Literature guides - cultural context

[Cora Connelly]

Just got some new Literature guides - where are the kids supposed to get the answers to the Cultural context questions? I am a little disappointed that the teacher's guide is just an answer book - it doesn't even have an introduction of how to use the guide at all...
If they have to research these, look up words, answer questions, I can't imagine how you get through 4 chapters a week as I read on another post?

[tanya]

Cora,

I'm assuming you have The Bronze Bow since you have Cultural Context questions. All of our literature study guides are in a beta format right now. This is not how they are going to look when we actually print them. We started selling them because our customers were seeing them on our school website and requesting them. The requests were getting too large to handle by email, so we made them available for sale on our website. I thought we had marked them clearly as beta, but I'll re-check the website and see if we could add a statement that the guides aren't considered 'finished.'

These guides were written by our teachers for use in their classrooms, so they don't have the help in them that we will be providing for the homeschool market. If you will send me your email address, I'll send you a copy of the literature guidelines that are in our grammar school curriculum guides. That should help you temporarily.

As for the cultural context questions, those answers are fed to the students by the teacher, using the answers in the teacher manual. That teacher manual will be re-written with that information provided for the teacher as we do in our history guides. Really, for homeschool use, I'd talk about the cultural context with your children, but I don't know that I'd have them write it all out. When I was teaching, I just chose the things I really wanted them to remember and had them write them down. The rest we just did orally.

Also, most of our teacher guides have tests and quizzes in them, and I don't think we have them in The Bronze Bow yet. If you'd like, when you email me, ask me to check with our 6th grade teachers and get their tests. I'll be glad to send them on to you.

If you are really adverse to using these guides in the format they are currently in, we have a 60 day return policy, so you can always send them back for a refund. But I'd love it if you would consider continuing to use them and helping us to improve them by sharing your comments. It is customers like you who test our products and help us to make them the best we can, and we are thankful for that.

Regards,

Tanya Charlton
tanya@memoriapress.com

[Cora Connelly]

Thanks for your answer and willingness to be helpful. The answer book will work. Tests and any other info would be great. How fast do they go through these? One section a day?

An explanation of what "beta" implies would be helpful on the website.

connelly517@gmail.com

[tanya]

You are right. I'm going to get a 'beta' definition posted on the website next week. In the meantime, I apologize for any confusion this has caused you.

The only test I can locate for The Bronze Bow is a final exam, and I don't have a key for that. But I will see one of the 6th grade teachers on Mon., and I'll see if he has a key he can send me. In the meantime, I'll email the final to you to look at.

We do have a teacher editing this guide pretty heavily, and I feel like we will eventually have intermittent quizzes to go with it. In the meantime, you might consider using the pieces of the final that are pertinent to every few chapters as oral quizzes. This would prepare your student for the final exam as you go along.

And, I will send you a final book once we have completed it, but it will be later this year. You may want to email me a reminder in the spring.

Please let me know if we can further help you.

Cheers,

Tanya