ADDENDUM: Due to the overwhelming popularity of this course series, we've added a second set of courses that will be taught just for middle school students (6th to 8th grade). For more information please click here: The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings for Middle School. For information on the high school courses, simply scroll down.
With The Hobbit coming out on film this year, the homeschooling community is all abuzz with everything Tolkien. We are all abuzz here at Homeschool Connections too! In fact, we plan on spending a whole school year studying The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Dr. Henry Russell will be teaching four separate courses, one on each of the books, starting in September with the Hobbit and then moving through the trilogy.
Here are the course details for each of the books:
(click on title for registration)
Class dates: Tuesdays, Sept. 11 to
Oct. 16, 2012
Total classes: 6
Starting time: 10:00 am Eastern (9:00
Central)
Duration: 1 hour
Prerequisite: Ability to read the book
with pleasure at about 3 chapters per week.
Suggested grade level: 9th to 12th grade.
Suggested high school credit: ½ semester. Follow with Fellowship of the Rings for a full semester.
Fee: $90 if you register on or before Aug. 1,
2012. $100 after Aug. 1 for all 6 classes.
Instructor: Henry Russell, Ph.D.
Course description: Tolkien’s The Hobbit
was written as a children’s story and retains much of the clarity and
light-heartedness of its kind. But Bilbo Baggins’ world is slowly made richer
and deeper both by the author’s use of the Catholic elements from the great
medieval saga of Beowulf and the background world of Tolkien’s deepest
Elvish imaginings. By the end of the novel, Tolkien’s life-long themes of 1) a
long-fought history that shapes the needs of every modern day; 2) the need for
heroism from simple people; 3) the necessity for constant moral vigilance by
those who are destined to lead; 4) the conquest of charity over greed; and 5)
the sorrow and beauty created by these first four themes, have penetrated to
the heart of the reader. The success of this novel convinced Tolkien and his
wise and humane publishers, Allen and Unwin, that the modern world was ready to
hear more of the complex moral and supernatural world which Tolkien once
thought was of interest mostly to scholars of the ancient like himself. We will
both discuss the book and welcome comments about the new movie coming out in
December.
Course outline:
Class 1: An Unexpected Party—A Short Rest
Class 2: Over Hill and Under Hill—Out of the Frying Pan into
the Fire
Class 3: Queer Lodgings—Flies and Spiders
Class 4: Barrels out of Bond—On the Doorstep
Class 5: Inside Information—Fire and Water
Class 6: The Gathering of the Clouds—The Last Stage
Course materials: The Hobbit, J.R.R.
Tolkien
Homework: One to one and one-half
hours per week. Weekly Quiz, Midterm, and Final. Answer keys provided for
parental or self grading.
(click on title for registration)
Class dates: Tuesdays, Oct. 23 to Dec.
11, 2012
Total classes: 8
Starting time: 10:00 am Eastern (9:00
Central)
Duration: 1 hour
Prerequisite: Ability to read the book
and ask questions. Since most students will have seen the Peter Jackson films
and will want to make comparisons, it is probably a good idea to see them.
Suggested grade level: 9th to 12th
grade.
Suggested high school credit: ½ semester. Precede with The Hobbit for a full semester.
Fee: $100 if you enroll on or before Aug. 1,
2012. $120 after Aug. 1 for all 8 classes
Instructor: Henry Russell, Ph.D.
Course description: This trilogy of novels is
too well known for any brief description to be of use here. They are the most
popular books of the twentieth-century and quite likely to be among the central
books of Western literature. The poet Auden thought they compare well with
Milton’s Paradise Lost. We will discuss the volumes in their outer form
of a mythologized hero struggle of the kind with which Classical Liberal
Education is replete (from Homer’s Iliad, and Virgil’s Aeneid
through the Norse eddas and Anglo-Saxon poems and Arthurian romances). At
the same time we will read them in light of Tolkien’s unambiguous declaration
that "The Lord of the Rings is of course a
fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but
consciously in the revision.” As such they reflect an imagined world that
parallels clearly with the world of suffering and redemption shown forth in a
book as deep as the Bible.
The Fellowship of
the Rings takes us from the Hobbit world of ordinary
comfort into confrontation with the evil that has always plagued the created
world. It asks for individual sacrifice from several creatures only to show them
that they are linked into a vast body of those who strive to keep goodness
alive, each on very different levels of culture and consciousness. This ancient
body is full of poetry, beauty, and varied forms of virtue. The fellowship
forms to do the impossible and the seemingly suicidal, and in the mines of
Moria and on the banks of the river Anduin, the band is made to pay a terrible
price for thoughtlessness and to fall apart from individual sin.
Course outline:
Class 1: Biography of Tolkien;
Class 2: A Long-Expected Party--Three is Company
Class 3: A Short Cut to Mushrooms--Fog on the Barrow-downs
Class 4: At the Sign of the Prancing Pony- - Knife in the
Dark
Class 5: Flight to the Ford—The Council of Elrond
Class 6: The Ring Goes South—The Bridge of Khazad-dum
Class 7: Lothlorien—Farewell to Lorien
Class 8: The Great River—The Breaking of the Fellowship
Course materials: The Fellowship of the
Ring, J.R.R.Tolkien
Homework: Two hours per week. Weekly Quiz, Midterm, and
Final. Answer keys provided for parental or self grading.
