Why Books Matter
There are books that have shaped the way the Western world thinks. These are the books that educated people have been reading for centuries, that show up in the conversations, arguments, and assumptions of virtually every serious writer, thinker, and leader who came after them. These works are important because they are extraordinary. If you read them, it will change how you see the world.
I chose some of my favorite books from across the sweep of Western literature. These are works that I believe every educated person should encounter before he or she leaves high school. I hope you learn to love them as much as I do.
What You Will Learn
Reading great literature is one skill. Understanding great literature (knowing how to analyze it, engage with it, and write about it seriously) is another. My goal is to help you develop both skills. Here’s what you will be learning in this class:
How to analyze and interpret literature. I’ll teach you to ask what an author is doing and why he is doing it. Structure, character, imagery, theme, symbol: these are tools for understanding how a great book functions, and we’ll explore all of them.
How to use criticism. Scholars have been writing about these books for centuries. I’ll show you how to find what they say, how to evaluate it, and how to bring it into your own argument as a conversation partner. Using criticism well is one of the marks of a serious reader. I provide a variety of critical resources that come with the class; others are part of the books you’ll be purchasing.
How to write a literary paper. You will write six papers over the course of the year. Each is two pages — short enough to require real discipline, long enough to make a genuine argument. I’ll teach you how to choose a topic, build a case, support it with evidence from the text, and write prose that is clear and direct.
How to revise. Good writing always requires a lot of rewriting. You’ll work through The Elements of Style by Strunk and White alongside the papers. A writing instruction series will walk you through specific skills as you need them: argument, paragraph structure, research, revision. My hope is that you see steady improvement in your writing from Paper 1 to Paper 6.
The Unusual Origin of the Class
I originally recorded this course in 2020-21. It was during the COVID lockdown, so we rented an empty office to provide classes to homeschool students. As a result, it’s a live series of lectures with a small classroom of students. What you’ll see in the videos is not a polished presentation to a camera but a real class with real discussion, real questions, and real students working through the books together.
One of the most useful things in this course is watching other students engage with the material — hearing what questions they ask, what ideas they discover, and what passages they love. I’ve also included the student paper presentations so you can see exactly how the feedback process works. You will learn about writing from my interaction with their papers.
Reading Your Papers Aloud
In my original class, students read their papers aloud to their classmates and then fielded questions. That experience — hearing your own words spoken in a room and then defending your argument — is one of the most effective writing development tools I know of.
For students taking this as a self-paced course, you will have a few options to re-create this environment. You will need to read your papers aloud to a parent or sibling who can ask questions and provide honest feedback. They don’t have to be literarily minded; a good essay can be followed by anyone.
Next, if you’d like your papers formally graded, you can sign up for personalized grading. If you follow my writing instructions, however, you’ll find that you become your own best editor and critic. Again, don’t worry about grades: the goal is for you to learn to love literature. If you are working hard and improving in your writing, you’ll make a good grade.
The Student Community
When you enroll, you can also sign up for the British & World Literature group. I’m in the group and answer questions about the reading, the papers, or anything else that comes up. Students have used the group to ask about paper assignments, dig into a book further, and compare notes with others working through the same material. Please take advantage of the group.
I’ve also stocked the group’s Documents library with additional critical essays for each major work — pieces by writers like C.S. Lewis, A.C. Bradley, Caroline Spurgeon, and Dorothy Sayers that go deeper into the books we’re reading. Most are also included in the steps below.
For several of the books I also post film recommendations — versions worth watching after you’ve read the book. My favorites include the 1948 Laurence Olivier Hamlet and the 1995 Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice (which is by far the most faithful adaptation of the novel.) These, too, are included in the steps below.
Although you will be taking this class on your own, I hope to provide as many additional resources as possible to create a virtual classroom environment.
The next step explains what books you will need for the class.
