Grade 8 reading list

Most of the works we read during this past academic year aren’t listed under the curriculum outline submitted to the school district in the summer of 2010. At the time, I couldn’t foresee the literature that would best enhance our studies. Preferring to work organically, I selected reading material as we moved along, based on Allegra’s interests and what we were studying at any given point. Here’s what we actually read:

Historical documents

Capt. John Smith’s The General History of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles (excerpts)

Mayflower Compact, William Bradford’s Of Plimoth Plantation versus Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan (excerpts)

Cotton Mather’s Wonders of the Invisible World (excerpts pertaining to Salem witch trials)

Benjamin Franklin’s The Way to Wealth, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (excerpts), The Declaration of Independence, Federalist Papers (excerpts), the Preamble to the US Constitution,
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

Poetry

Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, Philip Freneau, Phillis Wheatley, John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Walt Whitman

Short stories

“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Ligeia” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, “A New England Nun” by Mary Wilkins Freeman, “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” by Mark Twain

Slave narratives

Excerpts from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

Books in entirety

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller (for biography/autobiography)

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

The Story of the Amistad by Emma Gelders Sterne

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott (for geometry and social commentary)

Finding materials

You can homeschool inexpensively, but probably not “absolutely free,” as some websites claim. The question arises: Do you want to spend most of your time searching for free stuff, or do you want to homeschool your child efficiently and effectively?

My goal has been to find basic, inexpensive teaching materials that adhere to national educational standards. I have found them online at School Specialty Publishing, which is now part of Carson-Dellosa. I supplement these materials with books from the local public library, online materials from reputable sources, inexpensive books and activity kits from Dover Publications, educational television programs and field trips. Dover is a great resource for inexpensive paperback classics--handy for highlighting and writing in the margins. Oriental Trading offers inexpensive visual aids (bulletin board displays) for teaching parts of speech and basic math and science concepts.

Allegra writes: You don’t need to buy hefty, official-looking textbooks to have an excellent homeschooling experience. All of the resources mentioned above are effective and, yes, even fun! We also keep an eye out for articles related to our studies in newspapers and magazines to keep things up to date.