If you’ve been following along, you might be thinking, what more can we add to literature lessons during middle and high school? Well, join us today in the podcast to take a look at grades seven through nine literature lessons in the Charlotte Mason curriculum.

Listen Now:

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

English Literature for Boys and Girls by HE Marshall

The Age of Fable by Thomas Bullfinch

Shakespeare (Folger and Oxford Editions)

ADE Literature: Forms 3-4 Breakdown

ADE Shakespeare Planner

ADE on YouTube

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
So far in our series on Literature in a Charlotte Mason curriculum, we’ve covered all of elementary school, half of our kids’ school careers. Isn’t that terrifying.

So today we’re turning to the next group of forms, Forms 3 and 4. Students are in Form 3 for two years, seventh and eighth grade. And one year in Form 4, which is ninth grade or the first year of high school for us here in America. And these years are really a transition point for a person’s development, right? If you think about your own middle school journey, it probably does not fill you with lots of warm, fuzzy feelings, right? It’s a fraught time.

And so it’s a transition from childhood to adulthood, right? And so their literature lessons are reflecting this transition as well. They’re transitioning from their childhood literature lessons to their high school and beyond literature reading. So Nicole, will you tell us a little bit about their program of work?

Nicole
Yeah, in Form 3, their literary feast widens even more. Across the 40 programs, or almost 40 programs, we can see each term lists three to ten titles. It varies widely, with six or seven being the average. There’s three strands that are non-negotiables. 

First of all, Shakespeare was read every term, usually a lighter history or a comedy at this stage, read aloud in character, and almost always Form 3 students read the same play the Form 2 students were reading. So there could be some combining there. 

And then Bullfinch’s Age of Fable continues again with the same reading schedule as in Form 2, just term after term. 

And then they also read from the History of English Literature for Boys and Girls. And this spine marches in step with the time period, the historical time period that they are reading. And it will continue on into Form 4. So around those pillars, the menu really rotates. 

We see a lot of Sir Walter Scott still. Two out of three terms. So maybe you think like two novels of that caliber a year.  And then there’s extra poetry that shows up just all over the place. Ballads from Scott, Southey, narrative poems by Tennyson, Kipling. And then roughly a third of the terms, there was an added historical adventure or travel tales such as Westward Ho or the Coral Islands. And then out of that many programs we have essays appear twice, both times Lamb’s essays. So you know, it could be pulled in there, we’re not sure. 

So we think that leaves like, you know, one novel per term. It’s not, you know, there is a variety here of types of books they’re reading and those novels would also go with the literature time period. 

So in Form 4, grade nine, it really looks familiar on paper to the Form 3, but it’s really working its way up a notch again here. The pillars remain the same. Shakespeare, though, now includes some of the heavier tragedies and late histories, such as King Lear, Coriolanus, and Richard III. About half the time, their play was assigned the same as Form 2 and 3. Sometimes it wasn’t. So that was just something to note. 

And then the history of English Literature for Boys and Girls spine continues, still tied to history. And then Scott remained on the program at this level, but then we start seeing some of the more dense Waverly novels at this point. Ivanhoe, I don’t know if I can do this one, Kenilworth, is that right? And Woodstock, again, always unabridged terms books at this point. 

Nonfiction was introduced here. So this was a new thing. Every term now we see an essay. So I mentioned that like just some a couple times in Form 3 but this is where they really enter the scene. These were things like Ruskin, Carlisle, Lamb or Addison. Again more poetry, more poetry, lots of poetry on these lists but the poetry became a little weightier at this point. Some Tennyson poems, Browning pieces that were bigger and then we also see some travel narratives by classic authors. 

I think at this point the object is, as Charlotte Mason put it, to give the children wide spaces wherein imagination may take holiday excursions. I just loved that. And to cultivate judgment, she said, of every citizen that we must exercise on public questions.

She referred to strikes or unrest and how we would deal with that kind of thing. We learn that through some of these books. 

Emily
That was a very, very pressing thing that they think, you know, possibly without World War I England would be a very different country today because of the labor unrest. 

Nicole
Yeah. The caliber rises with the essays and the types of Shakespeare books that are being read.  Scott’s demanding longer stamina at this point. But the underlying rhythm remains the same and is always the steady growth in attention, imagination, not necessarily the mastery of every line, but we’re just challenging and moving.

Emily
Okay, so you said six to seven works a term or a year, if they stretch out over the year, in Form 3 and about eight in Form 4. You might be relieved if you listened to our last episode to know that they have more than one time on the timetable that they can read. But they have doubled their amount of work. So they’re still not going to be reading everything during their morning lessons.

Form 3 weekly had one 30 minute literature lesson and one 30 minute reading lesson. And the things that you described, Nicole, are actually listed under both parts of the program. 

Nicole
They were, yeah. Right. 

Emily
So the lighter portions of the program were actually listed under the reading. But there was the note that both of those included holiday and evening reading. So there is the expectation that they’re not going to be getting through all of those things during these morning lessons, even though they have two, right? 

Liz
And this might be unnecessary but I should have said it last episode. When she says holiday it’s what we call vacation. Just making sure she wasn’t saying they had to read it on Christmas Day. 

Emily
The time between the terms, which actually did coincide with church holidays – there was a big Christmas holiday and then the Easter holiday.

And then in Form 4, they actually had one 40-minute literature. So their literature time went up a bit, but their reading time stayed at 30 minutes. So during their lessons, they’re probably going to be reading their anthology, their mythology, and maybe some room to read some of those other portions of their literature. 

Individually, it’s the same format that we’ve been talking about all along. So that at least isn’t changing, right? It’s just the caliber of literature. But what we do with those books does stay fairly the same, except the child is growing more in their independence and they’re doing more of their reading themselves. 

So they, of course, should begin by recalling the last lesson. We may want to arouse their interest in today’s lesson. As a side note, I usually just jot that question or a little tidbit down on a Post-it note and put it at the beginning of the book, as I might be working with a younger child. 

And we do have a few examples of oral lessons at this level that were given by teachers trained by Charlotte Mason to students of these ages. We don’t have them for the earlier years, interestingly enough. And those were mostly every time a new author was being introduced. So I think there is, like if you’re going to start an essay by somebody or you’re going to read an author you haven’t read before or a long poem, you could do an oral lesson introducing your students to that person and what you know, a little short biography of their life, you know, their contributions to literature, etc. And I think that does go hand in hand again with the literature anthology. They’re getting some of these ideas already. 

So then they read probably a full chapter or a full passage, a complete thought. And they’re usually reading independently at this age. They narrate, the note in the, it’s on the timetable actually, is where we get the note about how many written narrations. For forms three and up, it said at least two written narrations a day. So at least two, minimum of two, possibly more. But there’s plenty of time for the reading of that section and then the narration all within that lesson.

And then after their narration, there’s a little talk. Again, we’re not asking comprehension questions. This is really for them to have a chance to wrestle with their thoughts about a book and for you to get a little glimpse into what they’re thinking about. 

Now the exams again, just as in Form 2, there would be questions on everything assigned, but there were going to be choices. So they have to answer one of the following and there would be like three options. If there was something that was, well actually it wasn’t for everything. So because they had so many things they might not be getting to all of that during the term, but they were expected to read it.

Charlotte Mason tells us the objective for literature lessons at this age. She says the object of the children’s literary studies is not to give them precise information as to who wrote what in what in the reign of whom. Who wrote what in the reign of whom. But to give them a sense of spaciousness of the days. In such ways, the children secure wide spaces wherein information may take those holiday excursions, deprived of which life is dreary. 

