AmblesideOnline Year 4: Shorter Literature Selections

The Legend of Sleep Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, by Washington Irving; and Paul Revere’s Ride, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Selected by the AmblesideOnline Advisory for use with year 4, term 3.
Washington Irving’s original version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow contained two or three descriptions of ‘negroes’ that we deemed demeaning and derogatory. We removed the offensive portions. This amounts to perhaps three words and one or two sentences, and we do not believe it alters the flavor and feel of the work, except to improve it.
We standardized the spelling ever so slightly- marvellous is now marvelous, every thing is now everything. We left most of the other words which differ from modern American renderings the same, however.
Because this edition was prepared with AmblesideOnline users in mind, we divided up the two short stories into portions that match the AO schedule. For example, on the weekly schedule for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, it says to take four weeks on this story, as needed. So we’ve divided the tale into four parts of roughly equal length and marked them (part one, part two, etc). This is merely a convenience, you needn’t use these divisions at all if you prefer not to. If you do choose to use them and follow the AO schedule, you will still need to decide for yourself whether to read each section in one sitting or divide the sections further so as to read just a page or so a day.
See http://amblesideonline.org/04bks.shtml for more information.