Classical Writing and Rhetoric (4-5)
Other Supplies Needed:
Loose Leaf Paper
Three-Ring Binder (any size)
5 dividers for organizing binder
(labeled: Current Paper, Assignment Sheets, Class Handouts, Vocabulary, Graded Papers)
Pens--Blue or Black ink only please
Highlighter (any color)
Access to dictionary/thesaurus at home--not to bring to class
Pencils, if desired
I love a great story! This class combines excellent stories with Progymnasmata ~ the ancient classical exercises for teaching writing and speaking. Think of the Progymnasmata as a step-by-step apprenticeship in the art of writing and rhetoric. My students will serve as apprentices to the great writers and great stories of history. This Classical Writing & Rhetoric class will use fluent reading, careful listening, models for imitation, and progressive steps. It assumes that students learn best by reading excellent, whole-story examples of literature and by growing their skills through imitation. Each exercise is intended to impart a skill (or tool) that can be employed in all kinds of writing and speaking. The exercises are arranged from simple to more complex. What’s more, the exercises are cumulative, meaning that later exercises incorporate the skills acquired in preceding exercises. (Trulyastepby- step apprenticeship in the art of writing and rhetoric.) Among the many skills developed as students work through the lessons are accurate copying, reading comprehension, creating and presenting oral and written narrations, public speaking, writing from dictation, expanding vocabulary, identifying points of view, writing dialogue, providing details to support an opinion, amplification (expanding upon a sentence, paragraph, or lengthier piece), summarizing, plotting a story, developing characters in a story, and learning various ways to defend an argument.
Specific Lessons Include:
• Written narration as well as oral
• Adding dialogue to the amplification (and advanced description)
• How to define and identify types of narrative
• How to outline stories
• How to get a story off the ground
• How the protagonist and antagonist develop the central story conflict
• How to discern the difference between fact and opinion in historical narrative and legend
• How to identify the five W’sofan historical narrative—who, what, when, where, why
• How to summarize a longer narrative in writing
• Rewriting: what happens when you change the point of view and the protagonist
• How to apply storytelling skills
• Elocution skills and oration
This is a 32-week course.