Part Fifty-two--The Jane Austen/Charles Dickens Literary Society, part 1

The Jane Austen/Charles Dickens Literary Society! 

This was one of the most memorable school years for Autumn and Giselle and me. It was a great one for Autumn's senior year.

THE YEAR RATIONALE (adapted from the preface of the Great Books of the Western World)

A liberal education is a freeman’s education. It is the birthright of every person in Western civilization to read an take part in the Great Conversation of Western ideals, by reading, understanding, and discussing great books. “The reduction of the citizen to an object of propaganda…is the greatest dangers to democracy.” It is therefore our duty to read and understand great books which will “give us a standard by which to judge all other books,” and in so doing we promote the betterment of humankind and preserve our freedoms.

The backdrop of the year was Jane Austen’s English Regency period and Charles Dickens’ Victorian period, and a literary society to promote better reading and writing.

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This was the heading I created for every paper I shared with the girls this year. I took the silhouettes of Austen and Dickens and had them face each other.

I chose the layout above because it reminded me of the frontispiece in Dickens' Cricket on the Hearth. I love the fantasy that unfolds above the head of the woman and man. This made me think of Austen and Dickens scribbling away, and their tales looming in their imaginations overhead.

That frontispiece was also the inspiration for our year mind map. Karen drew our school year mind map, and I painted it with bold Regency colors.. 

YEAR PLAN

I took old illustrations from some Austen novels and inserted our info to make our school year papers beautiful. This is a more complete mind map.

The has four components--1 mini component and 3 major components.

Mini Component: THE LITERARY ACADEMY

1)  SENSE and SENSIBILITY: Austen section

2)  A TALE OF TWO CITIES: Dickens section

3) PERSUASION: Student project

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Classical education is based on the three lower levels of the liberal arts: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. These were our 3 organizers for each component, which are encapsulated in a quote by Sir Francis Bacon: 

Reading maketh a full man,

writing an exact man, and 

conference a ready man.

(More about this in the next post)

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This year was geared toward high school girls, so the other families from the WWII year left our group this time. In the beginning there was Suzanne and me and our daughters.

I really wanted my friend Tammy and her girls to school with us so that Giselle would have some friends her age. But a few years before this Tammy told me that EPIC Adventures looked like too much work. I strategized to see if I could get her to join us. At first I invited her family to join in our book discussions, not the complete adventure. She was interested in that, and I got to work to try to entice her into the theme. Hehe!

I put together an enticing moms planning day to share with Suzanne and Tammy the big picture. By the end of that day Tammy was ready to go home and make Regency dresses, which she did! She wholeheartedly schooled with us in every adventure after that until her girls graduated.

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GETTING READY

Each family planned and sewed Regency costumes before school began so we would be ready for our big opening days together.

I had fun putting the accoutrements together. Karen gave me some of this neoclassical French toile to cover our journals. I was with her in 2001 when she bought this fabric in Amboise, France. 

I also sewed one fabric medallion onto our scripture journals.

For our school song I wanted to use the tune of the British patriotic hymn, I Vow to Thee My Country. We wrote most of the words at our moms planning day.

OPENING DAY AT HOME

On opening day at home, we learn the big picture for the year, and invite my children to join me on a wonderful adventure! 

We always have fun at our own private opening day. 

The girls dressed in their Regency attire while they complete some Writers Workshop activities and wrote in their Regency journals with quill pens.

It felt like being in a Jane Austen novel. 

The girls loved painting the year mind map with their new Windsor and Newton travel paint sets. 

I gave them these paints especially for our trips to the Huntington Library.

OPENING DAY 

THE LITERARY ACADEMY

We began planning for 3 families, but then other family joined us, and so we had four families invited to our home for our opening day of school -- the Literary Academy. 

Bradley means "broad field", so for the year our home became Broadfield Hall. 

We mothers welcomed the new prospects to the first day of the Literary Academy, a two-week, preparation course. Students had requirements to fulfill before they were granted entrance into the Jane Austen/Charles Dickens Literary Society.

I shared the vision of the society--reading, discussing, and writing, along with Journals of Discovery, which were new to Tammy's daughters.

Some of the requirements to join the society: choose a pen name, promise share their writing for print with the group throughout the year, participate in book discussions in a refined manner and constructive focus.

Each candidate was given the requirements, to be completed in 2 weeks.

We completed some of these requirements during our opening day, like the Plot Mountain: 

exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution

Tammy gave us a Book Confessions Quiz, about our individual reading style. We answered the questions and tallied up  answers. Tammy read the answer key, revealing our reading personality types. In one question I answered that I have used a piece of tissue as a bookmark! 

We also had an Opening Lines Book Quiz. This was a fun quiz introducing the young ladies to classic novels. They tried to the guess the novel based on just the first lines:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." (Pride and Prejudice)

"Call me Ishmael." (Moby Dick)

"Marley was dead to begin with." (A Christmas Carol)

Partway through activities we took a refreshment break. The young ladies brought their personal china cup and saucer, and were treated to their first "tea" of the year.

Suzanne made her English grandmother's scones.

After tea the young ladies pulled out their portable watercolors for an art lesson.

After the art lesson the girls signed a document indicating their commitment to complete the Academy requirements and join the Jane Austen/Charles Dickens Literary Society.

Lastly we took lots of photos:

21st century pose

18th century pose

While writing this blog post I recognized that I didn't have to do anything to help Autumn and Giselle get excited about the year. They were already thrilled and excited to learn! This was a great pre-opening day for all of us!

VISITING THE HUNTINGTON

A highlight of the year was getting a year pass to Huntington Library and Gardens. We went by ourselves and with other families several times this school year. 

During the two week Literary Academy we visited this Samuel Johnson exhibit since he was the literary giant of the eighteenth century and a huge influence on Jane Austen. We happened to come here on Johnson's 300th birthday, September 18, 2009. 

The girls loved posing in their thematic neoclassical attire with the neoclassical sculptures. They brought their sketching and painting materials and went off to have some truly Austen-type leisure time. 

Giselle really fell in love with Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. She found and sketched all her statues at the Huntington this year.

OPENING DAY WITH JANE AUSTEN

After our two week Literary Academy, we all dressed up and met at the Huntington again. Our visitor was Jane Austen herself! I have never seen any school visitor play a historical figure more convincingly than did my friend's daughter, Mary. She was magnificent. She knew everything about Jane Austen, and she had the best British accent!

She congratulated the graduates of the Literary Academy and awarded them quill pens, graduation certificates, and Jane Austen silhouette bookplates. 

I've always loved bookplates, and had fun designing these using a frame illustration from an Austen book. They were printed on parchment, and tied with a cameo--the quintessential neoclassical piece of jewelry. 

We took photos with Jane Austen, who wore a dress that Amber had made for herself when she attended a Southern California Regency ball a few years before this.

This was the most beautiful, genteel, refined opening day ever!