ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE, GRADES 9-12
Susan Wise Bauer
This material is adapted from The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home. Please do not reproduce.
"It is absurd to hold that a man should be ashamed of inability to defend himself with his limbs, but not ashamed of an inability to defend himself with speech and reason; for the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs."
- Aristotle, RhetoricCharacteristics of the rhetoric stage:
1) The study of "rhetoric," or the art of writing and speaking persuasively.
2) Increasing specialization for students who have already mastered the basic skills.
3) Focus on Great Books.
GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS
Language Arts 4
Mathematics 2
Science 2
American History 1
American Government 1
Physical Education 2
Electives 8
COLLEGE PREP TRANSCRIPT
Language Arts 4
Mathematics 3-4
Foreign Language 2-4
World History 1
American History 1
American Government 1
Science 3-4
Physical Education 2
Electives 4-8RHETORIC
Inventio
Dispositio
Elocutio
Memoria
Pronuntiatio
Ninth grade: Anthony Weston, A Rulebook for Arguments; Edward Corbett, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student.
Tenth grade: Aristotle, Rhetoric. Texts available from Greenleaf Press (800-488-2034).
1) Read a section in the text under study
2) Outline the content of the text.
3) Provide two examples of the text's lesson(17) Personal attacks do not disqualify a source
Supposed authorities may be disqualified if they are not informed, impartial, or largely in agreement. Other sorts of attacks on authorities are not legitimate.....[A lengthy example of such an attack on economist Ricardo follows. This demonstrates] the "ad hominem" fallacy: attacking the person of an authority rather than his or her qualifications. Ricardo's class, religion, and nationality are irrelevant to the possible truth of his theories. To disqualify him as an authority, those "German professors" have to show that his evidence was incomplete -- that is, they have to show that his judgments were not fully informed -- or that he was not impartial, or that other equally reputable economists disagree with his findings. Otherwise, personal attacks only disqualify the attacker!I. An authority can be attacked for three reasons.
A. Not being informed
B. Not being impartial
C. Being out of agreement with most other
authorities.
II. An authority cannot be attacked for his person.
A. This is the "ad hominem" fallacy
B. Class, religion, nationality, or other personal
attacks are irrelevant
C. Ad hominem attacks disqualify the attacker
LANGUAGE ARTS
Notebook with four divisions:
Words
Grammar
Principles of Reading
Principles of Writing
Texts:
Word study: Vocabulary from Classical Roots series (EPS, 800-225-5750)
Grammar: A Beka Grammar and Composition (800-874-2352) or Glencoe Writer's Choice Grammar Workbook Series (800-334-7344)
Reading: How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren (Canon Press, 800-488-2034), Reading Strands (National Writing Institute, 800-688-5375).
Writing: Writing Strands (National Writing Institute), Strunk & White's Elements of StyleMATH
The cumulative and coherent study of mathematics is, in fact, a microcosm of the entire curriculum and reflects in its expanding field the workings of the scholarly mind in a manner analogous to that which we examined in the field of arts and letters. Texts and resources:
- David Hicks, Norms & Nobility
Saxon math, 800-284-7019; A Beka math; Math-U-See, 888-490-9323
Online resources: www.tc.cornell.edu/Edu/MathSciGateway, www.math.upenn.edu/MathSources.html, www.gomath.com, www.class.unl.edu, www.saxonpub.com.
Seton School: 1350 Progress Drive, Front Royal, VA 22630, (540)636-09990, www.setonhome.org.
UNL, P.O. Box 839800, Lincoln, NE 68501-9888, (402) 472-4321, www.unl.edu/conted/disted/ishs.html.
University of Oklahoma, 800-942-5702 for catalog, www.occe.ou.edu.
AP credit: College Board, 1-888-225-5427, www.collegeboard.org.Schedules:
SAXON:
Seventh grade Algebra 1/2
Eighth grade Algebra I
Ninth grade Algebra II
Tenth grade Advanced Mathematics
Eleventh grade Calculus (elective)
Twelfth grade Physics (elective) or trigonometry (elective)
SLOWER SAXON
(Seventh grade Math 87, the extra drill book for those who
aren't quite ready to move on to pre-algebra)
(Eighth grade Algebra 1/2)
Ninth grade Algebra I
Tenth grade Algebra II
Eleventh grade Advanced Mathematics
Twelfth grade Calculus (elective)
A BEKA
Grade 7 Basic Mathematics I
Grade 8 Pre-Algebra
Grade 9 Algebra I
Grade 10 Plane Geometry
Grade 11 Algebra II
Grade 12 Trig with Tables and analytic Geometry
MATH U SEE
Grades 9-10 Basic Algebra and Geometry
Grades 11 Algebra II
Grade 12 TrigonometryGREAT BOOKS (History and Literature)
Ninth grade: Ancients (BC 5000-400 AD)
Tenth grade: Medieval/Early Renaissance (400-1600)
Eleventh grade: Late Renaissance/Early Modern (1600-1850)
Twelfth grade: Modern (1850-present)
Notebook:
Context
Book Notes
Compositions.Process:
1. Create a context page, using the Timetables of History (Simon & Schuster) and the Dorling Kindersley History of the World. Read the corresponding section in the Short History of Western Civilization (Harrison). Write a one-page summary setting the book in historical perspective.
