British Literature Stobaugh

This year, the Co-op had some upheaval and upper school Literature was lost.  Angel’s mom, Terri, was worried about Literature.  She hadn’t had British Literature.  Anna needed Literature, too.  Both Anna and Angel are in Rob’s Statistics class.  I teach British Literature while he teaches Physics.  We use the older version of British Literature.  It was cheap!  The three of us slogged through Anglo-Saxon lit—aaarrrgghhh!  Beowulf!  (My husband kept saying, “Go ahead.  Read the Cliff Notes. I won’t tell.”  It’s a matter of principle!)

Now, we are into Chaucer.  Much better.  In high school, I had to memorize some of the Prologue,—The piece with the Knight.  We waded through the prologue and are working on Character studies.  Anna and Angel each selected three characters.  The rule is to slog through the translation before turning to Cliff Notes or Spark Notes.

Our plan is to work through the entire British Literature course.  Amazon’s Kindle Store has many of the course books free.  I’m also locating translations online—all free.  After using the Brit Lit textbook, I’m using this guide for Chaucer.  Hey!  The girls are getting exposure to a number of classics.

I’m learning as I go.  I decided we should add a bit of history to the literature content, beginning with BBC’s Life in the Middle Ages.