I'm following the plan from the Loom to "cut" the blue and green assignments from this year. I'm confused about whether or not my student is still supposed to read from Words of Delight and A Poetry Handbook. These books were not listed at all on the Loom chart for "cutting" assignments. Can someone please help? Thanks.
Becky in LA

Hello, Becky!
The short answer is yes. Words of Delight is foundational, and the poetry is pretty important as well. I would suggest that you also read Words of Delight - it is delightful (grin) and will increase your enjoyment of scripture as literature.
Blessings,
April

Hi Becky! This question is just starting to come up, so you're in good company. :-) It seems like what we all want to avoid is the situation where you skip the literature assignment, which is great, but you also skip that week's foundational information about characters, for example, which is crummy for later studies.

I'd agree with April that Words of Delight and A Poetry Handbook are good to read if you can. However, as I was explaining it to a lady on the phone the other day, if I had to rate these "background and handbook" readings in terms of importance, this would be my priority list for a cutting week:

1. If you can't do anything else, try to do the defining terms and any Analysis Docs/Poetics readings on the Loom that you may have assigned that week. This means maybe 10 pages of reading tops, and usually just 5-10 terms, which should be highly doable in most cases, and this reading constitutes all the "handbook" stuff for that week, so it should cover everything essential.

2. Next, I'd say, comes the Frameworks reading. We take the historical study of literature very seriously and want to make sure that your students are learning the connections between historical cultures/worldviews and literature (which also makes the literature itself far more understandable and meaningful!). So, though I would say that this is DEFINITELY a cuttable priority, you may decide to include it, especially because it is also usually just a few pages of reading.

3. Words of Delight and A Poetry Handbook come last in importance, though April is absolutely right that they are delightful. :-) If you have first printing Y2, I would bump Words of Delight up to the second priority level, because you have Analysis docs rather than Poetics, which rely more heavily on WoD readings. For those who have Poetics (Y3 and second printing Y2 users) I would make WoD and PH a third priority, mostly because the essential information from them should be more or less summed up in Poetics.

As I've been starting to try to help teachers process the cutting chart, that's been the priority list that has developed so far. I reserve the right to change it if one of you wonderful ladies shows me something I haven't seen yet. :-) However, I think that if you follow this priority list you definitely won't miss anything essential for your later class discussions, which is the goal. If de-stressing to the max is what you need, just go for the #1 priority and forget the rest, or chop it altogether! Be released!

In closing, I want to stress that this is YOUR school year and YOUR children. You may arrange these readings in a different priority structure or cut them all! As they say in Pride and Prejudice, "Lady Catherine will never know." ;-)

HTH!
Christy Somerville
Staff Author
Director for Rhetoric Literature Studies
Lampstand Press

quote:

the plan from the Loom to "cut" the blue and green assignments from this year

Can someone please tell me where to locate these directions in The Loom? (re: "cutting" literature assignments. I'm very interested in that but have no clue as to where that part is!
THANK YOU!