedmon
Saint Hilda
Saint Etheldreda
Saint Edward the Confessor
Hereward the Wake
Geoffrey Chaucer
Sir Thomas Malory
William Langland
Margery Kempe
Julian of Norwich
Eleanor of Aquitaine
John of Gaunt
St. Thomas Becket
Henry II
Richeldis of Walsingham
Margaret of Anjou
Henry V
Empress Matilda
Philippa of Hainault
Edward, the Black Prince
Joan of Arc
Richard II
Richard III
Lady Margaret Beaufort
Jean Froissart
Henry VII
Catherine of Aragon
Christopher Marlowe
John Skelton
Ben Jonson
More Reading:
You may also wish to incorporate literature from Elizabeth Foss's medieval list, found here.
Written component of the tenth-grade course
You can handle composition (also grammar) in several ways, depending on what kind of foundation your student has and what your own scheduling needs and inclinations are. In our own homeschool, I have devoted a summer semester strictly to grammar and composition, using Jensen's Grammar and Jensen's Format Writing as texts. If this kind of thing works for you, the summer between eighth and ninth grade seems a logical time to do a comp-and-grammar mini-course.
Alternatively, you can schedule one day a week for composition/grammar throughout any given school year, or all of them. I like Jensen's for the straightforwardness of the exercises (basically self-teaching) and the logical progress through basic writing skills, from sentence to paragraph to essay. If your student doesn't enter ninth grade already knowing how to write a 5-paragraph essay, this is the year to introduce that useful format.
Students should be writing daily as part of some aspect of their coursework; it doesn't always have to be English/humanities. Because this course is more or less at the center of your homeschooling, however, it is a good idea to have your student writing frequently on themes and topics which arise from the reading. If you can be interdisciplinary, tying together a history concept with a science one, for example, so much the better!
Informal daily writing ideas:
* a reading journal in which the student carries on a conversation with the writers/historical figures behind the reading
*historical stories based on the reading
*letters to historical figures or writers or literary characters; "letters home" from scenes of historical or literary events
*"newspaper" stories
Formal paper topics:
For each unit, I assign some kind of formal writing. Sometimes it's a "take-your-time" prepared essay; sometimes it's a "prepare-ahead" essay (student reads, makes notes, sketches out outlines) which is written with a time limit (an hour or ninety minutes). Typically it's a paper based on some theme which is traced through all the literature/history for the year.
For example:
the idea of the hero
friendship/kinds of love
the individual's role in society/in relation to the state
the individual and the supernatural (ie man's relationship with his God or gods)
It's also good to begin introducing the idea of literary devices as ways of manifesting these themes (as well as the broad action of a given story, or the assertions of a given philosopher). Have your student make note of images that recur, particular metaphors or similes, etc.
Additional/Alternative Writing Option: One-Year Adventure Novel
Pricey, but man, does this look cool! (my rising eighth grader will actually do it this year). Though the college-bound student does need to know the nuts and bolts of basic expository writing, this imaginative option is sure to flex those writerly muscles, and the lessons learned transfer readily to the practice of formal writing. And what better way to feed the adventure-writing imagination than with the rich and varied reading here? I'm envisioning a time-traveler novel already . . .
Additional Reading:
How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler
My first child read this book at the beginning of her senior year. Hated it at first, then said it was coming with her to college, and other people would have to get their own copies. When my next child gets his own copy, my plan is to assign the first section (page numbers/chapter titles pending) at the beginning of ninth grade, or in the summer between eighth and ninth. Subsequent sections will form part of tenth, eleventh, and twelfth-grade reading.
Alternative course structures:
You could easily set up this course according to a Robinson-Curriculum schedule, with a reading list and the directive simply to write a short essay daily on a subject of the student's choice. I will be adding historically-appropriate science and math readings as I find them, to provide a more fully-integrated course of study (though of course you don't *have* to use every single reading!); also, I think I might provide the student with a list of essay prompts or writing ideas encouraging him to think about literary terms, themes, and so on. I'll add a list here soon, though SparkNotes is a surprisingly wonderful resource in this regard as well.
More to come!
Reading List
As with all our materials, you are free to choose among many options, to create a highly-accelerated or a more leisurely course of study, to suit your student's aptitudes. Titles given as hyperlinks are available as free e-texts.
Lesson Planning suggestions here.
1. Historical overview, or "spine" for the course
English Literature for Boys and Girls, H. E. Marshall
Sounds kiddie, and was in fact written for Victorian/Edwardian kiddies, but really is not all that kiddie by our current standards of literacy. I had initially thought of using this book with younger children, but on beginning to read it, realized that it was the spine I had been looking for for this year's course.
