Close Reading the Bible
A couple of years ago, I started digging into how to teach my kids to really understand literature. Luke was finishing sixth grade and had read a lot of great books on his own. But we hadn't done much with literary analysis, or real literature. He'd mostly read classics for kids or historical fiction to bring his history studies to life. As we moved into middle school, I was trying to figure out the best way to tackle the Great Books. I started out looking for the perfect curriculum to guide us through the Great Books, to provide us with a reading list and the right questions to think about.
I downloaded samples and made book lists, compared book lists, re-arranged book lists. I thoroughly examined Veritas Press Omnibus, Tapestry of Grace, Ambleside Online, Classical Conversations, Old Western Culture, Beautiful Feet, Sonlight, Memoria Press, Excellence in Literature, Schole Academy, www.classical-homeschooling.org. With a few exceptions, I felt like most of these were attempting to do too much, and just a handful were not doing enough, or not doing what I felt like I wanted. I could not find the right thing.
At the Great Homeschool Convention while investigating all these different programs, I stumbled into a talk by Adam Andrews titled, "How to Teach Literature without a Curriculum." Sounded interesting! As I listened to him, I realized that what he was saying was exactly what I needed. I didn't need someone to tell me what books to read, I needed someone to teach me how to read books. His program, Teaching the Classics, is like teaching a mom to teach her kids to fish, rather than handing her a fish to pass on to her child. This was what I was looking for! Teaching the Classics teaches mom how to have great discussions on the books as a family.
At the same time, CiRCE was releasing their Reading Guide. This book teaches tools of close reading. It's a simple highlighting system designed to help a reader learn to pay attention to what the author is attempting to say. I decided these two things would be the backbone for our literature for middle school and high school. We're now two years in, and it's been a great decision. The Reading Guide tools help us pay attention while reading. Teaching the Classical helps us talk about what we've read and perceive the main themes, conflicts, and truths in the books.
But there's been a really neat by-product of this decision. I've discovered that learning how to read has spread to other areas of my life. One day early last year I was trying to read through Jeremiah and was having a really hard time. All the sudden, I thought, what if I used the close reading tools and colors to read my Bible? I decided to give it a try. I've never looked back.
It's always amazing to me when things I'm learning for my kids' education actually improve my own life in real ways. Below are some pictures of my Bible now that I'm using this system. I've read all of Jeremiah, lots of Genesis and Matthew this way. The Reading Guide suggests the following uses for colors:
-Green: dates, passing of time, or textual structure
-Pink: proper nouns, places, repeated words
-Yellow: main ideas, main actions
-Blue: things you love
I've also added:
-purple: obvious literary devices like similes and metaphors
-orange: confusing or unclear things, things I don't understand or want to study more
I'd highly encourage getting a copy of the Reading Guide and learning to read your Bible like this! it has brought so much more delight to my reading, and a deeper understanding of Scripture! I try to read one chapter a day carefully, and write a narration of it. It's simple, but very effective and doesn't take a ton of time! Here's a link to the Bible highlighters we use. Yes, we. My two older kids have now requested Bible highlighters and have begun applying this to their Bible study time too, after seeing me do it! :) I've even made a bookmark to keep to remind them of the color uses, and been blessed to begin teaching a Close Reads Bible class to a group of girls at my church with these same tools!
An example of the bookmark:
I downloaded samples and made book lists, compared book lists, re-arranged book lists. I thoroughly examined Veritas Press Omnibus, Tapestry of Grace, Ambleside Online, Classical Conversations, Old Western Culture, Beautiful Feet, Sonlight, Memoria Press, Excellence in Literature, Schole Academy, www.classical-homeschooling.org. With a few exceptions, I felt like most of these were attempting to do too much, and just a handful were not doing enough, or not doing what I felt like I wanted. I could not find the right thing.
At the Great Homeschool Convention while investigating all these different programs, I stumbled into a talk by Adam Andrews titled, "How to Teach Literature without a Curriculum." Sounded interesting! As I listened to him, I realized that what he was saying was exactly what I needed. I didn't need someone to tell me what books to read, I needed someone to teach me how to read books. His program, Teaching the Classics, is like teaching a mom to teach her kids to fish, rather than handing her a fish to pass on to her child. This was what I was looking for! Teaching the Classics teaches mom how to have great discussions on the books as a family.
At the same time, CiRCE was releasing their Reading Guide. This book teaches tools of close reading. It's a simple highlighting system designed to help a reader learn to pay attention to what the author is attempting to say. I decided these two things would be the backbone for our literature for middle school and high school. We're now two years in, and it's been a great decision. The Reading Guide tools help us pay attention while reading. Teaching the Classical helps us talk about what we've read and perceive the main themes, conflicts, and truths in the books.
But there's been a really neat by-product of this decision. I've discovered that learning how to read has spread to other areas of my life. One day early last year I was trying to read through Jeremiah and was having a really hard time. All the sudden, I thought, what if I used the close reading tools and colors to read my Bible? I decided to give it a try. I've never looked back.
It's always amazing to me when things I'm learning for my kids' education actually improve my own life in real ways. Below are some pictures of my Bible now that I'm using this system. I've read all of Jeremiah, lots of Genesis and Matthew this way. The Reading Guide suggests the following uses for colors:-Green: dates, passing of time, or textual structure
-Pink: proper nouns, places, repeated words
-Yellow: main ideas, main actions
-Blue: things you love
I've also added:
-purple: obvious literary devices like similes and metaphors
-orange: confusing or unclear things, things I don't understand or want to study more
I'd highly encourage getting a copy of the Reading Guide and learning to read your Bible like this! it has brought so much more delight to my reading, and a deeper understanding of Scripture! I try to read one chapter a day carefully, and write a narration of it. It's simple, but very effective and doesn't take a ton of time! Here's a link to the Bible highlighters we use. Yes, we. My two older kids have now requested Bible highlighters and have begun applying this to their Bible study time too, after seeing me do it! :) I've even made a bookmark to keep to remind them of the color uses, and been blessed to begin teaching a Close Reads Bible class to a group of girls at my church with these same tools!
An example of the bookmark:
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