I work part-time in an office, and during the school year, I teach two days a week in two different homeschool groups. I teach science and social studies for middle and high school.
During the summers, this means that my schedule is a little more free (although, I do some online teaching throughout the summers). One of my big goals each summer is to prepare for whatever classes I am teaching the following school year.
This summer, I am doing a lot of reading as I prepare for the coming fall, and I wanted to highlight some of what I have been reading.
One of the classes I am going to be teaching is on J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and their world from 1900-1939. My students will read
The Hobbit in the fall semester and
Out of the Silent Planet in the spring semester. Beyond those two books, we’ll also be talking about events andchanges in the world during the first part of the 1900s. As part of my preparation for that course, here are some of the articles I’ve been reading:
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Propaganda and Caricature in the First World War
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We work with shells all day and night': Irish female munitions workers during the First World War
I have more
resources on C. S. Lewis linked here and more on
J.R.R. Tolkien linked here.
I’m also going to be teaching a class at my church this fall covering Baptists in America. I’ll be writing more about this class as we get closer to September, and I am planning on posting the recordings and some resources for that class here on my blog this fall. In preparation for that class, here are some of the articles and books I’ve been reading:
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Baptists in America: A History by Barry G. Hankins and Thomas S. Kidd
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Becoming Baptists: Conversion in Colonial and Early National Virginia
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The Black Atlantic Missionary Movement and Africa, 1780s-1920s
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South Carolina Baptists, the Primitive-Missionary Schism, and the Revival of the Early 1830s
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White Protestants and the Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky
I’ve also been hosting a book club for the
paid subscribers to my substack. We’ve been reading through all of
C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy. I’ve also been doing some background reading to help me add to our discussion. Here are some of the articles I’ve been reading for that:
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Law and Disorder: Two Settings in "That Hideous Strength"
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Merlin, Magic, and the Meta-fantastic: The Matter of "That Hideous Strength"
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“The Packed Reality of Heaven”: C. S. Lewis’s Imaginative Re-education of the Modern Pilgrim
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Paradise Retained
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Paradise Retold
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Prometheus on Perelandra: The Inversion of the Satanic Hero in C.S. Lewis's Perelandra
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Space Ship and Grail: The Myths of C. S. Lewis
I regularly highlight what books I am reading in
my monthly newsletter. You can find all my
recommendations saved here.
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