What Kind of Books do You Want for Your
Literature-Based Home School Curriculum?
Have you decided that a literature-based home school curriculum is what you'd like to use? Most people figure that once they’ve made up their minds on this, they’re set. Just find a good home school curriculum with lots of books and that's it. Whew, at least one thing settled.
But wait! As soon as you go looking for a literature-based home school curriculum options, what do you find? Tons of choices! Sonlight? Tapestry of Grace? Veritas Press? Robinson Curriculum? Lamplighter Press? Vision Forum? Noah Plan? And this is just a start! How do you choose from these when they all seem to have great literature?
A Thomas Jefferson Education quotes Daniel Taylor’s
The Healing Power of Stories as describing four types of stories: Bent, Broken, Whole and Healing.
- Bent stories are those that make evil good and encourage the vilest of reactions and emotions. Pornography is one example.
- Broken stories are those where evil is evil and good is good, but evil wins. Books like The Lord of the Flies or Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle are examples of Broken stories. Because Broken stories can be very disturbing, they can often serve to motivate people to get involved in fixing what is broken, changing the wrongs addressed in the books.
- Whole stories are those where good is good and evil is evil, and good wins in the end. Most classics and wholesome literature fall into this category. Little Women and Robin Hood are two examples of many.
- Healing stories are those which are either Broken or Whole where the reader is emotionally drawn in and changed significantly for the better by reading it. Charlotte’s Web could be considered a Healing story. As we read about what happens to Charlotte and Wilbur, we are saddened, and yet by the end of the story we’ve grown as we’ve seen their relationship and personalities grow.
Naturally, as home schooling parents, we want to steer clear of Bent stories both for ourselves and our children. Thankfully, I don't know of any literature-based home school curriculum that contains any. But what about the other types of stories? You need to decide what kind of a mix do you want for your children. Which of the following best describes your attitude for what kind of books you want in your literature-based home school curriculum?
- I want the literature my child reads to be books he can’t put down, that are emotionally riveting…
- often, even it might include some bloody scenes or something some people might find objectionable. Our discussions will compensate for problem issues, and probably bring up important issues to grapple with.
- sometimes, depending on if the story sheds light on something or some person we are studying.
- rarely, if that means the books include disturbing images or bad language. Why offer this for my child to read if it doesn’t promote godliness?
- I think stories that focus almost only on characters’ heroic qualities are…
- unrealistic and can be formulaic and trite. I’d rather have my child read stories that are more true to life, including topics such as divorce, rebellion or other coming-of-age struggles.
- good as a means of understanding the flow of history, either of the period about which it was written, or of the time the author wrote it.
- important as a means of inspiring my child to know and emulate virtuous behavior. These stories provide food for thought and examples of right living. I want them to be the mainstay of my child’s reading selections during the formative early years of home schooling.
So, now, how would some of the leading literature-based home school curriculum providers answer these questions? There are probably no definitive answers, but I’ll venture to make some comments based on my own personal experience.
As someone who has used Sonlight Home School Curriculum
, Tapestry of Grace, and Robinson Curriculum for at least over a year each, I have gained a few insights that I’d like to offer. Though these comments are generalizations, I think they may shed some light and help you decide which of the many literature-based home school curriculum options may be right for your child at this point in time. What is right now, of course, may change in years to come as you and your children grow, mature and change.
Sonlight Home School Curriculum
selects literature it hopes will touch your child’s heart, giving your child an understanding of how others have faced struggles and grown through them. Sonlight also wants to introduce worldviews and subjects that North Americans may not be familiar with or even agree with so that you and your child can discuss them together, thus serving as kind of an inoculation against views you might not share.
Given these goals, Sonlight tends to include some Broken stories somewhat more than the other literature-based home school curriculum choices I’ve mentioned elsewhere. Sonlight probably includes a fair number of these books because the books are well written and involve your child emotionally in the history and cultures it presents. Fascinating? Often. Morally exemplary? Not always. And they are very open about that.
Tapestry of Grace and
Veritas Press Classical Home School Curriculum are both Classical home school curriculum programs. In my opinion (just one person's opinion here!), they don’t seem to place as much of an emphasis on touching your heart strings as a program like Sonlight does. Sure, some or many of the books will move you and your child emotionally, and I have certainly shed a few tears or been on the edge of my seat with some of Tapestry of Grace’s book selections. And there is some overlap with books Sonlight recommends simply because both want to include great literature.
However, I think the primary purpose for why those types of books are included in a classical home school curriculum program (which Sonlight is not, though it can be modified) is less to move your emotions than it is to give you insight to a certain time period, person, great work of literature, or perhaps a moral dilemma.
Robinson Curriculum is representative of a third approach for literature-based home schooling curriculums. The books in its curriculum are more oriented to providing wholesome literature as a means of providing examples of the way to live and to inspire your child to make moral decisions. Many of the books are from the 19th century and early 20th century, and are products of the values of that time period (and as such are sometimes criticized as being somewhat ethnocentric).
Biases aside, however, for those parents who want their children to read material that will provide a hefty chunk of morality in a world where truth and morality are often peddled as relative, there are many Whole stories to give your children rich food for thought.
Other literature-based home school curriculums that focus on Whole stories would be Student of the Word and other Bible-centered curriculums. Or there are book publishers such as Lamplighter Publishing or Vision Forum, both of which publish books meant to be read as a way of promoting virtue and morality. Although perhaps too broad of a generalization, these literature-based home school curriculum providers tend see books more as tools to help build virtuous citizens and Christians, rather than as means to develop critical thinkers.
There are many other home school curriculums that I could add, but I hope these examples get you started on seeing how the home school curriculum you are interested in views literature.
Let me encourage you as you read these pages and think about what is important to you and your family. You are doing a great thing by thinking through these deep issues! Really! You are taking steps now that will pay off in big ways as you realize what kind of home school curriculum you want. Good for you -- you are one step closer to knowing how to choose the best home school curriculum for you and your child.
Once you know what role you want literature to play in your child’s life, you are ready to find out what else you need to know.
Back to Question 3: What Kind of Books: Textbooks or Literature?
On to Question 4: What Role Will Your Faith Play?
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