Lightning Literature and Composition: Shakespeare Tragedies - Crew Review

The Lightning Literature and Composition: Shakespeare Tragedies and Sonnets from Hewitt Homeschooling Resources uses great literature to expose high school students to techniques that will improve their own writing. Students will need unabridged copies of the following plays by Shakespeare to complete this course: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear.

Each course in the Lightning Literature and Composition series concentrates on a different time period, geographical region, or author. This course is on Shakespeare and focuses on his tragedies and sonnets. Each lesson is divided into different sections. The “Introduction” gives a brief description of the tragedy being studied. The “Selection” refers to whatever play or sonnet is being taught for that lesson. The “While You Read” provides a list of questions to keep in mind while reading the plays. The “Plot Summary” provides a brief summary of the plot development for each scene of the play being studied. The “Comprehension Questions” include short-answer and multiple-choice questions to help assess and solidify basic understanding; and the answers are in the teacher guide. The “Literary Lesson” covers applicable literary concepts, characters in the plays, stage directions, and language. The “Writing Exercises” either address the selection or the concepts covered in the literary lesson. Hewitt recommends completing one writing assignment for each sonnet and two for every play. Hewitt thought about the homeschool teacher when they included grading tips in the teacher guide for these writing assignments, including checklists for nonfiction papers, fiction papers, and poems. Grading English papers can be overwhelming and these grading tips help you assess content, flow, organization, style, grammar, and more.

The “Discussion Questions” address social, political, religious, and philosophical issues that may arise naturally from the literature. These discussion questions challenge the student’s ideas and stimulate a good dinner conversation.

Both the student guide and teacher guide provide two schedules – the semester schedule assumes an 18-week semester and the full year schedule assumes a 36-week year. Although Hewitt recommends a semester for each guide, students who struggle in language arts may wish to take a whole year for one guide. Both schedules allow for reading each play and sonnet twice for fuller understanding, and for watching one video performance of each play. The first reading is to grasp the basics of the plot, and includes answering the comprehension questions. The second reading is to pay closer attention to the literary aspects of the play or sonnet. Hewitt recommends for both readings to be read aloud, if at all possible. The video recommendations can be found in the student’s guide appendix, as well as a list of additional tragedies by Shakespeare and books about his plays and sonnets.

The Lightning Literature and Composition series helps high school students acquire college-level composition skills by responding to great literature. Visit the Crew Blog to read what the Homeschool Review Crew has to say about the Lightning Literature and Composition: Shakespeare Tragedies and Sonnets, as well as other products from Hewitt Homeschooling Resources.