How I Chose Great Books for Excellence in Literature

Posted on February 9, 2010 
Filed Under Reading, Teaching Literature

I often get questions on how I chose the books that are included in the Excellence in Literature curriculum, so I thought I’d address it today. It may help you decide whether or not this is the right curriculum for your family.

There were many factors that went into my choice of books, but I considered the following questions to be most important as I selected what to include.

While I considered whether or not I liked each work (and included as many favorites as possible), I couldn’t make selections solely on my own preferences. Some works are included because of their place in the literary canon, and the fact that the answers to the primary questions were positive. I have favorite books and historical periods, just as you probably do, but it’s important to have a good overview of American, British, and World literature in order to understand the progression of ideas and the resulting worldviews.

I don’t enjoy dark, depressing literature, and I’ve tried to be very careful about what is included, while working within the above guidelines. Literature reflects the worldview of its writer, and if it’s written truly, the outcome of various worldviews will be evident. Great literature accurately reflects the fallen state of humanity, and one its great themes is redemption. Literature that fails to acknowledge truth about fallen human nature not only forfeits the opportunity to present a complete picture of grace in redemption, but it also cultivates a warped, unrealistic worldview. It’s like reading romance novels to discover what marriage is all about.

Because great literature addresses essential truths about human nature, characters are not perfect. Literature can vividly portray consequences for poor choices as well as for good choices. Like parables in scripture or Aesop’s fables, stories give the reader an opportunity to learn from the mistakes and successes of others. Because a story usually contains a complete arc of thought, action, and consequence, it’s easier to learn from than real-life examples in which beginnings and endings aren’t always clear.

If you use all five years of the Excellence in Literature curriculum, you’ll encounter vivid portrayals of the great ideas of western civilization. You’ll read stories that illustrate freedom, justice, truth, humility, goodness, and love in action. You’ll also encounter their opposites–imprisonment, injustice, falsehood, pride, evil, and hatred. This is true to life. One of the most important parts of education is learning to discern what is good, and seeing through literature how practical virtue plays out.

I have had parents ask me whether a book had lying or adultery or other evils in it. If you’ve followed the discussion so far, you’ll know that literature that is true deals truly with these things. Rather than pretending that sin does not occur, great literature shows what happens as a result of it. In any of these books, the emphasis is not on the sinful act, but on what happens as a result. Most older literature treats these events just as the Bible does, with utmost brevity, and in older literature, often with the same phrases found in scripture. There is not a focus on specific descriptive details about the act of sin itself.*

One thing that many parents don’t seem to remember is that married adults read things differently than relatively sheltered young people. I read and enjoyed many of these classics as a teen or pre-teen. Later in life as I re-read them or heard them discussed by other adults, I realized that I’d totally overlooked the bits that were potentially offensive to some adults. The more sheltered the young person, the less they will notice.

In a conversation about another literature curriculum, a parent once commented that it would be nice to have a list of all the potentially offensive things in a book so that they could be skipped. I couldn’t disagree more. First, it would be nearly impossible to guess at everything that might offend someone. Second, I believe that a list could be harmful for young people by calling attention to things that they would in innocence otherwise skim over (and for less sheltered young people who are not being wise, a list could be misused to search for potentially provocative passages).

Finally, chopping into a story to focus on individual elements is much like serving the ingredients for lasagne on separate plates and expecting a diner to enjoy dinner and come away with an understanding of what lasagne tastes like. He may know what pasta, sauce, cheeses, meat, and herbs taste like, but he hasn’t experienced lasagne, and it’s unlikely that he found the meal particularly enjoyable. A student who receives pre-digested literature or a laundry list of things to skip is unlikely to enjoy the work or fully understand its themes.

I believe that literature can play an important part in the process of becoming “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves,” (Matthew 10:16). Literature, read and discussed in the home, seems to be an ideal vehicle for learning about life and seeing, in a completely non-threatening way, how various choices and worldviews are lived out. When great literature is coupled with history and context information, it provides a unique window into worldviews and their consequences.

