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

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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A town full of "incorruptible" people, all ripe for corruption. A legendary frog that can out-jump anything, and the man who'll bet on him to his last dime. Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, as they struggle with the first relationship ever. These are characters in the great short stories by Mark Twain included in this course.

• The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
• The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
• Eve's Diary
• Extracts From Adam’s Diary

No author in history is more loved. Here's a complete guide that will help your student, ages 9-adult, understand his humor, his great writings and his humanity, as few readers ever do.

The history of the period of time is explained, so that the student understands why Twain wrote as he did, and what he was trying to say to his readers about their time (and ours). Twain's personal history is also explored, and the student relates what he's learned about Twain's life to the story, and how Twain's own experience helped to create his tales. The history of the Twain's writings, their publishing successes, is considered.

Important tools of writing are explored and explained, such as the message of a piece (the idea the author wishes to communicate), plotting, characterization, conflict, language, irony, and the use of surrogate characters that represent the author and his view points within the story. The student then uses his knowledge of the tools of good story-telling to analyze and understand the story.

No additional materials are needed. The stories are contained in the course, broken into chapters.

Before reading each chapter or part, 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. ( WARNING – The student's vocabulary is bound to grow, given the number of terms defined. ) 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 story, 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 the great works of Mark Twain.