This reading is meant to provide historical context for all literary reading. The Marshall book has something like eighty-three chapters, ending with Tennyson; for this course, you would assign chapters through Sir Walter Raleigh, saving the rest as an accompaniment to next year's "Enlightenment and America" course.
Note that Marshall was a Protestant, and that you will want to take care with the the chapter regarding the Bible, for example ("How the Bible Came to the People"). The history here is important, and Marshall does cover the monastic foundation of the great universities and much other useful information, but for the sake of truth and balance, you will want to supplement with the Catholic side of the story.
Ditto her treatment of Thomas More. Resources to follow for this as well.
You may also/instead wish to use the second half of the Teaching Company Foundations of Western Civilization course begun in Grade 9, for a broader overview of world history during this period. Though our literary focus will be on England, the historical backdrop is that of European history from the fall of Rome through the Renaissance.
AND/OR:
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples/Winston Churchill
Other texts which provide a larger European context for this course:
How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
A lively, readable, and useful book which could inspire unit studies in the histories of disciplines like science and economics, and obviously the ideal companion to the Marshall text. Reading the two together and comparing viewpoints may give rise to some lively conversation about versions of history, and also to some compare-and-contrast writing assignments.
The Building of Christendom; The Glory of Christendom; The Revolution Against Christendom, Warren H. Carroll
If your student read and liked The Founding of Christendom last year, you may opt to continue with this series. The literary period this course covers encompasses the span of centuries represented by these volumes in The History of Christendom. In the interest of time, you may wish to assign excerpts from these books, rather than entire texts, unless your student is a speed-reader.
Founded on a Rock: A History of the Catholic Church/de Wohl
Have your student take notes while reading or listening -- using the Teaching Company series is an excellent way to acclimate a student to college lectures and to teach note-taking from an aural source. Also require a brief written narration once the reading/listening is finished. This is not graded for grammar, style, spelling, etc, merely checked and given written feedback to stimulate the student to read or listen for a greater level of detail or accuracy. Think of narrations as a written conversation about books and ideas.
You may also opt to have your student keep a timeline notebook, detailing both historical events and literary developments. Some useful ideas here.
2. A Culture Speaks: Primary Sources and Literary Reading
You won't have time to read absolutely everything on this list, but it's here for you to pick and choose and customize. My own setup is to assign a chapter/lecture from the "spine" text or lecture series (or both) for each unit and then use subsequent weeks for literary/primary-source reading and essay-writing (broad essay and research topics to follow). I also devote about eight weeks in the spring semester to a research paper of about ten pages, on some topic which grows out of all the year's reading. Depending on your student, you could opt to give some other kind of research project than a strictly written one, though the college-bound student really needs to become familiar with this kind of work.
End of the Roman Empire:
Citadel of God/de Wohl
Throne of the World/de Wohl
(if not read in Grade 9)
Anglo-Saxon Era:
Background Lecture 1
Background Lecture 2
Background Lecture 3
Student examples of kennings
Resources for Anglo-Saxon Culture:
Monasticism
Virtual Anglo-Saxon village
Anglo-Saxon kings
Anglo-Saxon law
Excerpts from Anglo-Saxon legal documents
Death and burial in the Anglo-Saxon world
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Anglo-Saxon swords (and other aspects of A-S life)
More about arms and armor
Anglo-Saxon and Norse metalworking
Anglo-Saxon society
BBC History: Anglo-Saxons
Art: Anglo-Saxon Art Flickr Photostream
Anglo-Saxon Literature:
The Wanderer
Lecture: Thoughts on The Wanderer
Riddles from The Exeter Book
Exeter Book riddles: questions to ponder
Riddle-Poems and How to Make Them
Student riddles
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Bede (excerpts, especially passage pertaining to Caedmon)
Caedmon's Hymn
Lecture: Things to Consider While Reading Caedmon's Hymn
The Dream of the Rood
Questions to Consider While Reading The Dream of the Rood
Student Commentary on The Dream of the Rood
Beowulf
Digital images of the Beowulf manuscript
About Beowulf
Things to Consider While Reading Beowulf
Beowulf as original audiences would have experienced it
Vikings/Norse:
BBC History: Vikings
The Sagas of Icelanders (excerpts: read as much or as little as you like/have time for)
optional, for a mature reader: The Greenlanders/ Jane Smiley
also optional, for a mature reader: Kristen Lavransdatter/Sigrid Undset
Also, The Ballad of the White Horse/Chesterton
The Middle Ages
Middle Ages Background Lecture/Timeline
Resources for Medieval Culture:
Evolution of Middle English
Middle English pronunciation
The Our Father in Middle English (YouTube)
Food and drink in medieval England
Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham
Internet Medieval Sourcebook: Saints' Lives
The Merry Seamtress: Custom Historical Clothing:
Period-Correct Attire
BBC History: Middle Ages
Battle of Hastings game
Hands-on history
Church Interiors Challenge!
