My oldest daughter is now in college. Both in high school and college she has been assigned some of literature’s great classics. These can often be difficult due to the older English language style and unusual meanings of words. It has surprised me throughout the years how many of these I haven’t read and how unsure I was of teaching them to her. I was so happy to find high school English help through the use of a series of books from Dover.
Dover Thrift Study Editions offer the complete unabridged text of the literary work, as well as a ton of extra features to help students feel confident in their understanding of the text. From character lists to summaries and even study questions, these books take the work and make it more accessible and understandable.
High School English Help
As a homeschooling parent, these make great “teacher guides”. You could give your student just the unabridged version of the literary work and keep this edition for yourself.
Features of Dover Thrift Study Editions:
There are many features that make these great teacher guides for homeschooling parents.
Character Lists – These come in multiple forms from a complete list with an explanation as to who they are, to broken down lists that appear when they first appear in the book. (Even as an adult I sometimes go online and print character lists when there are many to keep track of – As with The Count of Monte Cristo which I am reading now.)
Summaries – First there is a summary of the entire literary work, then there are summaries for each chapter.
Analysis – Each chapter in the study guide contains an analysis to help you better understand what is happening in the book.
Study Questions – These offer you the opportunity to test reading comprehensions and are given for each chapter. AND the answers are also given! (I have to say that I appreciate not having to think to much when it comes to these things. Keeping up with all the information and all of my kids are learning is just too much for me. Having these aids is a big help!)
Suggested Essay Topics – You don’t even have to come up with essay topics as there a list for each chapter in the study guide!
Cost – One of the major benefits of these books in general is their reasonable cost. Coming in around $6-$8 they are truly affordable options as a high school English curriculum with both the original text and study guide features included you can’t beat the price!
These same features listed above also make them great options for both high school English and college courses for students to use on their own to help them better understand and analyze the literature.
Dover Thrift Study Editions:
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- As You Like It
- The Awakening
- Dubliners
- Emma
- Frankenstein
- Great Expectations
- Gulliver’s Travels
- Hamlet
- Heart of Darkness
- Jane Eyre
- Julius Caesar
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- The Merchant of Venice
- The metamorphosis
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- My Antonia
- Othello
- Pride and Prejudice
- Romeo and Juliet
- The Scarlet Letter
- A Tale of two Cities
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Twelfth Night
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin
- Withering Heights
Where to Buy:
- Dover’s Website – Thrift Study Editions (and notice the special discount code just for The Curriculum Choice readers – use code WHAT at checkout for 25% off through 6/30/17)
- Rainbow Resource
- [amazon_link id=”0486475646″ target=”_blank” ]Amazon[/amazon_link]
These Dover Thrift Study Editions have been a source of great help for our high school English studies. With so many of Shakespeare’s plays represented they have been a great help with teaching Shakespeare in high school as well. Affordable and concise these are a great addition to any homeschool curriculum.
Heidi Ciravola is mom to three kids who were all homeschooled. Two have graduated college and one is finishing homeschooling high school. She spends much of her time navigating the high school waters (from electives to college prep) and reviewing homeschool curriculum for all ages. You can find her writing about these things as well as her love of books and homeschool life in general over at Starts At Eight.
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