My choices for Excellence in Literature include many of the books listed on major “Top 100 Books of All Time” lists, and in many cases reflect my own Christian worldview (though the curriculum is not religious). Some books such as The Great Gatsby are written from a different worldview, but each of them is included because the answers to the primary questions were positive. Books such as Gatsby speak truth about the author’s worldview, and they don’t gloss over it or make it appealing. This is truth, and while it’s not necessarily pleasant, it is helpful.

My goal in writing Excellence in Literature is to pass along my love for some of the most beautiful, thought-provoking literature in the world, and to help students learn to think critically and analytically while growing mentally and spiritually. Great books raise challenging questions, and I hope your family will enjoy many interesting conversations about what you read. Be ready to get lost in a story and emerge on the other side, having grown and changed through walking in another’s shoes for a time. Great books can be great friends. Enjoy!

***

*One note about editions: I tend to choose older editions of translated books, as they are usually the most discreet, and I recommend that you do the same. In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, for example, if you read a modern translation, you’ll probably want to omit the Miller’s Tale. I read it in the original middle English, and the effect isn’t quite the same, but it’s probably best omitted in newer translations.

Comments

5 Responses to “How I Chose Great Books for Excellence in Literature”

  1. » Choosing Great Books For High School Curriculum Taking Time for Things That Matter on February 11th, 2010 6:15 pm

    [...] Read the rest… [...]

  2. Lori Hancock on April 5th, 2010 7:13 am

    Your literature program sounds wonderful! We have started planning our next school year and I was so excited when I found your website. Our oldest of five will start high school next year and I wanted to find the perfect literature program for his ninth grade year. We have found it! Thanks!!!!
    What history program do you recommend to complement your literature program? You may not want to endorse one particular publisher, so I understand if you do not wish to answer this question.

  3. Janice Campbell on April 5th, 2010 8:02 am

    I’ll e-mail some suggestions!

  4. vikki schultz on June 9th, 2010 8:08 pm

    I too would like to know your thoughts on a history curriculum to go along with this writing program.
    Thanks.

  5. Janice Campbell on June 10th, 2010 8:39 am

    Hi, Vikki,

    Thank you for asking! I was going to reply privately as I did with Lori, but decided to post it here, as there are probably others who want to know as well.

    There are several ways to approach history with this, and we did a mixture of things (just call us eclectic!). Throughout all the boys’ school years, we purchased and read Sonlight resources at the appropriate levels. I didn’t use any of Sonlight’s assignments, just the reading, because most of their writing was done with the assignments I gave them (I hadn’t written EiL yet– they were my first guinea pigs! I taught them as I’d learned best in college). We used Sonlight because there’s nothing more important receiving information in a vital, living way, and Sonlight’s book choices are one of the best ways to do that.

    In addition, while studying British and World Literature, we used Western Civilization by Jackson Spielvogel, a college textbook to study the history of western civilization; while studying American Lit, we used the Landmark Book of American History from Sonlight which may be out of print. An alternative would be William Bennett’s A Patriot’s History of the United States. Because we have auditory and kinesthetic learners in our home, we also used resources from The Teaching Company (http://teach12.com). They’re college level, but very well done and memorable. They can be used in addition to or instead of a book-based curriculum.

    There are two other resources available now that weren’t available when we were going through high school: Tapestry of Grace and Susan Wise Bauer’s World HIstory. They are both excellent and would work well with Excellence in Literature. If they’d been available we would most likely have used them for at least a year or two. Veritas Press is also good.

    The key to successfully integrating a separate history curriculum is to focus mostly in what I call “input.” Let them take in as much knowledge as they can hold through books, audio, and video resources, and be sure to include historical fiction and biographies. Living books are still very important at the high school level.

    I hope that’s helpful!
    Blessings,
    Janice

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