I am new to TOG. I have been able to borrow a friend's classic for a few weeks and I am going to buy redesigned for Year 2 , Unit 2 and 3 and Year 3 , Unit 1.

I will only be HS one child, DS 11. He has been in a classical Christian school and adores history. What attracted me to TOG redesigned was the history discussion questions. I believe they are only for the Dialectic level books. He is a voracious reader and really connects the dots in history. Therefore, do you think it OK to put him at the dialectic level for History?

What about Literature? Are the Thinking questions related to literature as well? If so, then I think I want him to read at that level as well.

Are the evaluations strictly based on history or
are they related to literature as well? I believe you have to choose your level for evaluations and I didnt know if it would negate the effectiveness if he is at one level for history and one level for literature. I vaguely recall seeing literature quiz for UG and it was too simplistic for him to get much benefit from it. However, I dont want to jump him to the next level soley based on evaluations. Is there a difference in the genre of literature between UG and D ?

What about the Pop quizzes ? Are they based on levels?

Do I need to buy the in depth resouces in addition to the core to be able to fully use the
thinking question ( and the other questions)?

All this to say , I am heavily leaning to Dialectic. I just want to make sure I am doing the right thing. Although he can read very well, I dont want him to miss any really "fun" reading in UG if the D gets more serious. (you're only 11 once.
Thanks so much

Trisha

My 11 yo did D level last year (he's 12 now). This worked well.

I don't know quite what your reasons are for skipping unit one. I assume he is covering that material this year in school. You may find that starting in the middle of the year plan will cause the level to be a bit more intense than if you had started at the beginning of the year.

One thing to consider is starting in the middle but stretching out the first few weeks or any BIG weeks so that you finish with Year Two in one year and then begin Year Three the next year. This way you won't be out of sync in the following year. OR do unit one of Year Two and consider it a review or light time. It would give you both a time to get used to homeschooling and get your other subject going well before covering new material in TOG.

The Pop Quizes are CDs for dad to listen to so he can participate in history, too. The evaluations are mostly history there are a couple of end of unit tests that include literary terms.

I would say with a strong reader who likes history that you will want to buy the in depth resources found on the primary resources page. He will need them to answer all the history questions. You may even find that he'll demand some of the books on the secondary page as well.

My son like D level a lot. He would have been very bored with the UG literature in particular and he has risen to the challenge of the D level thinking parts.

Also, check out this recent thread for more thought on levels: http://tapestryofgrace.groupee...8210935&f=6001059621

Pat,

Thank you so much for your detailed response. The thread you provided was very helpful.

You asked about why I was starting in the middle. That is the place his school ended last year. I bring one child home a year and I try to keep them at the same place in history that their school would be so when they return the following year it is a seamless transition.

The link made me think about what I am doing . I think I will buy all of the dialectic material because I want to be able to use the discussion questions if possible . If it is too much, we will go down in history and maybe I will use the alternate resources in history because I can get them in the library but cannot get most of the primary resource there. Let me make sure I understand this properly,UG primary resources are not going to be directly related to the questions . Therefore , I am not really loosing anything by using alternative resources instead of primary if one of my goals had been to use the history questions.

Am I understanding this all correctly? I would love to be redirected if I am off course.

Thank you so much,
Trisha

I am still sorting through TOG to figure out what level of books to buy for my son for next year. I said he will be 11 but in reality he wont be 11 until November.

I was looking at the sample week 20 on the website and saw that This County of Ours and An Island Story are the core books. I believe they are the spines for much of the year. When I found them online they looked rather dry to me. Can others tell me your experience? Does anyone have 11yrs that have read this alone and thrived? I really want to be able to use the Dialectic questions as an outline for our discussion. If he uses UG history would there be any or much crossover with the Dialectic questions? What about the D alternative resources ? Although they arent a perfect match, do those books line up at all with the D questions?

Thanks
Trisha

This school year I have 11dd, which I thought will easily jump into D level. Well...she did not, mostly because the history books were too dry and it was our first year of TOG (Y3 redesigned). I quickly switched everything to UG after the first 2 weeks and I did not assign any writing for the whole first unit.

She started to do level 5 writing assignments in Unit 2, reading all of UG primary and some alternative books. We started implementing more narrations and weekly UG evaluations.

We are in Unit 3 Week 21 now and she is reading 1 D literature and 1 D history book with 1 UG in-depth history plus 1 UG Church History. She enjoys her D level reading because it was something that seemed interesting to her. I am not assigning any D level assignments yet, except for the worksheets corresponding with the literature. I will try to start fully implementing D level in Unit 4 and see how it goes.

The decisive point to choose an UG level for her on the beginning of the school year seemed to be an amount of reading (in UG there is a lot to read, but it's still on the younger level), specific books (she liked UG books choices better than D level), plus when I looked at the writing, I decided that this should be our priority above pushing her into D level discussions.

So far it worked well.

My ds9 started in LG primary and a lot of alternative books both in history and literature, but now he is slowly moving to UG literature.