This week, we are attending, observing, and volunteering at the rehearsals for the Eldorado Children Theater's production of Oliver!

Now that E. has seen the play and is familiar with the characters, she's begun reading Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and simply can't put it down. As a former English teacher (who holds a Ph.D. in Literature) I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to introduce kids to the classics so that they are open to a different experience of the world. "The past if a foreign country," as L.P. Hartley said in The Go-Between. "They do things differently there."

By reading authors such as Eliot, Austen, and Dickens, kids also become more open to a broader vocabulary and new diction. Here is a good site that lays out a strong English lesson plan for seventh graders and includes Oliver Twist on its reading list for "high ability seventh grade."