Today, we are talking about the highest level of Charlotte Mason Literature lessons in high school. How do they differ from earlier levels? What sorts of books are assigned? Stay tuned to today’s podcast episode to learn more.
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Emily
Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I’m Emily Kiser and I’m here with…
Liz
…Liz Cottrill…
Nicole
…and Nicole Williams.
Emily
And sometimes I laugh when I hear people say that Charlotte Mason is light. We’re not strenuous enough.
Nicole
Yeah.
Emily
After spending years poring over her curriculum programs, I marvel at the caliber and variety of books that a Charlotte Mason student would read in their high school years, really even before that, but especially their high school years. These are often more difficult and far more diverse than what I read in college.
This is especially true, I think, in literature. So Nicole, would you share with us what students in Forms 5 and 6, which is grades 10 through 12 or ages 15 to 18, what would they be reading for literature?
Emily
They actually read a few fewer books at this point, but they had such greater weight, the books like…
Emily
Physically, they were far heavier.
Nicole
Right, right, right. I meant that exactly. Five to eight titles per term, though. There was at least one drama assigned every term, sometimes two, because she pulled in some of the Greek tragedies or other contemporary plays from the time period that they were studying.
Sir Walter Scott usually dropped just one of those per year and then other books like Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, George Eliot’s Silas Marner, Gaskell’s North and South, things like that were pulled in, so they were reading those as well. There are essays read in every term now. And some of those examples are like Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies, something on Carlisle, the Addison Papers. They were just a very important part of these upper high school students’ education.
They were also reading a poetry anthology. But beyond just the anthology, well, with the anthology, they had like Oxford book of English verse, Walter de la Mare’s Come Hither. But there was also, I don’t have it written down here, I guess, but there was like an anthology of modern verse, which I thought was interesting because while they were keeping up with their historical time period, they also were reading modern books.
Emily
It is like 1800s through, so it was even a little, like the generation before.
Nicole
Okay.
They also read like an epic or world classic once a year at this stage. Milton’s Paradise Lost, Dante. In translation, of course. Chaucer. Previously, they would have maybe read a little bit of Chaucer, just little parts of it. Now they’re reading much more of it. And Coleridge, just some really heavy things that they’re reading, thought-provoking things.
Charlotte Mason described this stage. She said, their reading for Forms 5 and 6 is more comprehensive and more difficult. But young people who have been brought up on this sort of work may be trusted to have a good knowledge of, actually she uses a French word there. I don’t know what it means. A good knowledge of the best that is being produced in their own days. And she said these readings will lead to much reading round and about in later days equipping the students to exercise the imaginative judgment every citizen means.
They’re still using a commonplace book and doing a lot of narration to self at this point for sure. She said, these young students have the powers of perfect recollection and just application because they have read with attention and concentration and have in every case reproduced what they’ve read in narration or the gist of some portion of it in writing.
Also by this stage, she says they’re practicing the art of weighing and discussing great ideas and becoming the statesmen in the best sense. So we’re thinking like novels and stuff. This is just fun, but there are things in these books, weighty issues that are being considered and grappled with.
And I would just go back to something she said when she was talking in form about the Form 2 students. She said, we spread an abundant and delicate feast and each small guest assimilates what he can. And I would say that even at the summit, steady growth and not exhausted mastery remains the goal.
Liz
That’s a good point.
Emily
When she said latter days, she’s talking about the rest of their lives.
Nicole
Yeah.
Emily
Well, as we’re setting up readers for the rest of their lives, in their weekly lessons they did two a week for 30 minutes. And they don’t have Reading, it’s just all under Literature at this point. So those were both to be used maybe at the child’s discretion, maybe you would make some suggestions of which they would be reading.
But probably they’re going to have their lessons for their Greek drama, maybe a little more challenging essays, but maybe not. Maybe that’s still part of the lighter portion. Their literary biography that they included as well. And again, they still have holiday and evening reading that’s listed but that has been provided for, so the lighter portions of the program, the novels, the poetry, and the drama or play.
They do have Reading lessons because you know what I found there? The Speaking Voice. Yeah. It doesn’t have their books that they’re practicing reading. They actually have a reading lesson.
Nicole
Right.
Emily
That is vocal exercises to get their reading up. So all of the books have moved off onto the literature portion that we saw in earlier forms, but they actually were still to be improving their reading. And I think that’s a question because people wonder where to do that in recitation because they don’t have recitation lessons anymore. So that’s actually under there.