Again, as you said, Nicole, they are developing their sound judgment and opinions. What Charlotte Mason said was the duty of all people. And she repeatedly said literature is our greatest moral teacher because we can live vicariously through people. In a novel, we can see the whole course of a life. We can see the effect of the choices, you know, what happens to the person as a result of the choices that they make. I think of Becky Sharp, of course, in Vanity Fair is one that’s very vivid. And those things are very instructive for our children and hopefully will spare them a lot of grief in their life. 

As far as teacher prep, we schedule out the work of the term. I think that now is an appropriate time to be working with the child to figure out how are you going to accomplish all this reading? You know, they need to kind of know what the whole scope is and get on board with that. And then to set aside time each week for Shakespeare and to ensure they do have daily time and cultivate your family rhythms to allow for daily time for reading or they won’t be able to accomplish their program of work. 

I do recommend pre-reading at this age, or maybe not pre-reading, but just reading at the same time. If you could be reading their novel while they’re reading their novel, you know, not together, but concurrently, just so you can maintain sympathetic interest and discussion with the kids. 

A few resources to show you today. Here is English Literature for Boys and Girls. It is interesting to note they were only in this form for three years, but the book was on a four year rotation. So they’re not going to get all of it. So you don’t have to worry about starting at the beginning. You read the part that coincides with your time period. 

And then Age of Fable, Form 3 continues this just as they had done in Form 2. This is just the, both of these are the Yesterday’s Classics editions of these works. We do have literature breakdowns for both Age of Fable and for English Literature on Boys and Girls if you need help scheduling that out. And it includes all four years so you can figure out where you need to be reading in the book. 

And then Shakespeare, I’ve mentioned before, but our family’s favorites are either the Folger Shakespeare Library or the Oxford School Shakespeare. We get a copy for each person and it does help if they’re the same edition because there are differences in the editions of Shakespeare. We had a rather heated argument this past year in one of our readings because daddy’s copy was different. And then we do have a Shakespeare planner available on our website for picking the plays and which ones, like Nicole was mentioning, were reserved for Form 4 and up.

Liz
And I would just like to say that if you are a little nervous because your children just became competent readers a year ago and they’re at this level, we always take a child from where he is. I would still encourage you to, that they’ll be ready for this challenge. You know, when you have teens, they can be seemingly a little argumentative, but it’s really a sign that they are starting to think for themselves and we do want that too. So they’re ready for these deeper topics and the more mature ideas that are in a lot of these books. 

So the challenge is that they think that school is over when those three and a half or four hours of the morning lessons are over, and she is encouraging them to make literature a habit of life. Sure, they can go out and blow off steam for a couple of hours, but they are going to have to spend some of their afternoon and evening times. She said that, you know, in Form 3, they should get to know six poets every term, that they personally are familiar with them and understand. And I think another reason that poetry becomes part of their own time that they have to spend in it is that they’re reading, like Nicole said, these longer epic poems. I don’t mean the Iliad, although I think that she did assign Iliad and Odyssey in Form 4. I mean, just, you know, something like Evangeline by Longfellow even is very long and it’s going to take them a few weeks to get through that one poem. 

Anyway, but do require them to read. It is part of their responsibility for school. But don’t badger them about what they think of everything they’re reading. This is a lot for them to ponder and just give them the space for making their own opinions about things. That’s what’s really important to them at this age.

And I would say at the most, you’re going to be maybe assigning some of the things from these readings for composition, but we’ll talk about that in a later episode. And especially when they get to be in Form 4, first year of high school, they need even more time to read. And we just have to help them to be more realistic about how many extracurriculars they can participate in, and how many things they can say yes to outside of those morning lessons. 

These years are still crucial for them to be developing their minds in school, but they’re also really busy years and they’re having a lot of outside interest. So they’re having to learn to cope with the reality that of all of us adults in life…that you can’t do everything. But school, we have to remember and encourage them about, is still the main work before play.
Emily
We are almost through our survey of literature lessons in a Charlotte Mason curriculum. Next week, we will wrap up with looking at the rest of high school lessons. So in the meantime, check out our show notes for the links to all the resources that we mentioned today. We hope you’ll join us as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.

Do we really need to read Shakespeare? I thought all of the books were read during morning lessons. Upper elementary literature lessons in a Charlotte Mason curriculum may just surprise you. Join us today in the podcast to find out all the details.

Listen Now:

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

Heroes of Asgard by Annie and Eliza Keary (black and white or color)

The Age of Fable by Thomas Bullfinch

Shakespeare (Folger and Oxford Editions)

ADE Literature: Forms 1-2 Breakdown

ADE Shakespeare Planner

Episode 38: Shakespeare

Episode 135: Shakespeare Immersion Lesson

ADE on YouTube

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
Last time we discussed the details of Form 1 literature lessons and today we’re moving on to Form 2. This form includes grades 4 through 6. Children are between the ages of 9 and 12 roughly in these grades and as in Form 1 this form is also divided into the very confusing B first for the first year, B for beginner and A for the last two years or A for advanced. And so fourth grade for 2B, fifth and sixth grade for 2A. 

Nicole, will you tell us what types of literature Form 2 students read? 

Nicole
Yeah. OK, so we see we have 38 programs in a row that we can look at. And on those, we see that Charlotte Mason assigned, or whoever is doing the program at the time, between three and seven titles each term. But don’t be afraid. The average for one was four.

But we’re going to go over what things were actually assigned. So from nine years old onward, the children listened to or read one play from Shakespeare every term. And let me clarify there, because I just said they listened to or read right there at that very beginning. And that is because in Form 2B or fourth grade Charlotte Mason specified that the children still hear some of the heavier works read aloud, meaning, and I quote her, she said, Twelfth Night, Rob Roy, and Gulliver’s Travels. And so some of these are a little harder. 

However, by Form 2A, so our fifth and sixth graders, they often read the play in character, each being given a part. So that needs to be kind of a quick transition that’s happening there if we can. Charlotte Mason found their ability to understand, this is her words, understand, visualize, and narrate Shakespeare very surprising. So they can do this. 

In addition, mythology continues as a spine, drawing a thread from the heroic world of Form 1 into the classical studies that are to come down the road. And in Form 2B, again, fourth grade, they read from Heroes of Asgard, which included a two-year rotation, even though the kids would only be at that level for one year.

Liz
So they didn’t read the whole thing all in one year. 

Nicole
And then in Form 2A, so fifth and sixth grade, they read from Bullfinch’s Age of Fable, which rotated on a three-year rotation? 

Emily
A four-year rotation. This is new news to us. We thought for a long time it was only two years and then we found it hidden in the Form 3 programs. 

Nicole
Yeah, so it continues on past this form. 

Emily
Yes and and for just a little spoiler for next week, Form 2 and 3 were reading the same sections of Bullfinch in a four-year rotation. 

Nicole
Yeah. Okay, so poetry is also present every term because Shakespeare counts as verse, each program already contains one substantial work of poetry right there. But in addition, about half the terms had a second piece of narrative or lyric poetry such as Scott’s long ballads, Southeast ballads, Kipling’s poems, Tennyson’s The Foresters or The Charge of the Light Brigade. So it’s something like that. 

Now, Scott becomes a near constant companion with the Form 2A students. A novel or a long poem by Sir Walter Scott shows up in every, let’s see, two of every three terms. So two of those would be read every year. And that, I think that’s really helpful as a bridge, again, between those fairy tales and the historical fiction that’s coming later. 

Okay, also, I thought this was fun. In the fall term, we sometimes see something that’s like a festive Christmas holiday type thing, A Christmas Carol, something like that, because the fall term would end before the Christmas break, so something they could read over that break. 

