How can I get my kids to read these types of books if they’ve not been Charlotte Mason educated from the beginning? Where can I combine my children to make our schedule better? How do I know that they are getting anything out of their reading? In today’s podcast we are addressing these questions and more as we wrap up our literature series.

Listen Now:

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

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

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 concluding our series on literature in the Charlotte Mason curriculum. We are sure you still have some lingering questions about how to implement these lessons with your family. So we’re going to be addressing some of those most common ones in this episode. Nicole, could you please start us off by discussing how we might be able to combine different children in our homeschools?

Nicole
Yeah. Well the easiest one, just the most practical one, is Shakespeare because it’s done over many terms. At least Forms 2 and 3 were always reading the same play and sometimes the upper grades were reading the same play as them as well. So we can really combine there pretty good. 

We could read shared poetry anthologies together, maybe around the breakfast table or dinner table or something like that.  I would just only warn that that shouldn’t be like just mom reading aloud all the time. Maybe we share, you know, who’s reading that. 

There is some natural overlap with mythology and history. Form 2a and Form 3, that’s fifth grade through eighth grade, should all be reading from Bullfinch’s Age of Fable at the same pace. And then Forms 3 and 4, so seventh through ninth grade, should all be reading in the same chapter range of English Literature for Boys and Girls. So there’s some natural overlap. 

And then you mentioned something to me recently that when we do a lesson that’s an introduction to a new author that our students haven’t read before, that might be something that we could do that lesson with all the kids together. 

Emily
Yeah, because a lot of times when they’re reading in a historical time period, we see her assign the same author’s work across multiple forms. They wouldn’t be reading necessarily the same book, but they might have the same author.

Nicole
So that might be a nice lesson together. The thing to keep in mind is that there’s a lot of places we cannot combine with this and and we just like when we look at that whole big spreadsheet that I made, I guess you can’t look at it, but of all these books…they’re all different, but all these books are mostly being read independently. 

Emily
So true. 

Nicole
At least in the you know upper form to and on they’re they’re really reading these books.

And they’re not necessarily reading the same book as another student because the caliber of the work is getting progressively harder and they need to be working through that as they get older. We can’t be holding students back or pulling students along when it’s not appropriate. So, you know, there’s just, there’s not a lot of other places that we can combine in this area. 

Liz
But don’t forget they’re in the same history cycle so the literature is of the same time period and that is a unifying thing. 

Emily
Yeah, there should be lots of discussion and shared anecdotes or things that they’re reading in the home I think between children even if they’re different books. 

Well, another common question we get is where do I put my older child that’s new to Charlotte Mason into this program of literature? Because, as you’ve been saying Nicole, from the beginning, if we are keeping up with the program, they’re not going to be able to keep up with the next level because it is such a step up. But there was a note on every single program that the children, normal children, I will say the neurotypical children, were to do the whole program appropriate for their age. So however old they were, that’s the program they got. 

Nicole
Yep. 

Emily
And they were to read all of it. 

Nicole
And it was interesting that that little note that’s at the end of the program, was highlighted next to literature. She was making that point. 

Emily
Literally, especially about this subject. That is what she’s talking about. I do think that we may need to adjust some for difficulty if a student has not been reading along, right? But I think we need to keep in mind the breadth and the variety of the types of literature they need to be reading and really start stretching them up and see if we can get there sooner. So type of book, we might assign fewer things than they did if they’re not used to reading that, but we still want to be assigning classic, challenging books for whatever level they’re at. 

And obviously, we do need to adjust for learning disabilities, but please do not underestimate what your children are capable of. I mean, I think of your son who, still to this day, as an adult, severely dyslexic, can read some, but not very well, or easily. It’s hard for him. But he is motivated to read hard books. And he read a ton of hard books on audio. 

Nicole
Right. 

Emily
As he was totally keeping up with the program appropriate for him. Via audio. 

Nicole
Right. He’s one of the most well-read people that I know because of that. 

Emily
I do think that it is essential though to read literature from the time period of history that’s being studied. That is one of the main objectives of the subject, both for history and literature because the literature is describing, it’s descriptive, it’s illustrative, as Charlotte Mason said, of the time period that they’re being studied. So again, don’t worry about what they’ve missed. If you’re in a later time period but you’re like but they haven’t had all of this stuff, it doesn’t matter. They need to be reading in the time period that they’re in in history. 

And really, they should develop the habit of reading, and they’re learning that their books are their teachers and we’re hoping in setting them up to continue reading for the rest of their lives. And I do think that a great part of this piece that we’re spreading is really educating their tastes. This is what Charlotte Mason meant when she said they’re developing the habit of reading, right? That’s what they needed to do is she’s educating their taste in what constitutes worthwhile books to read in their free time. That’s why she assigned holiday and evening reading.

Liz
She’s basically setting them up to go out and continue at that same level. 

Emily
Yes. And just think about the variety of genres that she introduces them to and the types of…it was a sad thing for Charlotte Mason when a person had very few interests. And we can think about that even within a subject like our literature for only reading the same kind of fiction. Look at, even her literature is not all fiction. We need to be exposing our children to that.

And yes, we’re all going to have favorites. I enjoy certain books I read in a day. And others it takes me months to plow through, but it is all worthwhile. And that’s what we’re setting our children up for.

Were you going to say something else?

