Is Classical Writing secular?

[EKS]

Thanks!

[Spy Car]

:lurk5:

[materursa]

As a disclaimer, I am far from an expert and am planning on using CW Aesop this year, and I haven't seen the other levels.

With that said, I don't believe I saw anything religious in the Aesop core itself. In the student workbooks and instructor's guides, there are 6 out of 36 models taken from the Bible. (The 36 models would encompass both years the student would be working with the Aesop core.) They include:
Moses on the Mountain
David and Goliath
Daniel in teh Lion's Den
Jesus Raises Lazarus
Parable of the Sower
The Good Samaritan

However, the core gives information on how to select your own models, and was originally written without the student workbooks and instructor's guides, so you could just omit those models and select something else.

HTH,
Amanda

[Mama Lynx]

The authors post a statement of faith on their website, IIRC. However, I've been through Aesop and Homer and have found one bit of religious teaching in the material itself. In Homer, I believe in the chapter on poetic truth, "truth" is defined in a very specific Christian way. It's easy to skip/talk around/discuss.

Other than that, there are Bible stories mixed in with the fairy tales and historical tales, as models.

That's it.

[Spy Car]

I found the sample pages of CW Aesop (not an easy task!) and the introductions to both the "Core" book and the student workbook make it explicitly clear that this program is aimed at "we Christians".

So you can judge for yourself, here is the link:

http://home.att.net/~classicalwriting/Aesop.htm

Bill (who finds it fails his test of what is *secular*)

[HollyDay]

CW Homer contains portions of scripture as models.

[Jenny in Atl]

For this secular hs'er... I find it easy to use and if needed easy to substitute another fable or story if need be.

[Peela]

I used Aesop and both Homers- very easy for secular folk to use without problems . A few bible stories, which I actually appreciated (since my kids never knew who the Good Samaritan was!). They are presented as stories. But many more "classical" literature pieces.
Yes, the authors are very Christian, but I think they do an excellent job of teaching the Progym without pushing any religion.
Hey, I don't even use it anymore, but I still think its a great program and do think it is suitable for most secular folk. At least, thats not an issue that ever bothered me with the program.

[siloam]

We skip the Biblical models because neither my dd nor I felt comfortable re-writing the Bible. ;) Other than the Biblical models and the introduction you found I haven't seen anything Christian.

Heather

[fosterisacoolcat]

Funny, I have been researching that myself for the last 2-3 hours. What I have decided is that it can be done. I found a yahoo group dedicated to the WTM with a secular approach and while a good portion of the hs books that I have either checked out from the library or bought for myself have non-secular views I still have an easy time pulling out what applies to my personal philosophy and I discard the rest. It helps that I have at least 3 or 4 secular HS groups within a 30 mile radius from me. I hope that helps, pm me if you want a link to the secular WTM homeschool yahoo group.