I mentioned that some of the heavier works were read aloud to the Form 2B beginner, the first part of that Form 2 students, but Charlotte Mason clarified that the transition to Form 2A is marked by more individual reading as well as by a few additional books. So the average, though, so she says a few additional books there, the average went from 4.2 to 4.5. So like actually what she was assigning wasn’t a whole lot more for that different change. But it’s important to note that while these works are stiff, students should be trying to read them by themselves at this point, or with a parent, maybe co-reading something like that, in preparation for what is to come. 

She did not lower the bar for this subject, and she clarified that we spread an abundant and delicate feast, and each small guest assimilates what he can. I think that helps us to understand the goal in these lessons is not that they will necessarily know and understand every bit of the reading.

And maybe sometimes it’s good that some of it goes over their head, right? 

Emily
Right, for sure. 

Nicole
However, Charlotte Mason trusted the children to rise to the ideas in the book. And she said they would tell back or narrate with not only accuracy, but with spirit and originality. So again, it’s really a bridge. I feel like an important bridge. It’s varied. It’s demanding. I feel like it’s a really important and good time in their education. 

Emily
So Nicole, you’re saying…well let’s just round down. Four Literature books. 

Nicole
Yes. 

Emily
Four books a term, or a year if they’re reading a whole book over the course of a year. So it might surprise you when I tell you that they only had one 30 minute lesson a week.  How are we going to get all this reading done? 

Well, there’s a note that the literature assigned included their holiday and evening reading. And then we have this other further quote that gives us a little hint. The lighter portions of the literature, the novel, okay, Sir Walter Scott. It’s pretty, pretty light. Yes, the play, which their play is Shakespeare, okay, also light, and the poems. Right, all right, Charlotte Mason, I’m with you there. Okay, these are read for amusement in the evenings and in the holidays.

Now, I will say that exams included questions on these lighter portion books, but always there were multiple options of questions that you were asking on a book or play or poem, there were multiple options. So if the child had not yet read that because their holidays are going to be after the exams, right, in between term holidays. So they may not have gotten to it. And so there is expectation that the children are reading these things. But there is allowance that they may not have gotten to all of it in the term.  But they would have had it right on something, it’s not like they could just not have any of those as their option, right?

So that leaves their one lesson for their mythology, right? That’s what they’re reading and they needed that whole time to get through the quantity that was assigned so there really wasn’t room to be reading the other thing. 

The other thing I was going to say for those lighter portions is that means they’re not being narrated on a daily basis or whenever they’re reading them. This is their first foray into managing their own time with worthy reading, filling it with a worthy occupation, reading worthy books and they’re maybe narrating to themselves in their head because they are going to have to have an exam question. So they have to have thought about it and been familiar with it, but they’re not going to be coming to mom every time they finish their reading for the evening or whatever and telling you everything that they read.

Okay, so changing gears to the individual lessons. These are much the same as in Form 1. They’re going to before you begin reading, we need to recap or recall what was going on in the last lesson. And really the students should be doing this by habit. You know, we’re developing that habit. They’ve been doing it for three years now. And then the teacher should say a bit about what will be read in order to excite anticipation for the lessons. We can still do that part. And then there’s the reading for the day.

Now for students in Form 2, there is no literature as a subject on the program, right? Nicole, what did you find all of those books listed under? 

Nicole
They’re listed under reading. 

Emily
Reading, right, because reading is the skill. It’s not just the mechanics of reading the printed letters and words on the page and deciphering or decoding what those words are. It is also the process of reading aloud with good enunciation, volume, breath, you know just reading with expression. Yes, being a good reader you have a little experience with good and bad readers, Mom, having read so many audio throughout your life.

But it is not just them reading silently, right? There still needs to be lots of practice. So even if they’re doing the lesson independently, they do need practice at reading aloud. And then comes the narration, of course. There’s nothing in between them reading and doing their narration. But in Form 2, they’re doing one to two written narrations a day. Form 2B needed to write one narration a day. And Form 2A needed to write two written narrations per day. So by sixth grade, they would probably almost always be doing written narration from their mythology, right? As that was one of the two to three lesson books that they had every day that would need a written narration. 

And then after the narration, there can be a little talk or discussion asking their thoughts on the work that they read. We might look at pictures or maps, you know, look up a pronunciation for one of the Greek or Norse names that we didn’t know how to pronounce or something like that. But again, these are not comprehension questions that we ask. They should just be subjective to the student to give their thoughts. And as far as objectives for these lessons go, Ms. Drury said, the object of our literature lessons is to let poems and books themselves speak to the children.

And again, Charlotte Mason said, our books introduce them to a score of thinkers who meet the children mind to mind in their books. So we as the teachers and parents are just simply making the introduction for them to meet these great teachers and world thinkers. 

As far as our teacher prep, our work is to look over the work of the term and to spread it out over the course of the term so we can accomplish the reading. This is usually very doable, very logically, but we might not want to divide exactly by however many pages a week because we want to not end up in the middle of a cliffhanger. You know, we want to read a full episode. And they only have 11 lessons to do this. Their 12th week of the term was given over to exams. 

Another thing that we need to do as teacher prep is we need to make time for them to have daily reading outside of their lessons and we need to carve out time to do at least once a week Shakespeare. I mean we have no problem once a week getting through our play a term in 20 to 30 minutes so it doesn’t need to be multiple times but you also might want to skim or pre-read even and make notes on your thoughts about what you could do to arouse their attention or any notes about maps or pictures or diagrams that might be helpful to bring the lesson more to life or to give fuller understanding. 

And I will say that I pre-read a book if I have one or more students who’s going to be reading it independently or with one another and I’m not going to be present with them in the lesson. So that’s kind of my rule of thumb. Thus far I’ve been able to keep up, but it is getting to be hard. 

Okay, as far as resources go, here is a copy of Heroes of Asgard. This is a paperback copy from yesterday’s classics and I just want to mention that there is a paperback copy, I’m assuming it’s on Amazon, but we’ve heard tell from time to time that people finish the book like in one or two terms and we’re like…how is this possible? Because Charlotte Mason read it over two years. We could read it over one. I have a breakdown that reflects that, but it is a lot of reading and I question it. There is an abridged version that doesn’t say this. So this is one I know for sure that is not. 

Nicole
So the Yesterday’s Classics is the one to go with. 

Emily
Then I have the Age of Fable by Thomas Bullfinch. There are many, many editions. You don’t have to have this one. Again, it’s Yesterday’s Classics. I list page numbers in our literature breakdown for these two editions, but especially the Age of Fable, it’s very easy to tell by the chapter and sub chapter heading where it is, so you don’t need to have that edition. But we do have breakdowns that forecast the lessons out over each week of the term, how much to read each time. 

And then as far as Shakespeare, I will just tell you our family’s two favorite editions. We really like either the Folger Shakespeare Library or the Oxford School Shakespeare. These actually have photographs of actors from famous scenes from you know, famous productions of Shakespeare. And both of them have a little bit of a synopsis before you start the scene. So you kind of have your grasp of what’s going on that is really nice. But we like having a copy for each person who’s reading apart so we can all be reading along. I think that Shakespeare was one of the books that Charlotte Mason expected every student to own their own copy of. So they would have a whole library of Shakespeare plays when they finished their education. 

And we do have another teacher help available on our website called the Shakespeare Planner and it just goes through which plays Charlotte Mason assigned at which form level because they do vary on which ones are appropriate for Form 2. There’s some different ones she never assigned in Form 2 but did in the older forms. And they also tell you, there’s a couple that she always assigned during specific historical time periods so that’s in there and then there’s just it’s editable so you could keep track of all of the plays that various children have to help make your life a little more simple. 

Liz
To help with decision fatigue. 

Emily
Yes. And just, mom, we already read this, as if reading Shakespeare play once is sufficient. 

Liz
It’s like the Bible. You can read it all your life. 

