Literary Criticism / Short Stories

Welcome back to the school year! Leah is starting 4th grade Norse Mythology and Natalie is doing 9th grade Literary Criticism / Short Stories. We went super-traditional with this so I hesitate to post it to the Waldorf Curriculum website, but I am putting our stories and links here in case anyone else finds this helpful. I very much had "make sure she is ready for public high school" in mind when doing this. For her main lesson book I let her create an anthology of her own creative writing pieces; basically, a la Wish, Wonder, and Surprise.

Four Week Language Main Lesson Block - Eighth Grade

Week One

Day One:
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
lesson plan link (2 days) -
this is an EXCELLENT free lesson plan from CPALMS


Day Two:
day two of "The Lottery"


Day Three:
"Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" by Horace Miner
read and discuss this classic first day of Anthropology piece -- I still remember the shock of this from college (including where I was sitting on the Mount Holyoke Campus) and if you don't know the surprise please look it up in advance

practice writing as an ethnographer; describe some practices in your own home


Day Four:
lesson plan link (1 day)-
Determining Theme free activity from Teachers Pay Teachers, by Carla McLeod
she recommends starting with the video How to Find a Theme and I agree; it is VERY good



we did this activity with The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, which I read to the children, and we included the soundtrack activity which was surprisingly interesting

followed with a viewing of the movie from 1973, spoken by Shel Silverstein
notice which line of the book he leaves out -- is this significant???




read your child the "Introduction" biography of Poe in the front of the Poetry for Children series; don't let your child read it independently, as it gives away the ending to the story

"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe
lesson plan link (2 days) -
free lesson plan from Teachers Pay Teachers by Laura Randazzo


Day Five:
day two of "The Cask of Amontillado"

optional follow-up: read Edgar Allan Poe chapter (Collier's Junior Classics vol. 8, "Roads to Greatness")

The Young Folks Shelf of Books, COMPLETE SET - 10 VOLUMES (Collier's Junior Classics Series: 1 - 10)