(click on title for registration)
Class dates: Tuesdays, Jan. 15 to Mar. 12, 2013. No class
Jan. 22 or Feb. 19.
Total classes: 7
Starting time: 10:00 am Eastern (9:00 Central)
Duration: 1 hour
Prerequisite: Ability to read the book and ask questions.
Suggested grade level: 9th to 12th.
Suggested high school credit: ½ semester. For a full
semester, follow with The Return of the
King.
Fee: $95 if you register on or before Aug. 1, 2012.
$110 after Aug. 1 for all 7 classes.
Instructor: Henry Russell, Ph.D.
Course description: The Two Towers creates a clear contrast
between a culture based on selflessness and regard for the common good with an
anti-culture based on pure selfishness and the desire to domineer over others. The
anti-culture controls both the two literal towers of Saruman’s Orthanc and
Cirith Ungol—both of them forced to serve the even greater tower of Sauron’s
Mordor. The civilization of good offers the Mark of Rohan as its immediate
heroic defender, backed by more ancient forces of the Ents and the Elves, to
some degree coordinated by the towers of the city of Gondor. Yet the battles
between these titanic forces are always being compared to the personal
willingness of two hobbits to give everything they possess for the sake of the
good that they love.
Course outline:
Class 1: The Departure of Boromir—The Uruk-Hai
Class 2: Treebeard—The White Rider
Class 3: The King of the Golden Hall—The Road to Isengard
Class 4: Flotsam and Jetsam—The Palantir
Class 5: The Taming of Smeagol—The Black Gate is Closed
Class 6: Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit—The Forbidden Pool
Class 7: Journey to the Cross-roads—The Choices of Master
Samwise
Course materials: The Two Towers. J.R.R.Tolkien.
Homework: Two hours per week. Weekly Quiz, Midterm, and Final. Answer keys provided
for parental or self grading.
(click on title for registration)
Class dates: Tuesdays, March 19 to
May 14, 2013. No class Mar. 26 or Apr. 2.
Total classes: 7
Starting time: 10:00 am Eastern (9:00
Central)
Duration: 1 hour
Prerequisite: Ability to read the book
and ask questions.
Suggested grade level: 9th to 12th
grade.
Suggested high school credit: ½ semester. For a full
semester, precede with The Two Towers.
Fee: $95 if you register on or before Nov. 1,
2012. $110 after Nov. 1 for all 7 classes.
Instructor: Henry Russell, Ph.D.
Course description: The Return of the King reaches
into the realm of Arthurian Romance (which is itself based on the resurrection
of the Christ), to offer a vision of Armageddon and world war where defeat
means unguessed centuries of darkness, although victory means holding the
darkness only at bay while creating a new civilization that will be attacked
again someday. Here again, the personal agon and faithfulness of
individual creatures is the central necessity for the victory of massive
institutions and allegiances. All literature is moral in its center, and great
literature reflects great moral truth. It was Tolkien’s genius to express the
great truths of Christian civilization in a way, which could re-inspire and
re-invigorate an age where many have lost immediate contact with those
Christian roots.
Course outline:
Class 1: Minas Tirith—The Passing of the Grey Company
Class 2: The Muster of Rohan—The Ride of the Rohirrim
Class 3: The Battle of the Pellenor Fields—The Last Debate
Class 4: The Black Gate Opens—The Land of Shadow
Class 5: Mount Doom—The Steward and the King
Class 6: Many Partings—The Grey Havens
Class 7: Open Topics
Course materials: The Return of the King.
J.R.R.Tolkien.
Homework: Two hours per week. Weekly Quiz, Midterm, and
Final. Answer keys provided for parental or self grading.Instructor biography: Dr. Henry Russell is Headmaster of the St. Augustine’s Homeschool Enrichment Program founded with his wife Crystal. The program began in Fall 2005 with 20 students in two living rooms and now tutors more than 70 students. He is also the President of the SS Peter and Paul Educational Foundation, dedicated to founding an orthodox Catholic Liberal Arts college in southeast Michigan.
A graduate of Princeton and South Caroline (M.S.), Dr. Russell completed his graduate work at Louisiana State University. Formerly the Chairman of Ave Maria College’s Department of Literature, he has also been a professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville and Wake Forest University. He is a founding faculty member of the St. Robert Southwell Creative Writing Workshop held in Mahwah, New Jersey.
Dr. Russell’s works include The Catholic Shakespeare Audio Series available from Kolbe Academy. He was the Associate Editor of The Formalist from 1990-2004 and his writings have been published in various journals. He was honored to edit Dr. Alice von Hildebrand’s groundbreaking volume, The Privilege of Being a Woman.
Equipment requirements: Classes are online, live and interactive. Students are required to have high-speed internet and a headset with microphone.
Misc:
Dr. Russell will be available via email in between classes for questions and comments.
Recordings of classes are provided to students within 24 hours and available for 6 months.
Homeschool Connections does not provide record keeping services.