Do Great Homeschools Really Need Socratic Dialog?
March 2010
by Lee Binz
The HomeScholar
The
great homeschools have Socratic dialog. After reading, they enjoy deep
and rich conversations about the nuances of great works of literature.
They have meaningful discussions about historical perspective and
relevant insights within classical and modern literature.
Meanwhile, I got comments like “Great book, mom…. What’s next?”
True
confession: I really admire people who do literary analysis, but I
simply wasn’t capable. I used a literature-based curriculum, so it
seems strange to say it, but I hate literary analysis. We read books
all the time. I used Sonlight Curriculum which requires a lot of
reading, and I fed my book-hungry children even more literature from The
Well Trained Mind, and other reading lists for the college bound. Much
to my chagrin, we didn’t do any “literature analysis” we just enjoyed
the books.
Feeling Guilty
The
truth is I always felt guilty about not doing literary analysis. Every
homeschool mom has her “thing” that keeps her awake at night, and
literature analysis was my nemesis. On tests and worksheets my children
seemed to do terrible in reading comprehension, and yet they were
reading all the time. They read all day long and late into the night.
The laughed and cried and gasped when they read silently to themselves.
They begged me to continue when I was reading aloud to them. How could
they do so poorly in reading comprehension questions when they seemed
to understand what they were reading?
How
do you know when you have succeeded in teaching your child English?
When I was homeschooling, I was SO stressed out about literature
analysis. It seemed like we always failed at reading comprehension and
the review questions that were provided. I knew that I wanted my kids to
LOVE reading, but I was still stressed about literature analysis.
Every
year, I spent so much time looking at Progeny Press, Learning Language
Arts Through Literature, and other curriculum choices. Why was I
failing? Why couldn’t I teach literature analysis? Every time I asked
my kids “how did you like the book?” I never got any insightful dialog
about the deeper meanings of the literature.
Analyze This
I
finally decided that my goal for literature would be the same as my
goal for Bible study. I decided that my goal in teaching the Bible was
for the kids to LOVE their Bible, not analyze the Bible. Therefore I
would teach them to LOVE literature instead of analyze it. I didn’t want
to “beat the love of books out of them” with analyzing everything.
In
retrospect, it all ended up great. Ironically, they both ended up in a
“Great Books” honors program, analyzing literature at a college level by
their own choice! They are able to do college literary analysis in
their honors class without a problem, getting great grades. Their only
frustration with the class is reading the occasional book synopsis. “I
would rather read the whole thing – they miss the best parts!”
Winning the War
I
failed at teaching literary analysis. I may have lost that battle, but
I won the war. My children LOVE reading. When the kids came home
from college, I felt like I could finally say I had succeeded in my
goal. “For fun” they went to the library to get some reading material.
My son Alex read the entire Shakespeare collection, my son Kevin read CS
Lewis and some Dostoevsky. I may have been stressed out when they were
in high school, but I can honestly say that I achieved my goal: they LOVE reading.
With
my wonderful 20/20 hindsight, I look at my college children and feel
successful, but at the time I stressed over “reading comprehension” more
than almost anything else.
Keeping the
focus on “love of learning” is so hard, though, when you are faced with a
kid who may only answer “fine” when you ask them about their reading.
It is the love of reading that matters.
Copyright Lee Binz, 2010
You have permission to reprint this article as long as you don't make any changes and include the bio below.
Lee Binz, The HomeScholar, specializes in helping parents homeschool high school. Get Lee's 5 part mini-course, "The 5 Biggest Mistakes Parents Make Homeschooling High School." You can find her at http://www.TheHomeScholar.com.
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