Emily
Well, what challenges or common questions do you hear?

Liz
Well, just a couple little things. I think you guys have covered things pretty thoroughly here, but Charlotte Mason did acknowledge that children in fourth grade, 2B, are still often gaining a lot of reading skills. And they still are widely varied in their abilities at that age. And so she said, let them try to read aloud, as Emily made a great point about. All through Form 2 they were reading their lessons aloud for the most part because they had learned how to read. Now they were learning how to read to others. So she would have them try simple poems, occasional lines in Shakespeare, even in fourth grade, and this allows them to build their confidence. 

You know, Shakespeare wrote plays. He meant them to be spoken aloud and enacted. They’re plays. So divide the characters between you and your children and when she said “or listened to” she meant by real person reading because they didn’t have recorded books back then right? 

Emily
But I don’t think she would have–

Liz
No, because I think listening to professional readers is only going to prolong your fearfulness about getting started in the first place. Education means individual effort. And you know, the lines in Shakespeare are short. There’s like 10 syllables per line. So you can give them little intermittent lines to read. And the other thing is it’s not like them even reading down one whole page unless you get stuck on a long soliloquy. But anyway, just some little things to think about. 

And again, poetry is meant to be read aloud and you don’t get comfortable reading poetry until you start doing it every day and reading it aloud. So obviously, their term novels they would be reading on their own but what about that child that I was mentioning that is still not competent in reading and honestly even some really strong nine-year-olds, you know I mean strong readers who are nine years old, have a tough time with some of the jargon in say Treasure Island or Kidnapped or something like that. 

But it is best to leave them to manage how and when and they’re going to read through this novel. I mean, at most you can just ensure that they are tackling it every week, but it would be okay for them to listen to an audio and if possible, have them read the print copy while they’re listening. That is going to help them a lot. I think the big thing to understand is we don’t swap it out for something easier. These are classics that all people should have read. They’re the best known things out there in literature and they were mandatory. They were not optional. So if they don’t get through it in the term they do have that holiday she mentioned. But it was part of the curriculum and even though they weren’t narrating it in the morning lessons, they definitely had to do it and there definitely would be some exam question about it. 

Emily
I also I feel like I want to add just two things here as I’m thinking about it. You said almost always they had Sir Walter Scott and I would just say our history rotations are different than England. And she was she was assigning those that fit into the historical time period, right? Because their literature in Form 2 starts to match their historical time period. So we would probably have fewer Walter Scott but maybe still assign some.

Nicole
Something that’s that caliber, that’s the main point. 

Liz
So a serious historical fiction if and we do see that most every year one of the classic children’s novels would be a historical fiction. But it wasn’t like the silly kind of fun thing that they would pick up for themselves after school. 

Emily
Yeah. And then Nicole, I wondered if you could just share what your dyslexic children thought about Shakespeare. 

Nicole
Yeah. Well, here’s the funny thing about Shakespeare is he made up a whole bunch of words. 

Emily
Oh yeah. 

Nicole
So the people who were listening to him at that time didn’t necessarily understand what he was talking about either. So I think it’s totally a fun thing for kids who do struggle to read because that’s just kind of the nature of it. You know, it’s not this perfect thing that can just so easily flow off your tongue. 

Emily
Yeah there’s lots of times I have no idea how to pronounce how he’s the words. 

Nicole
So it kind of levels the playing field a little bit is what I was saying and I think that it can be a good one for the dyslexic kids to tackle and what I did is just picked parts that weren’t so long for some of the kids that had a bigger struggle. 

Liz
And I’ve discovered that with two children with reading difficulties too, and I thought it was just my particular odd children, but I’ve talked to hundreds of moms who have verified that your weakest reader is often your best Shakespeare reader. 

Emily
So, well, I hope that gives you some hope to tackle the Bard.

In Form 2, we see students start to have some independence and control over their use of time. While Shakespeare and Bullfinch may be intimidating to us, rest assured that your students are up to the challenge. You can find links to episodes 38 and 135 if you’d like to learn more about Shakespeare and listen to an immersion lesson in our show notes, along with links to all the other resources that we mentioned in this episode. And we do, as always, invite you to read along with us and join us next week for Literature in Forms three to four, grades seven to nine, as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.

How much should I read in a lesson to my beginning students? Which books are best suited for early elementary school? Stay tuned in to today’s podcast episode as we discuss Form 1 Literature Lessons for grades 1-3.

Listen Now:

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

Aesop for Children by Milo Winter

Andersen or Grimm’s Fairy Tales

Pilgrim’s Progress (Penguin Classic)

Etsy shop for Pilgrim’s Progress Map

Tales of Troy and Greece (Yesterday’s Classics)

ADE Literature: Forms 1-2 Breakdown

Episode 130: Form 1 Pilgrim’s Progress Immersion Lesson

ADE on YouTube

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
Well, now that we’ve discussed the overall place of literature in a Charlotte Mason curriculum, let’s zoom in and specifically look at Form 1, which is grades 1 through 3. So children in these forms are between 6 and 8 or 9 years old. And the form is divided into Form 1B, which is the first year.  And just my little helpful mnemonic here is think B for beginner and Form 1A which is the second and third grade year, think A for advanced. So it’s counterintuitive to how we would probably label things now.

And children do spend two years in Form 1A. So Nicole, will you tell us what books and materials were assigned to these ages? 

Nicole
Yeah so literature begins with a child’s natural love of story. This is the only form that does not coordinate their literature with their history. 

Emily
Form 1. 

Nicole
Form 1, yeah. But there’s still great intentionality of what is chosen at this stage. In Form 1B, those first graders, the literary focus is on fairy tales. Miss Mason consistently included three fairy tales from Andersen or Grimm and three fables from Aesop. These are read aloud during their regular morning lesson time.

And then in Form 1A, so second and third grade, the child’s literary diet expands. Now two major works come into regular rotation. Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, read in its original language, and Andrew Lang’s Tales of Troy and Greece. And they are read in steady portions across all nine terms of Form 1.

Emily
Six terms. 

Nicole
All six terms left of Form 1. Yeah. That’s right. All through 1A is what I mean.  Charlotte Mason said the books assigned in Form 1 are used with great success and that they feed a child’s sense of wonder and are very good to tell.

And by tell she means narrate. Children at this level are learning to narrate stories that are not their own. They’re naturally great little storytellers, but here they learn to focus their attention and tell back what they have heard after a single reading, a skill that will really serve them for years. 

Now, admittedly, these texts are more challenging than your average family read aloud. It’s true. But your Form 1 students are up for the task. Miss Mason reminds us that these are exquisite classics that are written for children, but not written down to them. And then Agnes Drury echoed this. She said, children who become familiar with the best writings find inferior work distasteful. The value lies not in the story alone, but in the telling of it. These stories really feed the moral imagination and they lay a foundation for a future life of excellent reading.

And this is only the beginning, the caliber of literature is going to rise sharply in the years ahead. So students must begin building that confidence now, they really have to grapple with this stuff. So let us not underestimate their ability to grasp these works and find beauty in them, even if we don’t see it right away. That was my personal experience with Pilgrim’s Progress. The kids got it, I did not.

One more important note is that as the children reach the upper part of Form 1, Charlotte Mason noted that students need to start reading as much as they can in preparation for Form 2. She said, therefore it is necessary that two years should be spent in Form 1A. So that’s those last two years. And that in the second of these two years, third grade, the children should read a good deal of the set work for themselves. 

Emily
If possible. 

Nicole
Yeah. 

Liz
Which isn’t to say silent reading. Just to be clear, this is reading aloud, but reading it for themselves instead of teacher doing it. 

Nicole
Yeah. Maybe you’re just write there on the couch with mom or at the table. 