2) Read through the text and take notes. File in Book Notes.
3) Discuss the text. Talk about its purposes, its strengths and weaknesses, ideas.
4) Write about the text: book report, an evaluation, an argumentative essay, an analysis. Put the finished composition (at least two pages) in the Compositions section of the notebook.SUMMARY
Grades nine through twelve:
Reading, discussing, writing about Great Books: 2 hours per day
Ninth grade: Begin by using the two-hour period to summarize How to Read A Book. Ninth grade paper.
Tenth grade: Begin by using the two-hour period to summarize Reading Strands
Tenth grade paper.Great Books List:
Ninth grade, BC 5000-400 AD
The Bible: Genesis, Job
Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2500 BC)
The Iliad and The Odyssey, Homer (c. 850 BC)
A Day in Old Athens by William S. Davis
History of the Persian Wars by Herodotus (485-424 BC)
The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
(Livingston abridged edition) (460-395 BC)
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex (c. 440 BC)
Medea, Euripides (c. 431 BC)
The Frogs, Aristophanes (405 BC)
Republic, Symposium, Plato (c. 387 BC)
On Poetics, Ethics, Aristotle (384-322 BC)
A Day in Old Rome by William S. Davis
The Bible: The Book of Daniel (c. 165 BC)
On the Nature of Things, Lucretius (c. 60 BC)
De republic, Cicero (54 BC)
The Aeneid by Virgil (c. 30 BC)
Metamorphoses by Ovid (c. 5)
The Bible: Paul, 1 & 2 Letters to the Corinthians (c. 58 AD)
The Wars of the Jews by Josephus (c. 68)
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Roman, Plutarch (c.100)
The Annals of Tacitus (c. 117)
On the Incarnation by Athanasius (c. 300)Tenth grade, 400-1600
Augustine, Confessions and City of God, Book 8 (c. 411)
The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius (524)
The Koran (selections) (c. 650)
Beowulf (c. 1000)
The Mabinogion (c. 1050)
1066: The Year of Conquest, Howartz Dand
Cur Deus Homo by Anselm (c. 1090)
Life in a Medieval Barony, William Stearns Davis
The Magna Carta, James Daugherty
Aquinas: Selected Writings (ed. Robert Goodwin) (c. 1273)
The Inferno, Dante (1320)
Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1400)
Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (selections)(c. 1400)
Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur (selections)(c. 1470)
Education of a Christian Prince (selections)(1510)
The Prince by Machiavelli (1513)
Utopia by Thomas More (1516)
Commentary on Galatians, Martin Luther (c. 1520)
Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin (selections) (1536)
Aztecs and Spaniards, Albert Marrin
Empires Lost and Won: The Spanish Heritage in the Southwest,
Albert Marrin
Novum Organum, Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Faustus, Marlowe (1588)
The Faerie Queene, Spenser (1590)
Julius Caesar (1599), Hamlet (1600), or other plays,
Shakespeare
Life in Elizabethan Days, William Stearns DavisEleventh grade, 1600-1850
Cervantes, Don Quixote (abridged)(1605)
Divine Meditations, John Donne (c. 1635)
Principles of philosophy, Rene Descartes (1644)
Paradise Lost (selections), Milton (1664)
Pensees, Pascal (1670)
Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1678)
"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding," John Locke (1690)
Gulliver's Travels, Swift (1726)
"On American Taxation," Burke (1774)
The War for Independence, Albert Marrin
"The Social Contract," Rousseau (1762)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1771)
The Declaration of Independence (1776)
"Critique of Pure Reason," Kant (1781)
The Federalist Papers, Hamilton et.al.
