• Complete, ready to use!
• Book included inside the course!
• Makes reading fun!
• Develops literacy, vocabulary!
• Introduces some history, geography!
• Develops critical thinking!

I taught a literature class in my homeschool co-op using two Steps Literature Guides, Sherlock Holmes stories and The Time Machine. The Literature Guides are very easy to use. The lesson structure made scheduling and assigning homework very simple. We used the lesson questions to stimulate class discussion and I was impressed with the contributions that the students made during class. I look forward to continuing to use Steps products!  L.F., Homeschool Teacher
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A night with the dead that will change your life - and some of the greatest poetry ever composed by an American writer.

Edgar Lee Master's great epic series of over 200 poems, each one "spoken" by a character from a small, fictional mid-western town who has passed away, whispering deep and beautiful words into the ears of the living, not about death, but about life and its many trials and meanings.  A glorious, challenging read.

Here's a complete guide that will help your student, ages 9-adult, understand one of the great works of poetry, as few readers ever do.

The history of the period of time is explained, so that the student understands why Wells wrote as he did, and what he was trying to say to his readers about their time (and ours). Masters' personal history is also explored, and the student relates what he's learned about the writer's life to the stories, and how Masters own experience (born and raised in a small mid-western town) helped him to create his great works. The history of his book, its publishing success, is considered.

Important tools of writing are explored and explained, such as the message of a piece (the idea the author wishes to communicate), plotting, characterization, conflict, language, and irony. The student then uses his knowledge of the tools of good story-telling to analyze and understand the story.

No additional materials are needed. The entire text for this large collection of short, generally easily-read poems is contained in the course.

Before reading each poem, the student looks though the simple, single definition that applies, for every key or difficult word used in that poem. This will allow the student to understand what he reads the first time he reads it.  Locations mentioned in each chapter are also listed before the reading starts, and they are located by the student on maps or globes. In this way, the student will know where those places are in the world when encountering them in the story.

After reading five poems or so, the student is provided exercises which demand cognitive and critical thinking on the student's part. The exercises help make the poems more relevant to the student, and increase his understanding of the poem and its unique values.

We provide links to film and/or other presentations of the pieces being studied!

This is a complete study guide, one that will bring the past to life as only Masters imagined it.  Discover this American master poet's great work!