Restore Wells Cathedral to its Medieval glory
Courtly Love
The Hundred Years' War
The Wars of the Roses
The Online Froissart (medieval chronicle; you may wish to excerpt. We like the bits about war with the Scots)
The Black Death
Art: Medieval World Flickr photostream
The Quiet Light/de Wohl (St. Thomas Aquinas)
The Joyful Beggar/de Wohl (St. Francis of Assisi)
Lay Siege to Heaven/de Wohl (St. Catherine of Siena)
Chivalry/King Arthur:
The Knight's Code of Chivalry
Introduction to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
A taste of Middle English: edition edited by J.R.R. Tolkien
Sir Gawain in modern prose
This page includes another modern translation in .pdf format
Study resources: includes a link to Sir Gawain paper dolls!
Le Morte d'Arthur
volume 1
volume 2
Chaucer/Canterbury Tales:
Canterbury Cathedral
The Comprehensive Geoffrey Chaucer Webpage
includes text of Canterbury Tales
Another e-text, with Middle English/contemporary English en face
read:
General Prologue (v. helpful introduction here)
Pardoner's Tale
Nun's Priest's Tale
(study guide pending)
Also, Murder in the Cathedral/Eliot
Medieval Drama:
History of drama, with overview of medieval drama
More about miracle and mystery plays from Catholic Encyclopedia
Still more mystery-play background
Second Shepherd's Play/Wakefield Cycle of Mystery Plays (modernized)
Read about Everyman
Then read Everyman (in a modern translation)
Medieval Christmas Resources:
A Medieval Christmas
Medieval Christmas Traditions (stresses pagan origins of various traditions, but interesting)
Tales of Christmas in the Middle Ages
Medieval Carols:
Angelus ad Virginem
Adam Lay Ybounden
The Cherry Tree Carol
Hundred Years' War
Shakespeare's Henry V
Saint Joan: The Girl Soldier/de Wohl
Reformation
Characters of the Reformation/Belloc (free download)
How the Reformation Happened/Belloc
from the Homeschool Connections archive (subscription required):
Roots of the Revolt (1417-1650) with Philip Campbell/6 video sessions
Tudor England
Resources:
Mantlemass novels by Barbara Willard (good for girls especially)
Wars of the Roses.com
Wars of the Roses Timeline
Timeline of the Tudor monarchy
Time-Traveller's Guide to Tudor England
Henry VIII, King of England
Edward VI
Mary I
Elizabeth I
Saint Thomas More
A Little More More
The Life of Sir Thomas More/Roper
Saint John Fisher
Saint Edmund Campion
English Martyrs 1535-1681
Also . . .
Martyr Poet:
Robert Southwell
(unit study available from Emmanuel Books)
Additional resources:
Good film to watch at this time: A Man for All Seasons, starring Paul Scofield
Good novels to read at this time:
Edmund Campion, by Evelyn Waugh
Come Rack, Come Rope!/Robert Hugh Benson
The Sonnet
Sonnet Introduction here and here (writing a sonnet)
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Sir Philip Sidney
Edmund Spenser
Everything Shakespeare
Wyatt: Translation of Petrarch's Rima, Sonnet 134
Sidney: Astrophil and Stella sequence
Spenser: Sonnet 75 from the Amoretti
(note that he uses a rhyme scheme all his own -- there is such a thing as a Spenserian sonnet, as well as a Petrarchan or a Shakespearean)
Shakespeare:
Sonnet 130
Sonnet 60
Sonnet 55
Sonnet 18
You will notice that virtually all the sonnets listed here have numbers in their titles: that's because most of the time their authors didn't title them at all. Later printers arranged them and numbered them for easier referencing. Otherwise they're known by their first lines.
Because poets who wrote sonnets generally wrote a lot of them (kind of like Lay's Potato Chips. You can't write just one), it's important to read through a number of a given writer's sonnets if you want to get a feel for that writer's mind. Therefore I am strongly suggesting that in addition to the sonnets listed here, you choose one of the above poets and read more of that poet's sonnets. It is easy to find sonnets by Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare: they're all really famous, they've all been dead a long time, and their texts are readily available in libraries and online. So read ALL of Wyatt's translations of Petrarch (or as many as you can find); or read ALL of Astrophil and Stella, or all of Shakespeare's sonnets. You don't have to read them all in great depth, and of course sonnets are short.
Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama
Shakespeare Lecture Series (not Catholic, but good and useful)
All Things Elizabethan Theatre
No Fear Shakespeare
Macbeth
View scenes from a 1979 production of The Scottish Play, starring Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench:
Here
Here
Here
and here.