As far as the individual lessons go, we use the same general format as all the other ones, but the students are almost always going to be reading to themselves in these lessons. So they were recalling the last lesson, they might, maybe occasionally you would want to do an oral lesson to introduce a new author or a theme that is prevalent in the terms reading. Maybe you’re reading about a significant historical event that really greatly influenced the literature that they’re reading. You might do something like that. That might excite their interest, you know, in that book or that essay, but probably not every single lesson are they going to have that.
They’re going to read to themselves, and then they’re going to narrate. And there were notes that they were to read one day and two days later write the narration. So we see even their narration is being stretched at this level to be able to recall something that they read two days prior. They also might write essays and verse on their literature books. So it’s not just straight narration, not just a telling back.
I think discussion at this point is still very important though. Students of the fifth and sixth forms who had read a great deal are learning to make their own criticisms and comparisons that are not dictated by their teacher or by a textbook that’s giving them those ready-made opinions. They can recognize an author’s style and some of its distinguishing qualities, Ms. Agnes Drury said. So all of those things, that was a whole quote from Ms. Drury.
So on their exams, I think this shows the breadth of what was assigned. There were many choices, but they were being asked to make much more analysis and personal opinion was asked for directly in their exam answers. This is not simply a reporting of what the book contained, but how they’re interacting with it. Their literature and exam and their composition exam both covered the literature of the day as well as some other things in composition. And so that again allows for students who haven’t maybe finished all of it, even though they were expected to read all of what was assigned before the next term.
Their objectives for their literature lessons were to have a better sense of how people lived and thought in different times and places, to increase their interest in knowledge for its own sake, right? This is what sets them up for the rest of their life.
Charlotte Mason said, this course of reading, which will be seen, is suggestive and will lead to much reading round about it in later days, as you said, Nicole. So this really is setting them up to continue their education throughout the rest of their life.
In short, she said, literature has become a living power in the minds of these young people. So it really develops them as persons and their opinions and judgments.
So as far as teacher prep, hopefully your job will be a little more or far more enjoyable because I hope you’re reading this stuff. If this is the type of work that she’s expecting adults to read, you know. That’s what we should be reading too. So you can if you read along with your students. So I would say help them come up with a schedule for the term or how they’re going to tackle all of these things, which ones they’re going to read during their literature lesson. Make sure they have habits of reading daily. And again, we have just a few more years with them under our roof probably. So hopefully these habits that we have been instilling are created for life.
And again, yeah, just to read along with them, maybe not with them specifically, but at the same time, like a little family book club. So you can have an understanding sympathy with them and discuss.
Liz
And I think the point that you’re making here is that reading was supposed to be an integral part of their life. It was not an optional activity. Like, well, I just don’t like to read. She would not have countenanced that whatsoever.
Emily
Right. She talks about an educated person as a reading person. Right.
Liz
Yeah, I’m just saying if you’re not reading you’re not thinking.
Emily
Yes So I don’t have a lot of resources to share today for Form 5 and 6. We do have some notes of lessons. They’re going to be listed under Class 4; that is not the same thing as Form 4. It’s the same thing as 5 and 6. They changed how they called Forms, even in her life. And so I just show you our Shakespeare planner because there are denoted in here which plays you reserved only for these higher forms of his work. But again, that’s not all the drama that they’re reading.
Liz
And these are busy years, the high school years. And I think it’s interesting. Nicole was reading before we started here today, a quote of Charlotte Mason, where she said, we’re basically bringing them up to the level where most adults read. And so I would challenge you to look at what she expected an adult to be reading.
Emily
And the quantity that they were reading in the same period of time. Do you read this many books in three months?
Nicole
Yeah.
Liz
Well, I do, but.
Emily
I was asking the listeners.
Liz
So I’m just saying it is possible to do if that is a value in your life, but you know as I said in the last episode about Form 4 that these are busy years, and it’s just really important when we are still the overseeing teacher to not let them just kind of skimp on all of this reading. It’s not okay for them to get through one or two novels a year. They do have to be reading a lot of this poetry and plays and the Greek dramas and all of the rest, the essays and learning how to plow through the things that they wouldn’t normally pick up because we’re developing the taste that they should have for the rest of their life.
And I would just say, you know, audio books are readily available in all the classics. So if they have to listen to some of them while they’re driving to their extracurricular events, that would be better than not getting through them at all. But help them to navigate the balancing of school and work. This is still the priority. Their social life is super important, but they have to learn how to do what they’re expected to do before they pursue a lot of outside things. So help them choose between all those extras. Not at the expense of their school assignments.
Emily
As we close each series, we like to devote an episode to practical concerns and questions about that subject. So we hope you’ll join us next time as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method and conclude our series on Literature.