Cosmos and Classical Conversations Essentials (Writing)

Previous posts in this series:

• Introduction
• Math
• Grammar

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“[S]ome artists look at the world around them and see chaos, and instead of discovering cosmos, they reproduce chaos, on canvas, in music, in words. As far as I can see, the reproduction of chaos is neither art, nor is it Christian.”

[Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water]

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The art, the cosmos, of writing—this is where language (the 2018 Classical Conversations Practicum theme), rhetoric (the third art of the trivium), and community (the third “C” of “Classical Christian Community”) all come together.

Rhetoric (speaking, writing, creating, communicating) is incarnational, an embodied idea.

“[T]o paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity.” [Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water]

“What’s the point of ideas if those ideas are never made flesh?” [N.D. Wilson, The Rhetoric Companion]

“Rhetoric is a productive art, the principled process of making a product.” [Scott Crider]

Rhetoric is an art of the trivium.

Grammar, Dialectic, RHETORIC
Memory, Thought, SPEECH
Naming, Contemplating, CREATING
Finding, Collecting, COMMUNICATING
Knowledge, Understanding, WISDOM
What, Why, WHETHER

We participate in the Imago Dei through these human activities.

Rhetoric is an art we practice in community with others.

“Rhetoric is “the care of words and things”; that care is associative, a practice one learns—and never stops learning—in the presence of others, the ones you lead and are led by.” [Scott Crider]

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How does the art of rhetoric apply to the writing component (IEW) of Essentials? And how does it create a bridge to the Challenge program?

The Art of Rhetoric

• Invention  (What)
• Arrangement  (In What Order)
• Elocution  (How)
• Memory
• Delivery

Institute for Excellence in Writing “IEW” (Essentials)

• Source Texts/KWO  (What)
• ‘Structure’  (In What Order)
• ‘Style’  (How)
• _______
• Reading Papers Aloud

Lost Tools of Writing “LTW” (Challenge)

• 5 Common Topics  (What)
• Persuasive Essay  (In What Order)
• Schemes and Tropes  (How)
• _______
• Presenting Papers

** IEW prepares students for Challenge by introducing them to structure and style. Challenge students move on to LTW, but they will use their IEW research essay skills for their many science papers in Challenge A and B as well as the story sequence skills for their short story in Challenge B.

Essentials Writing (IEW)

Order:

PARAGRAPH

Essay/Report

Intro
Topics
Conclusion

Story

Setting, Characters
Conflict, Plot
Climax, Resolution

(Grammar concerns itself with the form of sentences, and we put those sentences together in writing to create the form of paragraphs, which then form essays and stories.)

Beauty:

Vocabulary
Dress-Ups
Decorations

Order + Beauty = COSMOS!

Writing Quotes

“In art, the Trinity is expressed in the Creative Idea, the Creative Energy, and the Creative Power—the first imagining of the work, then the making incarnate of the work, and third the meaning of the work…” [Madeleine L’Engle in the Introduction to Dorothy Sayer’s The Mind of the Maker, which compares the making of art (particularly writing) to the Trinity in metaphorical terms. The Trinity being Book-as-Thought (Father), Book-as-Written (Incarnate Son), and Book-as-Read (Holy Spirit). Dorothy Sayers is the author of the essay ‘The Lost Tools of Learning.’]

“The pen indeed is mightier than the sword, for it is in written word that we do most powerfully preserve that which is noble and expose that which is evil. And so in great part, the very future of society rests with those who can write, and write well.” [Andrew Pudewa of IEW]

“The discovered matter has to be shaped, given form. Organization gives form to the argumentative matter, providing a beginning, a middle, and an end to the small universe of the essay. The ordered substance must them be communicated through the medium of style, the words and sentences that carry the reader through that small universe.” [Scott Crider, The Office of Assertion] [Invention, Arrangement (structure), Elocution (style). Form! Order and Beauty! Universe = Cosmos]

“The study of rhetoric educates one in a particular liberty, the “liberty to handle the world, to remake it, if only a little, and to hand it to others in a shape which may influence their actions.” Through this “office of assertion,” the writer is a leader of souls… Rhetoric is “the art of soul-leading by means of words.” …Rhetoric is “the care of words and things”; that care is associative, a practice one learns—and never stops learning—in the presence of others, the ones you lead and are led by. Such soul-leading is a liberal power, one which in its finest and fullest manifestation is a form of love: the finest rhetorician not only loves wisdom, but also loves others who do so. The finest rhetor, then is a friend… The purpose… is to teach… how to live within such a community with words so full of care that they release the light of brilliance.” [Scott Crider] [Rhetoric! Words! Community! Loving thy neighbor!]

“Variety pleases. And a pleased reader is more attentive to an argument than a bored one, more likely convinced that the time spent inside the cosmos of your essay will be worth the time… A writer who fulfills his or her obligation to please the reader with variety persuades the reader that the reading is time well spend making the sun run.” [Scott Crider] [Beauty! Loving thy neighbor!]