Liz
I was just going to reiterate how much care we have to take in choosing the best that’s available in the time period they’re studying in history. She absolutely knew those two things were linked together. So if you’re in the 1800s, you need to maybe do a little research or look in some literature anthologies and find out who were the authors who were speaking in that century. They have to go together, and you have to discover the best in both history and literature. 

And choose a variety of poets, novels, plays, and essays. And we have so many essayists, it’s a big deal in our day and age, but there were, from Francis Bacon on, I think he was the one who basically invented the essay. 

Emily
Or perfected it for sure.

Liz
He actually kind of formalized it at the time. And actually, even though the language is more difficult, his are a lot shorter than the ones that are written today. 

Choose a variety is what I’m trying to say. And don’t just look for books that you think would appeal to your child, that they would naturally like, because Emily said this is where we’re training them for their taste. We don’t know what we like until we taste it. And you know, just take works that are representative of the time period or were written about that time period. 

Nicole
Right. 

Emily
Yeah. That’s a lot of Sir Walter Scott. That’s why he was so popular because he was writing about all kinds of things in other centuries. 

Liz
But even, you know, Sir [Arthur] Conan Doyle that wrote Sherlock Holmes, he wrote The White Company which took place in the Middle Ages. But stick to the classics, the best things that have always been worth reading throughout the centuries. Just know that there’s no book list you’re going to find that’s going to make this easy for you. Charlotte Mason did not have a book list. She did not offer one because she did not have one. 

And I think as far as poetry goes, because most of us didn’t grow up with a wealth of poetry in our lives, I don’t think, did you? Even my own daughter here is admitting this. Poetry anthologies can guide you because those are usually made up of the best of the poets of the time period.

And if you are inexperienced with poetry, don’t stay away from it just because you’re afraid. You’re going to be teaching your children a lot about just bravely wading into it. It is meant to be read aloud, just as music is meant to be sung, and there’s no one right way to read it. You can still use punctuation marks to give you some guidance about where to breathe or pause for a second. 

It’s not about understanding the poetry. It’s about listening to its rhythm and its wordplay and feeling the words cause the feelings that they cause in you and the pictures that they bring to your mind that are being painted by that poet. 

Did you guys have any other things before we close here? 

Emily
Yeah, I have a whole section. But before I do that, I wanted to say that I think it was around the time that we were figuring out the history rotation, so early, early on, I noticed that it was literature that was kind of the stretching agent in the curriculum. That every new skill that children were asked to do and perfect, it started in literature. And we see that from the first with Form 1B as they are starting to narrate, right? As you said, tales that are not their own.

And then as they start doing narrations, written narrations, that’s what we’re doing. And it’s the first independent reading is, oh now there’s a subject that you have to read something outside of class. Later, we see a few other things like that. But it started in literature. And the caliber of literature starts coming about. It’s the first subject where there’s delayed narration. It just seems like this is the part of the curriculum that is really growing us, it’s educating us. 

Liz
Yeah. Go ahead. 

Emily
As far as assessing progress for our students in literature, I mean this may seem really daunting because literature is such a subjective subject, what they take out of it, but I would encourage you to go back and listen to each form levels lesson objectives and just ask yourself, is my child developing a living interest in this? Do I hear things coming out in his opinions that he’s picked up from the books that are his teachers. Has he been able to tell about the books that he has been reading? Maybe he’s telling something, but next term he’s telling more. We should be seeing a growth in their narration ability. Do the things that they say about their books show that they’re really interacting with the characters and ideas that these books are presenting? 

And do their exam questions on their literature, does it show relevance to the topic? Are they just throwing a name in there because they have to mention it? Or does it really have to do with the topic at hand? Because a lot of times she would be pulling together a current event with their literature. And do we see that connection happening? Are they including specific details from their reading? Do they make connections between other subjects in their literature? So if they are making progress in any of these areas, even if it’s small, and it might be hard to see on a week to week basis. And really, we need those term by term or year by year exams to see. You can really be assured that they’re doing the work of their education. 

Liz
Overall, just don’t lose sight of the fact that literature is a delight, but it is an ever increasingly steep mountain to climb. But it’s just like math or science or anything else. So we are their guide and their companion in this journey for them to increase the amount and the depth gradually over the 12 years. There are no sudden leaps for children from simple novels to reading Sir Walter Scott or from Pilgrim’s Progress to reading A Greek Tragedy. It takes years, but we do have to pursue it. 

And I just loved what Emily just shared about literature being, I think of it as the trailblazer. This is what is setting the course and the caliber for all the subjects in every way. So anyway, I just encourage you to consider the fact that in our day and age, 30% of those who can read can only read at a third grade level. So it is going to take work for us to read as much as our children ought to be reading by the end of their lives and to continue to encourage them because it is kind of an upstream battle in this day and age.

Emily
That is it for our series on literature. You can find links to the resources that we’ve mentioned in this series in the show notes. We are going to be taking a Christmas break in a few weeks, but we’ll be sharing with you two excellent sessions from presenters at last year’s ADE at Home Conference. 

First, Morgan Connor shares the benefits and joys of reading Charlotte Mason’s volumes for yourself and offers practical ideas for making this happen. And then Cathy McKay will be presenting her talk, Distinguished Difficulties, which is about persevering through the difficulties that life throws at us. 

We’ll be back in the new year, continuing to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method while looking at a Charlotte Mason curriculum.

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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.

Listen Now:

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

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

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
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.

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.