Classical Composition is a curriculum that is thoroughly and historically classical in its approach and results. This curriculum is foundational to mastering the arts of the Trivium. Over the next several months I would like to give a larger context to the skill of writing and its place in a classical Christian education. As some… Continue Reading
Author Archives: jimselby
The Classical Composition Curriculum
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Classical Composition Teaches Writing Uniquely
Classical Composition differs in a number of ways from other writing curricula. A five to six year vertically integrated program, this curriculum teaches students three fundamental sets of skills; how to create or invent arguments and develop them (support or demonstration), the basics of arranging material depending upon purpose, and finally style—both the types and… Continue Reading
Classical Language Theory and Writing Instruction
Classical Language Theory towers over Western Civilization. Its elegant yet wholly practical tenants impart innumerable advantages to its adherents. One advantage is a clearly articulated purpose or end for instruction. Another is having clear, assessable goals made up of discrete skills and sub skills (also called objectives) which may be explicitly taught and universally mastered.… Continue Reading
Classical Modes of Communication
A wicked man puts on a bold face, but the upright gives thought to his ways–Proverbs 21.29 What is the first business of him who philosophizes? To throw away self-conceit. For it is impossible for a man to begin to learn that which he thinks that he knows–Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chpt. 17 Classical Language… Continue Reading
Invention–the most difficult task of the writer.
The more they [the majority of the population] are instructed the less liable they are to the delusions of enthusiasm and superstition, which, among ignorant nations, frequently occasion the most dreadful disorders…They are more disposed to examine, and more capable of seeing through, the interested complaints of faction and sedition, and they are, upon that… Continue Reading
Arrangement–What to Do With Arguments
“…and I affirm that tranquillity is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.” –Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4, Sec. 3 After Invention students learn Arrangement or the ability to place material (arguments, development, narration, encomium or invective, digression, etc.) in the most effective manner depending upon purpose and audience. Aphthonius’ Progymnasmata follows a… Continue Reading
Arrangement continued…
Men’s natures vary, and their habits differ, but true virtue is always manifest. Likewise the training that comes of education conduces greatly to virtue; for not only is modesty wisdom, but it has also the rare grace of seeing by its better judgment what is right; whereby glory, ever young, is shed o’er life by… Continue Reading
Writing Instruction Takes Time…Lots of Time
It is probable that genius tends actually to prevent a man from acquiring habits of voluntary attention, and that moderate intellectual endowments are the soil in which we may best expect, here as elsewhere, the virtues of the will, strictly so called, to thrive. But, whether the attention come by grace of genius or by… Continue Reading
Teaching Style: Characterization
Then you will say, “I met with Epictetus as I should meet with a stone or a statue”: for you saw me, and nothing more. But he meets with a man as a man, who learns his opinions, and in his turn shows his own. Learn my opinions: show me yours; and then say that… Continue Reading