Margot Davidson
Margot Davidson is the owner of Hillside Education, which publishes a wide range of Language Arts resources for Catholic families. She is a homeschooling mother of 5 and a former public school teacher.
The author of over 50 literature study guides and several English books, her mission is to bring literature and language to life, to make the sharing of literature with children not only doable but enjoyable.
Margot is also the founder and principal teacher for Subiaco Academy, a homeschooling cooperative in Northeast Pennsylvania.
Scheduled Talk:
Purposeful Literature Study: Making Good Readers Great Thinkers
Many of us have good readers in our homes, those who would rather read than do just about anything else. But simply reading great piles of books does not make a great thinker, or necessarily a good reader. It’s what we make of the themes, connections, and ideas that come to us as we read that improves our intellect. When we purposefully question and lead a young reader, helping him to discover and bring themes to the surface, we pave the way for great thinking about literature—and life—when the child is older. We can’t suddenly ask a teenager to analyze a Greek play if we have never showed him how to think about story. This talk will address story, as well as what literary analysis means (it is more than plot, character, and setting) and why it is important to intellectual development. Not only does purposeful literature study develop habits of the mind, it enhances a child’s natural interest in reading.
“Literature is to mankind in some sort what autobiography
is to the individual; it is his life and remains.”
Cardinal Newman: Idea of a University
Margot blogs at: Bliss on the Hill