The Constitution of the United States (ratified 1788)
Songs of Innocence and Experience, Blake (1789)
"The Rights of Man," Paine (1792)
Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth and Coleridge (1798)
Pride and Prejudice, Austen (1813)
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1818)
"Ode to a Nightingale" and other poems of Keats (1820s)
The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper (1826)
"The Lady of Shalott" and other poems of Tennyson (1832)
"The Fall of the House of Usher" and other stories of Poe 1839)
"Self-Reliance," Emerson (1844)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (1847)
Moby Dick, Melville (1851)Twelfth grade, 1850-present day
Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engles (1848)
de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1805-1860)
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe (1852)
Walden, Thoreau (1854)
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman (1855)
Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky (1856)
On the Origin of Species, Darwin (1859)
Great Expectations, Dickens (1861)
Unconditional Surrender: U.S. Grant and the Civil War,
Albert Marrin
Virginia's General: Robert E. Lee, Albert Marrin
"Gettysburg Address," Lincoln (1863)
Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, Sandburg (Pulitzer
biography, 1940)
War and Peace, Tolstoy (1864)
The Return of the Native, Hardy (1878)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche (1883)
Huckleberry Finn, Twain (1884)
Selected Poems, W. B. Yeats (1895)
The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud (1900)
"The Innocence of Father Brown," Chesterton (1911)
Selected Poems, Wilfrid Owen (1918)
"A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes," Frost (Pulitzer, 1924)
"The Trial," Kafka (1925)
"Murder in the Cathedral," T. S. Eliot (1935)
"Our Town," Thornton Wilder (1938)
The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck (1939)
Mein Kampf, Hitler (1939)
Animal Farm, Orwell (1945)
Invisible Man, Ellison (1952)
Mere Christianity, Lewis (1952)
"The Crucible," Miller (1953)
"A Man for All Seasons, Bolt (1962)
"Why We Can't Wait," Martin Luther King Jr. (1964)
"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," Stoppard (1967)
"The Gulag Archipelago," Solezhenitsyn (1974)SCIENCE
Ninth grade: Biology: A Self-Teaching Guide, Steven Garber
Tenth grade: Astronomy: A Self-Teaching Guide, Dinah L. Moche
Eleventh grade: Chemistry: Concepts and Problems: A Self-Teaching Guide, Houk and Post
Twelfth grade: Basic Physic: A Self-Teaching Guide, Karl Kuhn, or Saxon Physics Home Study Kit
Netfrog: www.curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/frog.Process:
1) Read science text and take notes. Do outside reading.
2) 1 1/2 to 2 page composition; experiments, record results.FOREIGN LANGUAGES
...We are greatly helped to develop objectivity of taste if we can appreciate the work of foreign authors, living in the same world as ourselves, and expressing their vision of it in another great language. (T. S. Eliot) Ancient languages
Oxford University Latin Course.
Oxford University Press's Athenaze.
Modern languages
PowerGlideJUNIOR AND SENIOR PROJECTS
In area of student's interest. Questions to ask:- When did this begin? What was its original form? What cultural purpose did it serve?
- Who performed this activity? What cultural place did they occupy? How were they regarded by others?
- What historical events (coming before it) did this event/activity resemble? Is this coincidental? Did this event/activity model itself on something that came before? What philosophy does this reveal? (The Olympics, for example, obviously owe a great deal to the ancient Greeks and their ideas about what makes an ideal human being.)
- What ideal picture of human beings does this activity/event hold up?
- How did this activity develop from its beginnings until the present day?
- What effects did this event have on its surroundings? The generation directly after? Five hundred years later? The present day?
- How did this activity/event change the way people viewed nature? How did it change the way they thought about God?
- What current cultural trends are reflected in this activity? What cultural trends resulted from this event?
EVALUATION
1) Prereading.
2) Make an appointment to discuss the topic with the expert, either in writing or by phone/internet/in person. He or she will have additional suggestions, clarifying questions, resources for the student.
3) Project writing (and possibly performance).
4) Submission of the finished project (as perfect as possible) for evaluation. Ask the expert to comment on and evaluate the project.
5) Rewriting of the project according to suggestions made by the expert.
6) Resubmission of the completed, revised project.FINAL TRANSCRIPT
Curriculum Transcript
Ninth grade Ninth grade: Units
Grammar 120 hours English 1 1 language arts
Rhetoric 90 hours Speech 1 1 elective
Great Books 320 hours World Lit. 1 1 elective
World History 1 1 history
Math 120 hours Algebra 1 math
Science 108 hours Biology 1 science
Foriegn Language 108-216 hours Latin/modern 1-2 foreign language
Art & Music 108 hours Fine Arts 1 1 electiveTenth grade Tenth grade Units
Grammar 120 hours English 2 1 language arts
Rhetoric 90 hours Speech 2 1 elective
Great Books 320 hours World Lit. 2 1 elective
World History 2 1 history
Math 120 hours Algebra 1 math
Science 108 hours Earth science 1 science
Language 108-216 hours Latin/modern 1-2 foreign language
Art & Music 108 hours Fine Arts 2 1 electiveEleventh grade Eleventh grade Units
Grammar 120 hours English 3 1 language arts
Great Books 320 hours Victorian Lit. 1 elective
American History 1 history
Math 120 hours Advanced math 1 math
Science 108 hours Chemistry 1 science
Language 108-216 hours Latin/modern 1-2 foreign language
Art & Music 108 hours Fine Arts 3 1 elective
Junior Thesis 100-150 hours Junior Honors 1 electiveTwelfth grade Twelfth grade Units
Grammar 120 hours English 4 1 language arts
Great Books 320 hours Modern Lit. 1 elective
American Gov. 1 government
(Math elective 120 hours) (Elective 1 math)
Science 108 hours Physics 1 science
Language 108-216 hours Latin/modern 1-2 foreign language
Art & Music 108 hours Fine Arts 4 1 elective
Senior Thesis 100-150 hours Senior Honors 1 electiveThe student who follows this ends up with these credits:
Language Arts 4
Mathematics 3-4
Foreign Language 4-8
World History 2
American History 1
American Government 1
Science 4
Electives 10-14Back to Convention Handouts page
Back to The Well-Trained Mind page