flynn057

Dear friends, Here is the newest audio version of my workshop "The Real 3R's of Literature: Read, Reflect & Respond." This is from my presentation at the Books & Beyond 2010 conference in Orlando. Read, Reflect & Respond Life has a purpose! Reading has a purpose! Down with ignorance and apathy! The discipline of reading, reflecting and responding helps us learn to think more deeply and relate to others more wisely. We are less likely to be duped and more likely to engage in real life. We will have something worthwhile to say in a conversation. We will be prepared to meet life challenges. Reflecting and responding increases long-term retention of information, beyond the test. Our response often includes practical application and action to transform our lives and culture. Reading improves comprehension, logical thinking, creativity, writing skills, grammar, spelling, etc. Reflective reading feeds the spirit and inspires our souls. Readers become leaders! The ...

Dear friends, In the 7th-8th grade home school co-op English class that I teach, I try to incorporate Biblical themes as often as possible. We have done literature studies on the lives of Joseph, Daniel, and Esther. We learned about Psalms and Proverbs for a week or two each. We usually do integrated literature/art/music/Scripture units for Christmas and Easter. And we often study books that highlight Biblical themes, such as The Bronze Bow, which is set in Bible times, or The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which is set in Puritan America. Here is the audio version of the workshop I presented a week ago at the Books & Beyond literature conference in Orlando. I am pasting in my workshop handout text below. I spoke about some things in the workshop (especially letting the Bible launch our children into life rather than holding them into a mold) that aren't in the handout, and visa versa. I know the handouts are pretty sparse. Below the handouts are a whole bunch of web links, not onl...

Dear friends, In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, my home school co-op English class is listening to his "I Have a Dream" speech and answering study questions on it.  I thought you might like to join us.  I have split the speech text into three sections to make it more manageable.   You will find a persuasive paragraph writing assignment at the end of this post. For peace and justice, Virginia Knowles Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Have a Dream" Speech August 28, 1963 (Section 1) I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one ...

The Bible as Literature Next weekend (January 23) I am presenting a workshop on "The Bible as Literature" at the Books & Beyond conference here in Orlando. I am finalizing my handouts right now, and wanted to make some of my Bible/literature related blog posts and web pages easier to find. In the 7th-8th grade home school co-op English class that I teach, I try to incorporate Biblical themes as often as possible.  We have done literature studies on the lives of Joseph, Daniel, and Esther.  We learned about Psalms and Proverbs for a week or two each.  We usually do integrated literature/art/music/Scripture units for Christmas and Easter.  And we often study books that highlight Biblical themes, such as The Bronze Bow, which is set in Bible times, or The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which is set in Puritan America. I don't have all of this on the web yet, but here are links to some of our studies and other resources.  Free study guides and...

In my home school co-op English class, I try to incorporate fine art. This week, we are continuing a literature study on Scott O'Dell's novel The Hawk That Dare Not Hunt by Day , a tale featuring Bible translator William Tyndale during the Reformation era. To correspond with that, we are doing a Charlotte Mason style picture study of one of Albrecht Dürer's self portraits, followed by two homework assignments on descriptive paragraph writing using the paintings in this blog post. Next week in class, we will continue talking about Dürer, specifically about the theological impact that his contemporary Martin Luther had on him. We will be writing a persuasive paragraph for the writing assignment then. In case you are wondering how I am going manage doing picture study with a class of 18 students, I actually have four decent sized copies of the "Self-Portrait in Fur Coat." One is in a book on Renaissance art that I've had for several years. Then, on the Books-a-M...