Free Literature Guides

Do you know about this great literature resource?  The Glencoe Literature Library page has Free Literature Study Guides (UPDATE – These appear not to be available any longer.) for a huge selection of well-known novels.

The Literature Study Guides include sections such as

• Meet the Author
• Introducing the Novel
• Before you Read
• Active Reading activities
• Personal Responses

Update: UNFORTUNATELY THESE GUIDES DON’T SEEM TO BE AVAILABLE ANYMORE!

I thought I would mention this because I have used it a couple of times. I recently printed out the free literature guide for The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane which we are currently reading aloud together. This particular literature guide is 22 pages.

Here are just a few examples of the free literature guides they have available. These link straight to the study guides:

Update: UNFORTUNATELY THESE GLENCOE GUIDES DON’T SEEM TO BE AVAILABLE ANYMORE!

• Across Five Aprils
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Animal Farm
• Call of the Wild
• Frankenstein
• Jane Eyre
• Johnny Tremain
• Pride and Prejudice
• The Scarlett Letter
• Shiloh
• The Summer of the Swans
• Where the Red Fern Grows
• A Wrinkle in Time

and many more!  Visit the Glencoe Literature Library page for more!

In our family, we read a lot of well-known novels.  We also use the big, fat, thick literature books (that’s what we always call them!!) that have short stories, poems, plays and other selections from well-known authors. (We get them used from Amazon for generally under $10.)  My middle daughter reads these like candy! My kids have read McDougal Littell Literature Yellow Level (affiliate link)  and McDougal Littell Literature (green – Gr. 8) (affiliate link).

When my son was in 9th grade he used this Language of Literature book (affiliate link) which has selections by Amy Tan, D. H. Lawrence, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen Crane, E.E. Cummings, Leo Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Heinrich Boll and many others.

Hope this is handy to someone! That’s about it for today.

You might be interested in our Writing Resource Bundle:

The Writing Resource BUNDLE includes over 300 pages in length and consists of 5 pdf packets:

• 1 Writing Resource Packet includes materials on literary techniques like
  • similes, metaphors,
  • idioms,
  • onomatopoeia,
  • point of view, and
  • new material on finding expressive words to replace those boring, overused words such as good, big, interesting, a lot, etc.
• 2 Writing Prompts & Writing Paper
• 3 Creating a Writing Workshop in Your Homeschool: Mini-Lessons & Book Ideas
• 4 Writing for your Older Kids
• 5 History Portfolio Projects

You can find out more about this Writing Resource Packet here:

You might be interested in these related posts:

• We have a huge selection of FREE grammar pages on comma rules and practice pages, quotation marks, homophones – it’s/its; their/they’re/there, apostrophes, and lots of other you’ll find those on the Language Arts Resources page

• History through Literature – Book Lists for Units on China, Middle Ages, American Revolution and More!
• Language Arts Update: Literature, Spelling, Vocabulary and Grammar
• Reading List Grade 4-5
• Reading List – Grade 7-9

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Happy Homeschooling!

~Liesl