Emily
Okay. Well, the lesson format for literature in Form 1 for both A and B is twice a week for 20 minutes each lesson. And that in Form 1A means they have, you know, Pilgrim’s Progress one day and they have Tales of Troy and Greece the second day. 

In Form 1B though, they only had to read three fairy tales and three fables, which have you ever read an Aesop’s Fable?  It’s very short. I think I went through and intentionally chose the longer ones. But do keep in mind that these lesson times are maximum quantities at this age and that they need to with the first year, particularly as they’re learning to tell, as Charlotte Mason said, you’re going to be stopping more frequently for their narrations because they need, it’s hard work, right, to tell another person. So really this is the training ground and we don’t want to overload and schedule more in there. 

Charlotte Mason actually gives us a wonderful format for how to, the method of lessons it’s right in the conversation about reading good literature. She talks about before the reading for the day begins the teacher should talk a little and get the children to talk about the last lesson. Okay, so we’re going to recall just like we’ve done in other subjects. We’re recalling what we read about last time. It’s crucial in literature because we’re usually leaving off in the middle of a story. We really need to get back to what was happening before we read again. 

And then she tells us the second thing after we recall last lesson, she says with a few words about what is to be read in order that the children may be animated by expectation. But she should beware of explanation. Don’t, as a teacher, explain what they’re about to read. And she said, and especially of forestalling the narrative. So we don’t want to give anything that would be a spoiler. We just want to whet their appetite a little bit. And this could be very simple, like, well, I wonder what Christian is going to encounter today? or something like that and they’re like what, what is it? You know, so it really doesn’t have to be anything in depth but just get their attention. 

And then she, the teacher, may read two or three pages enough to include an episode and as I was saying before when talking about Form 1B, this requires some discernment. New narrators do need shorter passages but if we get too short with them, like every sentence as we’ve heard some people try to do this, then our children just subconsciously think that we want a word perfect narration of exactly what we read. 

Liz
Then they become mimics. 

Emily
And they’re just going to be parroting it back, which is not doing the work of narration. It’s not fixing something into long-term memory, right? 

Okay, so our fourth thing after we read is after that, let her call upon the children to narrate in turns, if there’ll be several of them. So if you have more than one student, they’re each going to take a turn narrating.

Liz
Not that same passage though. 

Emily
Well, what I was about to say is we don’t let children re-narrate what has been told by another child. So it is perfectly fine as a teacher, parent, mother to stop one child in the middle of their narration and say, thank you. And give the other child a turn to narrate and they pick up where that child left off.

Charlotte Mason is very adamant about this, that every child must be prepared to narrate because that is where the work happens, right? It’s not just actually getting to tell it out loud. And if we are all prepared to narrate, then we get the benefit of narration, of fixing what we have read into our long-term memory. 

She does say though, here, after their narration, it is not wise to tease them with corrections. So if they get something wrong, we generally leave it and they will correct it themselves. And usually if there is a sibling working with them, we don’t have anything to worry about. Their sibling is going to say, no, it was such and such. 

OK, so we are not interrupting their narration. There should be no talk between their reading and their narration. Remember, this is really how they are learning to narrate, particularly is in this subject. And we don’t correct facts and we especially don’t correct their style. She says, you know, I’m paraphrasing here, but she says,

The child may start off with a string of ands, like starting and then, and then. We all probably have this. I feel like I can remember some of my brothers, you know, if they would just always say the same phrases. But gradually, she said, they leave those off. And they’re taking in the syntax and the language of the authors that they’re reading of these excellent books. And that becomes part of their own style. 

And then she says, when the narration is over, there should be a little talk in which moral points are brought out, pictures shown to illustrate the lesson, or diagrams drawn on the blackboard. So we’re not asking comprehension questions at this point, but we can ask subjective questions. What did you think about how Christian, you know, or what this character was saying or whatever like that? 

And likewise, we’re not giving any vocabulary quizzes. The child is learning vocabulary through context and let me tell you how many times my kids have astounded me at the word choice they use, even in dire situations. But if a child were to ask, hey, what does that mean? Feel free to answer them, right? We’re just not preempting in giving that, and we don’t want to give more than what they’re asking for. 

As for objectives of a literature lesson, Ms. Drury said, the object of our literature lessons is to let poems and books themselves speak to the children. That’s it. Our objectives are pretty easy here. So they are getting in touch with great minds that have gone before them. And they are also entering into this great conversation that humanity has had with the world, you know, since time began. So their books teach them that knowledge is supremely attractive, Charlotte Mason said, and reading is delightful. 

So our teacher prep is, also in the same section, she tells us our job is to look over the work of the term or look over the work of the day. And I think that needs to be like, how much are we going to read each day? We need to know. Look over the work that was assigned for the term, spread it out over the 22 literature lessons that you have. So don’t read three fairy tales and three fables in your first three weeks of school, or you will have nothing to do for seven weeks after that.

And then before the lesson, you may want to skim to be able to say something to arouse their anticipation. But even if you don’t get to that, like I said, you could just say, I wonder what’s going to happen next. Which should be easy because you’ve just spent a few minutes recalling what has been going on before. And the largest part of our preparation is to restrain ourselves from trying to be the showman of the universe to explain everything that they might not understand and to let the students do their own work.

So just to show you a couple of our favorite editions of some of these books, I mean, there are myriad, these are children’s classics. So really you can use any edition that is not abridged or, as Charlotte Mason would say, told to the children, like paraphrased or talked down to them. I was going to say dumbed down because it might just be doing both.

Okay, so here is our favorite, the Aesop for Children. Milo Winter is the illustrator and this is just really nice font and beautiful pictures. And of course there are many, many editions of Grimm and Andersen. This one I think is Illustrated Junior Classics. This is a really beautiful, illustrated by Edmond Dulac…Stories from Hans Christian Andersen. But again, really you can use any for those fairy tales. And the choice of which fairy tales to read are completely up to the parent. And I will just tell you for anyone who thinks fairy tales have to do with fairies and magic or whatever, The Ugly Duckling is one of Andersen’s fairy tales. And there’s no magic in it other than the animals are talking. And they’re just talking to other animals. 

Then, moving into Form 1A, Tales of Troy and Greece. This is an edition by Yesterday’s Classics. Their reprints are really well done. The font is a nice size and they do hold up really well. 

And this is Pilgrim’s Progress, just the Penguins Classics. It includes both Part 1, Christian’s Journey, and Part 2, Christiana’s Journey. And you read one part each year and it’s both in this volume. I pulled this one out because we made some literature breakdowns that really do forecast how much to read in these works because they were so set. These were always the ones chosen. And that is the edition I use because Pilgrim’s Progress has no chapters. Some editions have little headings, but you have to kind of look through the whole book until you can find the part that you’re supposed to stop at. 

And then lastly, I just wanted to show what is my children’s very favorite part of Pilgrim’s Progress and it is these beautiful maps and I will include a link to the Etsy shop and they are expensive. Like it’s a digital file you get, I think it was like $30 for these four beautifully drawn maps. But I will tell you this, these made Pilgrim’s Progress their most favorite subject. They’re just beautiful. So then I just had them printed at our local print shop on cardstock paper and I just hang them from one of those little magnet clip holders and that was their favorite thing after we got done reading was to go find where Christian was on his journey. And I will tell you that not just my children, but everyone that we hear, say that Pilgrim’s Progress and Tales of Troy and Greece are some of their very favorite books in all of school.

Liz
High school kids that can still tell me verbatim on both parts. 

I get a lot of questions about literature in this age, interestingly, because obviously, as you said before, they have such harder works later. But this is hard for a seven-year-old or an eight-year-old, right? 

