I recently received Lightning Literature and Composition: American Christian Student’s Guide, $29.95, and the Lightning Literature and Composition: American Christian Teacher’s Guide, $2.95, from Hewitt Homeschooling to review. I also received the book No Graven Image, $14.99, to use with the student guide. The Teachers Guide comes already 3 hole punched, ready to insert in a binder.
Hewitt Homeschooling has courses for many different subjects for elementary, middle school, and high school. I have used one of their courses in the past. You can read my review of Lightning Literature and Composition for 8th Grade.
Hewitt Homeschooling Lightning Literature & Composition- American Christian Review
American Christian is recommended for grades 11 and 12. The website says that this course can be used for all high school students, regardless of any Lightning Literature courses they have taken in the past. I had my daughter, 15, who is halfway through 10th grade use it. She’s halfway through 10th grade because she worked ahead, not because she’s behind. You can view the table of contents and a sample chapter on the website to see if it will work with your 9th or 10th grade students. There are some more sensitive topics discussed in this course that you will want to be aware of. These are listed on the website.
There are 4 required books for this course.
Can You Drink the Cup? by Henri Nouwen
A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle
Godric by Frederick Buechner
No Graven Image by Elisabeth Elliot
All four books are available on the Hewitt Homeschooling website individually, or as part of a package with the student and teachers guide. The student guide is non-consumable, so you can use it with all your children, when they are ready for it. Having homeschooled all of my six children, this is information I’m always looking for.
There are schedules in the both the student book and the teachers guide telling you what to do when to complete the course in a semester, or a full year.
Because we received No Graven Image as part of the package, my daughter started the course with that book. It was easy to find out where in the student guide to start working because of the schedule in the back of the book. The semester schedule has all the reading and work for No Graven Image done in three weeks. The full year schedule takes 6 weeks. We followed the full year schedule. We’ve had the books for about 5 weeks, but Abby was gone to church camp for one of those weeks, so she hasn’t finished her writing exercises yet, she has finished all the Comprehension Questions, though.
Here is the full year schedule:
Week 1
Read the introduction to Unit 4, Lesson 8 (Elisabeth Elliot)
Read Chapers 1-7 of No Graven Image and answer the Comprehension Questions
Week 2
Read chapters 8-14 of No Graven Image and answer the Comprehension Questions
Week 3
Read chapters 15-22 of No Graven Image and answer the Comprehension Questions
Week 4
Read the Literary Lesson for Unit 4, Lesson 8
Choose one writing exercise for Unit 4, Lesson 8, and write a rough draft of your paper
Week 5
Revise and compete your first paper for Unit 4, Lesson 8.
Choose a second writing exercise of Unit 4, Lesson 8, and write a rough draft of your paper
Week 6
Revise and complete your second paper for Unit 4, Lesson 8
The semester schedule covers the same work, just at a faster pace. For example, the whole No Graven Image book is read in the first week, instead of taking 3 weeks to read it.
No Graven Image is the 4th book covered in this course, in case you were wondering why the lessons started with Unit 4, Lesson 8. There are 1-4 Comprehension Questions for each chapter of the book. The answers to all these questions are in the Teachers Guide.
There are five Writing Exercises in the Student Guide for the student to choose from for their two assigned writings. These include:
an essay analyzing parts of No Grave Image,
reading another of Elisabeth Elliot’s books and writing an essay analyzing it,
writing a research paper on a topic covered in No Graven Image. Such as the history of Ecuador, or a missionary organization. The student is to include a bibliography.
The Teachers Guide has a list of discussion questions to use for topics raised in all the books. There is also a list of Project Suggestions that include art, history, geography, Bible, and more. The Teachers Guide also includes grading tips for the student writing exercises.
Lightning Lit & Comp – Acquiring College-Level Composition Skills by Responding to Great Literature – American Christian Authors is a great, in-depth course for high school students wanting to study American Christian Authors. I like the way some of the more sensitive topics were handled. One of the topics even has two pages dedicated to looking at the subject from a biblical viewpoint. I honestly didn’t find anything in this course that I didn’t like. Not just in the No Graven Image lessons that my daughter did, but in reading through the rest of the Student Guide. My daughter will be finishing this course for one of her high school English credits.
