• Complete, ready to use!
• Book included inside the course!
• Makes reading fun!
• Develops literacy, vocabulary!
• Introduces some history, geography!
• Develops critical thinking!
• Required for Step 4 History!

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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This course develops literacy, vocabulary, an understanding of literature, as well as provides some history and related study.  Ready to have your student LOVE reading?  Ready to have your student understand the ideas that a good book offers with greater depth and enthusiasm?   The big ideas and activities are here and ready, in complete daily lesson plans.  This course can help!  This book is required as part of Step 4 History, and this is the best way to experience the book.
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The richest and most complete of all our literature guides! Siddhartha, written in 1922 by Swiss/German author Hermann Hesse (and translated into English that same year by five different translators, to create the version we use), is the world beloved novel about the life of a deeply spiritual young man seeking truth, who encounters the Buddha, 2,500 years ago. Over 100 million people have read this profound, exhilarating work, in over 60 languages. It's the kind of book that can change a life.

Here's a truly complete guide that will help your student, ages 11-adult, understand this book as few readers ever do. Even before the student gets into the novel, he is led through a study of Hinduism and Buddhism, what they are, how they started, what they believe. It is essential for the reader of Siddhartha to have some understanding of these eldest of Eastern faiths, and this literature guide provides, with lesson plans borrowed from our Step 4 History 2 course covering Early Civilizations.

The history of the period of time is explained, so that the student understands why Hesse wrote the book, and what he was trying to say to his readers about their time (and ours). Pulitzer Prize winning writer Hesses's personal history is also explored (in his own words!), and the student relates what he's learned about Hesse's' life to the story, and how Hesse's' own experience helped to create this masterpiece. The history of the book itself, its publishing successes is considered.

Important devices in writing are explored and explained, such as the message of a piece (the idea the author wishes to communicate and earn agreement for), plotting, characterization, conflict, language, irony, the use of surrogates (characters representing the author and his/her point of view within the story), and other tools. New understandings of the tools of good story-telling are then used by the student to analyze and understand the story.

No additional materials are needed. The entire book is contained in the course, broken into chapters.

Before reading each chapter, the student looks though the simple, single definition that applies, for every key or difficult word used in that chapter. 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 each reading section, the student is provided numerous exercises which demand cognitive and critical thinking on the student's part. The exercises help make the story more relevant to the student, and increase his understanding of the story and its unique values.

We even provide some links to film and/or other presentations of the piece being studied!

This is a complete study guide, one that will bring this great work to life, and which should help interest the student in literature and in this great masterwork.

WARNING – THIS BOOK USES STRONG LANGUAGE AND IMAGES, INCLUDING IMAGES OF A SEXUAL NATURE. IT IS A WORK ABOUT LEARNING THROUGH LIFE AND A LIFE'S EXPERIENCE, AND IS NOT FOR YOUNG CHILDREN

THIS BOOK IS REQUIRED READING FOR STEP 4 HISTORY 2, EARLY CIVILIZATIONS. STUDENTS DOING THAT COURSE WOULD SKIP LESSONS 8-13 IN THE LITERATURE GUIDE, AS THEY ARE COVERED IN THAT COURSE.