One question I get commonly is, why do we only do three Aesop’s Fables? If you’ve read through Aesop’s Fables, you would know the answer to that. They’re all very similar and after a while they just become a blur. Plus I personally think Mason threw them in as a little reprieve between the long ordeal of getting through a long fairy tale because those take like a month, right? Yeah, they’re not the Disney versions. 

Another common question I get is what if preschoolers have already listened in while older kids were reading? What do they do when it’s their turn? As far as fairy tales go, I don’t think that’s even a problem. And the Aesop’s, good thing there are so many. You can just pick different ones. Same with the fairy tales. And the other thing to remember is they’ve never narrated it before, right? So it is a different experience to listen to something and then to make the effort to retell it is a whole different thing. 

Emily
And even different, I noticed this with my second, when I was reading Pilgrim’s Progress to my first, he was chiming in. He was sitting at the table drawing with us and he would chime in and even give me little narration parts or correct his brother’s narration. And we got back to him reading it for himself and it was like he had never heard it. I mean, he would, I remember this or whatever. But it was not the same when he was expected to narrate every single time. That narration makes the difference. 

Liz
Yeah. Here’s a very common question. Is it OK to read a children’s version, Little Pilgrim’s Progress or Dangerous Journey? And I think we grow by moving from what we know to the unknown. That was the whole trajectory of Charlotte Mason’s education, wasn’t it? That’s what education means, is being introduced to things you’ve never thought about before and learning about them. And we’re never going to become familiar with something if we’re unexposed. Children already have done the hardest work of language before they even begin school. And that is learning how to speak it. So we don’t need to sell them short. They can learn to cope with the more challenging language. And like Nicole said, her girls did better than she did. 

Emily
And Charlotte Mason was very adamant these were not to be retold for the children. I mean, Tales of Troy and Greece technically was, but it was a classic in its own right because it didn’t talk down to children. But it is taking Greek myths and the Iliad and the Odyssey and retelling them for children. 

Liz
And she said they love finding different names and they find the newness of things exciting because they are still curious about everything. And if you think about how many things puzzle them in a day, which is why they’re always asking us why, right? This is just normal for them to be confronted with something brand new to investigate. 

So have the patience, just like you do when you’re teaching them to print their letters better or learn their multiplication tables. Give them time to comprehend language in the same slow meaningful way. Mason said they love the unusual names and they don’t have to remember every single name that they encounter, you know, they will remember the ones that interest them the most. And then always like Emily said take time at the end to talk to them a little bit about what’s going on and who is who, and that will help them a lot. 

Another thing I really feel like we should address is mythology, because a lot of families are very concerned about this. And well, I won’t go there, but all the obsession with fantasy fiction should be just as concerning, I think. But mythology is the oldest stories. They are very obvious for moral instruction without giving you a sermon. They clearly portray good and evil. They show the motives of men are not pure before a child discovers that in their real life, which they definitely will. 

And I think the myths actually magnify the goodness and beauty and truth of God that we honor, whom we honor. They help the children to recognize the gods of our culture because we certainly have them and serve them as well. That is the plight of the human heart. But mythology has all the basics of good story, the setting, the rising action, the climax, the denouement is all there. They’re learning that characters can be symbolic, which is a very important concept in the study of literature so that they begin to understand how ideas can be represented in the novels they’re going to read in the future. And they’re going to encounter references to these mythological figures and events in poetry and prose constantly throughout their life. 

Emily
And I have now read through Tales of Troy and Greece two times and I can tell you neither I nor my children find anything remotely attractive about the gods in the mythology. I think it makes a sharper contrast. 

Liz
That’s what I’m trying to say. It magnifies what they believe about gods. 

Emily
The gods are not…they’re mercurial. They change their mind. They’re fickle. They’re mean. There’s nothing attractive about them. So please don’t be worried that they’re going to lure your children into worshipping gods from ancient Greece. 

Liz
And I know our time is about up, but I just want to say a little bit about poetry. Read them all kinds of poetry. There’s no end of it. There are thousands of poets, but this subject is for delight only. They don’t have to understand what it means. And most of the children’s poems that we read are on topics like frogs or oceans or driving a truck or something like that. So, but the whole realm of poetry expands our understanding of words and how words can be used in a myriad of ways to evoke emotion, to convey meaning. And if you choose a poet for each term to get to know a little better, you could read him or her more frequently, but read them all kinds and don’t make one exclusive poet who’s the only thing you read that term. 

Emily
It is in the earliest forms that we see how Miss Mason did not underestimate the intelligence of children. She offered them a literary feast of books that we parents sometimes struggle to understand, yet the children themselves delight in and narrate them with ease.

Next week we turn our attention to upper elementary literature lessons and see how the early programs lay a foundation for a deeper enjoyment of literature. If you’d like to listen in on a sample lesson using Pilgrim’s Progress with the three of us, you can check out episode 130 and we hope you’ll join us next time as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.

Living Books. These two words are almost synonymous with a Charlotte Mason education. In today’s episode we begin our discussion of Literature in a Charlotte Mason curriculum and try to get to the heart of how she used living books in literature lessons.

Listen Now:

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

Episode 36: Literature

Episode 236: Poetry

ADE on YouTube

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 today we are turning our attention to the subject of literature as we work our way through volume six, chapter 10 and discuss a Charlotte Mason curriculum this season. We have prepared a season 11 reading schedule for you that you can find linked in our show notes if you’d like to read along with us and stay up to date with us. We invite you to do that because it is so important to read Charlotte Mason’s words for yourself.

So today we are talking about literature. And when I think of what a Charlotte Mason education is, I usually first think of living books. I think that’s the case for many, many people. It was a common refrain that we used to see. What are we? What’s the answer? Living books. Yes, oh yes. Just like “Jesus” is the Sunday school answer, “living books” is the Charlotte Mason answer. So literature is a subject, of course, that is entirely made up of books and Charlotte Mason was very particular about what books children read for their literature or as they’re called in the very earliest years, “tales” or “reading” lessons. These books she said must furnish the mind with ideas because children take hold of beautiful images clothed in beautiful words. Living books give them a real sense of other times, places and others’ lives that give scope to their imagination. It entertains and delights them all the days of their lives. So she’s talking to us too. 

Liz
Yeah. Thank goodness.

Emily
And books help us all as persons form fair judgments and opinions. Charlotte Mason said, we probably read Shakespeare in the first place for his stories. Afterwards for his characters, as we go on reading this world teacher, lines of insight and beauty take possession of us and unconsciously mold our judgments of men and things and of the great issues of life. Probably not a lot of us would include Shakespeare in what we think of as living books, but it definitely is what Charlotte Mason thought of. So we’re trying to orient ourselves to what she was after.

In a nutshell, literature is the means by which people are educated. So we could say it is the core of the curriculum, but that seems like what we’ve been saying about every subject we’ve gotten to so far. 

In volume one, Charlotte Mason admonishes teachers that we have two duties. We are to see that every child acquires the habit of reading and two, that he does not fall into slipshod habits of reading. So we fail in the first of these duties when we underestimate what the child is capable of and we give him twaddle or books that talk down to him. But when given excellent books, children learn that knowledge is supremely attractive and reading is delightful. 

I would say slipshod habits include inattention, and also careless enunciation. So our mind working on the book can be a slipshod habit, but also how we read. As with all lessons, we read materials once and we ask the children to narrate and that helps strengthen their attention. So that’s how we accomplish this duty. But they also learn to read beautifully. The words are beautiful in and of themselves. 

And for these reasons, Charlotte Mason said that he should have no book which is not a child’s classic in the early forms, and his literature throughout his education are classics suitable for reading at any age.