Also, The Quest for Shakespeare/Pearce
(be aware that reputable, faithful Catholic scholars like Robert Miola disagree with Pearce. In fact, Miola is the more credible scholar, and certainly one does not have to believe Shakespeare to have been a Catholic to be a faithful Catholic and lover of Shakespeare oneself. But in the interest of . . . interest in this question . . . )
Additional list of interesting historical and literary figures to star in one-page papers, research projects, dramatic monologues, historical stories, human timelines, or what-have-you:
Saint Alban
Saint Columba
Saint Augustine of Canterbury
Venerable Bede
Caedmon
Saint Hilda
Saint Etheldreda
Saint Edward the Confessor
Hereward the Wake
Geoffrey Chaucer
Sir Thomas Malory
William Langland
Margery Kempe
Julian of Norwich
Eleanor of Aquitaine
John of Gaunt
St. Thomas Becket
Henry II
Richeldis of Walsingham
Margaret of Anjou
Henry V
Empress Matilda
Philippa of Hainault
Edward, the Black Prince
Joan of Arc
Richard II
Richard III
Lady Margaret Beaufort
Jean Froissart
Henry VII
Catherine of Aragon
Christopher Marlowe
John Skelton
Ben Jonson
More Reading:
You may also wish to incorporate literature from Elizabeth Foss's medieval list, found here.
Written component of the tenth-grade course
You can handle composition (also grammar) in several ways, depending on what kind of foundation your student has and what your own scheduling needs and inclinations are. In our own homeschool, I have devoted a summer semester strictly to grammar and composition, using Jensen's Grammar and Jensen's Format Writing as texts. If this kind of thing works for you, the summer between eighth and ninth grade seems a logical time to do a comp-and-grammar mini-course.
Alternatively, you can schedule one day a week for composition/grammar throughout any given school year, or all of them. I like Jensen's for the straightforwardness of the exercises (basically self-teaching) and the logical progress through basic writing skills, from sentence to paragraph to essay. If your student doesn't enter ninth grade already knowing how to write a 5-paragraph essay, this is the year to introduce that useful format.
Students should be writing daily as part of some aspect of their coursework; it doesn't always have to be English/humanities. Because this course is more or less at the center of your homeschooling, however, it is a good idea to have your student writing frequently on themes and topics which arise from the reading. If you can be interdisciplinary, tying together a history concept with a science one, for example, so much the better!
Informal daily writing ideas:
* a reading journal in which the student carries on a conversation with the writers/historical figures behind the reading
*historical stories based on the reading
*letters to historical figures or writers or literary characters; "letters home" from scenes of historical or literary events
*"newspaper" stories
Formal paper topics:
For each unit, I assign some kind of formal writing. Sometimes it's a "take-your-time" prepared essay; sometimes it's a "prepare-ahead" essay (student reads, makes notes, sketches out outlines) which is written with a time limit (an hour or ninety minutes). Typically it's a paper based on some theme which is traced through all the literature/history for the year.
For example:
the idea of the hero
friendship/kinds of love
the individual's role in society/in relation to the state
the individual and the supernatural (ie man's relationship with his God or gods)
It's also good to begin introducing the idea of literary devices as ways of manifesting these themes (as well as the broad action of a given story, or the assertions of a given philosopher). Have your student make note of images that recur, particular metaphors or similes, etc.
Additional/Alternative Writing Option: One-Year Adventure Novel
Pricey, but man, does this look cool! (my rising eighth grader will actually do it this year). Though the college-bound student does need to know the nuts and bolts of basic expository writing, this imaginative option is sure to flex those writerly muscles, and the lessons learned transfer readily to the practice of formal writing. And what better way to feed the adventure-writing imagination than with the rich and varied reading here? I'm envisioning a time-traveler novel already . . .
Additional Reading:
How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler
My first child read this book at the beginning of her senior year. Hated it at first, then said it was coming with her to college, and other people would have to get their own copies. When my next child gets his own copy, my plan is to assign the first section (page numbers/chapter titles pending) at the beginning of ninth grade, or in the summer between eighth and ninth. Subsequent sections will form part of tenth, eleventh, and twelfth-grade reading.
Alternative course structures:
You could easily set up this course according to a Robinson-Curriculum schedule, with a reading list and the directive simply to write a short essay daily on a subject of the student's choice. I will be adding historically-appropriate science and math readings as I find them, to provide a more fully-integrated course of study (though of course you don't *have* to use every single reading!); also, I think I might provide the student with a list of essay prompts or writing ideas encouraging him to think about literary terms, themes, and so on. I'll add a list here soon, though SparkNotes is a surprisingly wonderful resource in this regard as well.
More to come!
