Living Literature & Language
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A Welcome for Families & Co-op Teachers

One great book, read slowly, over fifteen weeks

Welcome. In this course a student gives fifteen weeks to a single great book — reading it slowly, telling it back, and learning to attend to what a page is really doing. The habit we build is attention. This guide shows both families and teachers how the year is meant to run — and how gently it is allowed to bend.

How a Week Works

The same quiet rhythm, every week

  1. Read
    The week’s chapters, at home — slowly, a little each day. We begin the book together, reading the opening aloud in class.
  2. Narrate
    Tell it back. Some weeks that’s a retelling; others it becomes a drawing, a letter in a character’s voice, a comparison, or something made — the form varies, the heart stays the same.
  3. Find It · Follow It · Frame It
    Three moves of close reading — what’s there, what it suggests, what it means for us.
  4. The Writing Lesson
    One small craft move a week, building toward the year-end composition.
  5. The Threads
    A line kept in the commonplace book, a poem or passage recited, and a hands-on Relation Study that grows all term.
The Threads We Keep

Practices that run all term

Alongside the reading, a few small practices carry through every week and gather, at the end, into the Follow the Thread capstone — a thesis, a presentation, and a painted square for the class quilt.

Narration, in many forms The commonplace book Recitation The Relation Study The nature journal Find It · Follow It · Frame It Follow the Thread capstone
For Homeschool Families
At Home

Slow is the whole point

The reading happens at home — about two hours a week, a little each day, never a sprint at the end. Everything else lives on the class website: the weekly handout, the reading, the narration prompt, and how each piece is weighed.

  • Open the week on the class website; print the handout or work from the screen.
  • Read the chapters at home, then do the week’s narration — whatever form it takes that week.
  • Keep the small practices going: a line in the commonplace book, the recitation, the Relation Study.
  • Don’t rush to finish or to explain. If a week asks for more time, take it — the pace is yours.
For Co-op Teachers
In the Classroom

The fifteen weeks are meant to breathe

The schedule is a spine, not a cage. Because the reading is done at home, the class hour is yours to pace — and a real group will run ahead some weeks and need to slow down in others. When it does, reach for one of these:

✦Combine two weeks into one
When the group is reading fast or you’re short a meeting, fold two weeks’ reading together and cover both handouts in a single class — the chapters flow, and the students are ready.
✦Stretch one week across two
When a week is rich, or the group needs to slow down, split a single handout over two meetings — the reading and narration one week, the Find It · Follow It · Frame It and writing lesson the next.
✦Turn class into a workshop
When students need studio time, give the hour to their home projects — recitation practice, presentations, the Relation Study, or composition prep. The reading keeps moving at home while class becomes a place to make and rehearse.

The handout is a menu, not a mandate. You know your students. Take what serves them, leave what doesn’t, and let the weeks ebb and flow — the book, and the habit of attention, are what matter.

With gratitude for the slow, good work you’re about to do,
Kim Prieto
Delight & Savor · In the Margin