Nicole
I’m just thinking it’s such a lofty thing compared to what I grew up with. So I want to share this whole progression, what it looks like when a student begins at the very beginning in form one, first grade, and then goes through high school. And really, we read living books for all subjects, right? But we really are talking about literature, which has kind of very specific things. These are not just any old book, right? 

Okay, so in Form 1, so that’s grades 1 through 3, everything begins with a story. First comes the fairy tales and the fables, all read aloud. And the second and third year of that Form 1, grades 2 and 3, Pilgrim’s Progress is added and the first heroic myths appear, all of them taken slowly, all of them narrated. The aim is really delight, even though some of those books, I just already listed a book you might think is little hard. 

Okay. Then we go to form two. So grades four to six. And now the timeline or our timetable is granting a little bit more space. And the menu expands – Shakespeare arrives this point. One play every term. And Shakespeare stays for the rest of their school life.

A friendly English literature survey and a mythology spine run alongside Sir Walter Scott already here. And a steady diet of ballads and narrative poems. Children begin to read in character and they handle more of their books on their own at this point.

Okay, then they get to Form 3, so grades 7 and 8. And the same pillars hold, we’ve got Shakespeare, a literature spine, and we have Age of Fable, but the supporting works grow stiffer now. There is an occasional essay that shows up at this point for the first time. We have travel and historical novels that help widen perspective. The students now narrate most readings in writing as well as some oral narrations. I think at that point we almost have to remember to get those in. 

Then form four, grade nine, we’re just gonna start high school and still every strand in this is rising a notch. Some of the Shakespeare shifts to tragedies and late histories at this point. Scott is gonna yield to the longer Waverly novels. Essays are added and poetry selections move from the narrative ballads of earlier years to later Victorian pieces. With the start of high school work, the students add a commonplace book. So they’re kind of collecting some of their favorite striking passages and things like that. 

Okay, form five, that’s grades 10 and 11. The list of assigned books, as I saw it, actually shortens just a little bit. 

Emily
Because the books are longer. 

Nicole
Because the books are much longer. And much denser, we would say. One verse drama. Notice I didn’t say Shakespeare. One verse drama still anchors a term, yet only in the programs that we have only one in three is Shakespeare now and the rest are Greek tragedies or renaissance plays like Edward the second. A modern verse, a modern verse, anthology sticks with them as part of their daily poetry and Scott now only appears once a year making room for Dickens, Eliot, Gaskell and other authors and essays now show up every single term. 

And then in Form 6, so this is grade 12, their final year, their expectations even peak more, the drama still anchors every term, but now the Greek tragedy really dominates and Shakespeare drops to what we could see from the programs one in every four…this is where Shakespeare shows up. Essays or reflective prose are assigned every term and poetry anthologies appear almost always. There’s also now once a year an epic classic such as Paradise Lost, Dante, Chaucer. And I think at this time students are doing a little bit more silent narrations and things like that. The idea is that all of this has become a habit for their life. 

So they’ve really gone over these 12 years from listening to reading to reading it all, from fairy tales to world classics. But really, we see over all those years that verse drama, every term, daily poetry, literature chosen to shadow the period of history except in Form 1. We talked about that in our last series. And what Charlotte Mason said, the steady assurance that each small guest assimilates what he can. And by graduation the student has lived with the best authors of the past and present and has practiced attentive reading and thoughtful response. And Miss Mason would say, he’s begun to think like a true citizen and a statesman in the best sense. I love that part.

It really is so wild to watch the progression she had in mind. That she actually, we take this from the programs. We know what she was assigning and what she had in mind for the scope of a child’s whole education. It’s just, it’s massive. It’s just wild.

Liz
Which was actually, when I was thinking about this topic, the very words that came to mind were the world of literature is vast, it is immense. And just that Charlotte Mason concentrates on the most outstanding works and authors and poets and plays. And the tying together of the literature and the history, I think. It just enhances both of those subjects tremendously. In literature, we find the thoughts and the ideas expressed by men in different times and places. And we discover they also have a lot in common with us. 

Basically, in literature, a child’s world explodes or expands to include a lot more than he would have ever considered or met with in his own home or his own town or his own country. I think it introduces them to not just what people have done, but how they thought and how they felt and what motivated them and basically who other people were. And I don’t think there’s any area or pursuit in life that would not benefit from a rich lifelong love affair with literature. 

And I just love the way she carefully constructs things. You might think your second grader is dealing with some tough things, but it will toughen him up for the next level until what Nicole was amazed at in high school is not any harder for them to bear at that age than it was when they were seven. 

Emily
Yeah. And all of that, I think, shows why Charlotte Mason thought that literature was our great teacher and that we have much to learn from books.

If you want to know what these principles for literature look like and actual lessons for your children, please join us the next few weeks as we explore each level of literature lessons. You might also like to listen to our older episodes on literature and poetry, numbers 36 and 236. You can find links to those episodes and the reading schedule that I mentioned today in the show notes. Thank you for listening today as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.

Are you wondering where to place your kids in Charlotte Mason’s streams of history? Are you struggling to teach multiple students in multiple form levels? In today’s podcast we are addressing these things and other practical concerns and questions about Charlotte Mason’s history lessons.

Listen Now:

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

Video Explaining History Rotations

ADE on YouTube

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
Today we are wrapping up our series on history. We like to use this closing episode to address practical considerations and questions that we hear frequently. So Nicole, why don’t you get us started by talking about the most common question of homeschooling moms everywhere: Where can I combine my children to make it easier on myself? 

Nicole
One of the most practical and beautiful aspects of Charlotte Mason’s history approach is how naturally it does allow for combining students. In fact history is one of the most unifying subjects of the curriculum. I think it can be. All of form one, so that’s grade one through three, can be combined with students either working in the one B or one A as we’ve talked about before on wherever the older sibling is. And then in forms two and three, that is grades four through eight, five years, those children can all be combined. 

Emily
Yeah. For the ones that they have. 

Nicole
For the ones that they have. 

Emily
The streams that they have, right. 

Nicole
Because some of them aren’t yet… 

Emily
That first 2B. 

Nicole
The 2B isn’t doing Ancient History yet. But yes, where they can, they can all be, that’s five years of students that can be combined there. That’s huge. 

And then forms four through six, so high school, they share the same stream, moving through the final years of that rotation together. So at no point should a family really have more than three groups going at the same time. Maybe more importantly, all students, regardless of form, are studying the same time period.

Emily
Right. 

Nicole
And whether they’re reading stories from, you know, American settlements in Form 1 or tracing events across France and Britain, you know, later on, or even the contemporary European history, everyone’s anchored in the same place and time. 

Emily
Yes. 

Nicole
And that goes a long way. It creates a sense of shared learning and your whole family can be immersed in the same historical moment or the same historical field trip like you guys took recently.

Emily
Yes, we went to Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown because that was the period that we were all in this year. 

Nicole
Right, everybody can have the same conversations over the dinner table or build the same forts for the same war in the backyard. The kids are playing around these things. So just remember that children don’t need to start at the beginning of history. They just need to jump in where the rest of the family is and over time they will cycle back around. 

Emily
I hear the objection though, but three is still like way too many. But I think like what is lost if we don’t do that, right? We’re going to be shortchanging people at every level because we won’t be able to give them what is appropriate for them, right? 

Liz
And it’s not three hands on.

Emily
Yes, that was my second part is yes, for all but that first form, they’re doing a lot of their lesson independently or with each other, right? Without you, the mom. 

Nicole
Right. And I, you know, I get chill bumps when we do the first episode of these series of a subject. 

Emily
Yeah. 

Nicole
Because you see that progression of what is happening, and part of that progression is that student getting independence and being able to start doing some of this stuff by themselves and so I think that’s a really important factor to keep in mind like you said there Liz. 

Emily
Well another question that we hear a lot is where do I put my kid? Like I mean we get this…clearly it’s not a problem if you come with your six year old, you just dive right in. And that’s so nice and easy, but that is not the reality of so many people who find Charlotte Mason later or maybe they were doing a Charlotte Mason inspired or some other type of curriculum and they know the history is the pivot, but how do I get there? 

Well, there was a note on the programs for kids to do, or students I should say, to do the whole program that was appropriate for their age. Like this is not a new thing. People were coming into the PUS at all ages too. So we do need to look at the child before us and we can do a lot as a teacher to remove obstacles to help them succeed in that program of work. We may need to make accommodations for severe learning disabilities or something like that. 

That note that I read did specify for the normal child, which is their word for neurotypical, right? So when we have neuro-atypical, we might need to make accommodations, but I think we can still give them the whole feast. If they’re in Form 2, we might need to assign simpler books, but they can do all of the streams, right? So we’re helping them step into that, but we’re not taking away the richness or the breadth of the program for their age.

The work of the forms must be chronologically progressive. Those are not A.D.E.’s words. Those are not Emily Kiser’s words. Those are Charlotte Mason’s words. And so we have to move forward from the last period of history. And I know this can become a jumbled mess depending on what we have done before and different people’s ideas. Every curriculum out there, Charlotte Mason or not, has an idea about the history progression. So it can make it really jumbled if we were in a specific ancient history in a different time in American history. And then we move forward. We need to go past our modern, I think that the modern is the benchmark that we go by because that is the one that is specifically chronological…

Nicole
Meaning, versus ancient.

Emily
Right, versus Ancient because with the ancient history there is some overlap since we’re looking at culture by culture, right? Generally the Greeks happen, but Greece was still around, guys, when Rome was in more or less degree of power, but they did war against each other…you know, a Greek came and invaded Italy and wanted to…you know, anyway, that’s a whole thing.  All that I’ve learned from reading Charlotte Mason history. 

But I think we need to look at where were we in our modern stream? and go forward from there. And then again, as I mentioned before, the ancient history is tied to those specific years of the modern. So we have to do the ancient again. And sometimes that does get messy, but that would be my best advice. 

Liz
So this is kind of what I was about to say too, because I’ve encountered many families where their children have only been studying ancient. So then they want to know where should they start with the American or whatever. So I would just say that if last year you studied ancient Egypt, then you would begin at 1650 to 1800, right? 

Emily
Right. Because ancient Egypt is in the first European rotation. 

Liz
Right. And that would be the Greek history that year. 

Emily
So you’re moving forward in the ancient if they had not done any American history. And if they’d just done the Middle Ages and Renaissance…because I find this a really common thing, the family has just been only in that time period. So then I just say, well, then you’re perfectly set up to jump into, you know, 1000 to 1650 and you’ll be studying ancient Egypt during that time. So I just thought that. 

Emily
Yeah, exactly. I think the thing to just calm our nerves about all the messy jumps into history is history is not a skill subject.  There are going to be gaps and we need to not worry about them. There were only supposed to be no gaps for math and grammar, foreign and English. So all other subjects, it is okay. There’s always going to be gaps. 

Liz
And she even says it’s okay to skip a century or two. The big thing is you’ve got to keep going forward. 

Nicole
I think your video too, just as a reminder that…

Emily
…The video that describes all of the rotations. 

Nicole
I think that would help people to be able to approach it with whatever their specific situation is and watch that. 

Emily
Yeah. And just remember they’re going to get it all again because we cycle through history like three total times, you know, over the course of 12 years. So even if your child is coming in in that middle rotation, they’re still going to get it again. And they can get a whole one if they’re doing this in high school. So if they feel a lack of knowledge, you know, from something they read, that is all the better because that is what spurs anybody on, like I don’t know about that and I want to and they’re going to pick up books. 

Liz
Curiosity! 

Emily
Even beyond their 12 years in your home. What other questions do we have? 

Liz
Well, I was just thinking if you’re bringing several students into this method and maybe they’ve all been in different places…I run into this a lot. What I usually recommend is that you work with the oldest student because they have less time ahead of them to do what maybe has been lacking. And it just makes more sense if they’ve only got three or four years left, let’s go with where that child is and the others can fall into line. 

And I do find that a lot of times moms are concerned that their kids are gonna be confused studying three different time periods in history, but that is not my experience with actually teaching children. They relish it and they love the changes and the differences and they love making the connections between the different countries like oh my goodness this was happening in Italy at the same time as… so I think that’s a good thing. 

And then you did mention about combining children and having them read together, older children and younger children together. And I think that it is always a temptation for us as moms to do what’s easier for us. We would love to have all our kids in the same book or something like that. But they each need what is going to be important for where they’re at in life. 

The older children maybe will be able to read the same book as a little bit younger children, but on the timetable they’re going to have different lengths of lessons. And so just keep in mind that the older child is going to get to write his narrations, whereas a younger child will not be doing that necessarily. So that kind of helps you balance your whole timetable. Like, you know, maybe the book is used together, but the older child has the challenge of having to write the narration, I guess is what I’m trying to say.

Emily
Yeah, that note about combining both levels in the same form in a home school room always also had the note that the children in the upper part of the form had more requirements, more expectations on their work. They were to do more. 

Liz
And then the other thing about combining kids that is a frequent thing is that the kids would rather study independently. They don’t want to study with their siblings, right?

And actually related to this is that moms often don’t want to give up reading to all the children together. They love that camaraderie thing and I get it, I do. But you know, there is a whole day when you can read other books, right? So go ahead and read them yourself before your kids do so you know what to talk about with them, and there are other things we can read about outside of school together and still have that camaraderie. But it does help our children so much to have combined lessons. 

And maybe the younger student can’t really read a whole lot yet and the older one is gonna have to carry more of the weight. But they have to learn to get along at home if they’re gonna get along with people in life in general. And just to remind them that throughout life they’re going to be encountering people everywhere they work and study and live who are annoying just like their siblings are. And they have less skills than they do or are more inefficient and all of those exact same problems. And that this is an opportunity to strengthen their character for what they’re inevitably gonna be dealing with in their life ahead of them. 

Emily
Well, one other thing I wanted to touch on is how parents or teachers can assess the progress their students are making. I think that’s just always, especially for homeschoolers, at the back of our mind, like, is my child doing enough? So I would just have some questions that you could ask yourselves to reflect on that. 

As they move up in the forms, are they showing their own thoughts? Are they developing their own opinions?  Are your students making connections between people and events throughout history or in between their different streams or even their different subjects? This character in our literature book reminds me of this person that we read about in history or vice versa, something like that. 

And ultimately, do they care? Have they made a connection with a person from history? It doesn’t have to be with every single person, every single lesson. Are they making relationships?

Do they get riled up at injustice that they read about? My kids do. Man, some of our best conversations have been after reading hard things in books. Or do they rejoice with a person’s success that they write about? I think that is really the highest mark of progress because that’s meeting our objectives of interesting them in history and helping them develop relationships with the past. 

Liz
And getting outside of themselves.

Emily
Yeah. So did you have anything else to share with us, Mom, before we…? 

Liz
I’m sure I’ll think of something after we quit. But that’s all I had in my mind at the moment.

Emily
Charlotte Mason said, “We can not live sanely unless we know that other peoples are as we are with a difference, that their history is as ours, with a difference….we may not delay to offer such a liberal and generous diet of History to every child in the country as shall give weight to his decisions, consideration to his actions and stability to his conduct.” (6/178-179)

We hope that you have been inspired to give such a diet of history to your students. Next, we turn our attention to literature, a subject that goes hand in hand with history.

So please join us next time as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.