“Play with words. Juggle them. Write them down. Roll in them. Bake them into cookies. Quote them. Remember them. And such richness in the vocabulary of discourse does accumulate.” [Wilson, The Rhetoric Companion]

Why Liberal Arts?

“All liberal arts, in both the sciences and the humanities, are animated by the fundamental human desire to know, the fulfillment of which is a good, even if it provides no economic or political benefit whatsoever. An education for economic productivity and political utility alone is an education for slaves, but an education for finding, collecting, and communicating reality is an education for free people, people free to know what is so.” [Scott Crider] [The Trivium is for people who are free to know truth!]

Cosmos and Classical Conversations Essentials (Grammar)

“Grammar is where God, man, the soul, thinking, knowledge, and the Cosmos all come together.”

[Andrew Kern]

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COSMOS ~ Order and Beauty

Cosmos and Math

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We use LANGUAGE to think about and communicate IDEAS.

We use GRAMMAR to think about and communicate IDEAS about LANGUAGE.

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** Grammar prepares Challenge students for the study of Latin.

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Essentials English Grammar (Essentials of the English Language (EEL))

GRAMMAR FLOW CHART:

• Letters and Sounds [The smallest building blocks of our English language are the 26 letters. Letters and combinations of letters represent sounds called phonograms. The EEL guide includes spelling rules and lists for at-home use, but they are not used in Essentials class.]
  
  
• Words [We use letters to create words. Words are magic! We use vivid and precise words to think about and communicate ideas clearly. Essentials students are introduced to and encouraged to use new vivid and precise vocabulary during the writing (IEW) portion of class.]

We might have a million words in English, but we have only 8 Parts of Speech! (Noun, Pronoun, Verb, Adverb, Conjunction, Interjection, Preposition, Adjective). Dionysus Thrax, a Greek who lived in 100 BC, was the first to categorize words into parts of speech. This is not a modern idea, and it doesn’t apply only to English! Not only are there only 8 parts of speech, but there are only 2 main parts of speech (noun and verb) and the other parts modify and support them.

• Phrases and Clauses [We put words together to create phrases and clauses.]
  
  
• Independent and Dependent Clauses [Clauses contain both a subject and verb. We have two types of clauses. An independent clause contains a complete thought, and every sentence contains at least one independent clause.]
  
  
• SENTENCES [Sentences are the FORM of grammar!]

Every sentence has five parts. (Subject, Verb/Predicate, Capital Letter, End Mark, Complete Sense/Thought)

All sentences have structure (4: simple, compound, complex or compound-complex),
purpose (4: declarative, exclamatory, interrogative, or imperative),
and pattern (there are 7 different patterns, but every pattern contains a subject and a verb).

This means that we have 112 different possible combinations!

Grammar Quotes

“Grammar is based on the link between something that exists and something that applies to something that exists. God "exists." He called Himself, "I Am." He made us, putting us in the garden to steward it. As stewards, we need to know what we are stewarding, so he made us able to know the world we live in. The world around us exists as things that act or are acted on and have properties or qualities. In other words, the world is full of subjects with predicates. To know the world around us we must think it. When we think something, we always think something about it. In other words, the mind thinks subjects and predicates. Predicate comes from the Latin and means "to say about." All thought and all existence revolve around the relation between subjects and predicates (substances and properties if you like).” [Andrew Kern]

“Why is grammar fun and valuable? Grammar reveals to us the beauty and power of our own minds. With only eight kinds of words and two sides (subject and predicate) of each idea, we can make the plays of Shakespeare, or the novels of Toni Morrison, or the poems of Elizabeth Bishop. No system, so gorgeously elegant, could be expected to make such a language. Through grammar we see the simple form of our binary minds; in all of our sentences, however elaborate, we are making a predicate about a subject, and this reveals the meaning of clarity. For each sentence or idea, I must know both of these two things: what you are talking about, and what you are saying about it. For each paragraph of sentences, I must know what the paragraph is about, and what you are saying about it. For each essay of paragraphs, I must know what the essay is about, and what you are saying about it. A sentence, with its two sides, is a model of the mind.” [Michael Clay Thompson of MCT Language Arts] [Form! Beauty!]

“We study grammar because a knowledge of sentence-structure is an aid in the interpretation of literature; because continual dealing with sentences influences the student to form better sentences in his own composition; and because grammar is the best subject in our course of study for the development of reasoning power.” [William Frank Webster, The Teaching of English Grammar, Houghton, 1905]

Why do we study English grammar?

1. Interpretation

2. Composition

3. Reasoning

4. God revealed himself in human language.

“….God humbled himself not only in the incarnation of the Son, but also in the inspiration of the Scriptures. He bound his divine Son to human nature, and he bound his divine meaning to human words. The manger and the cross were not sensational. Neither are grammar and syntax. But that is how God chose to reveal himself. A poor Jewish peasant and a prepositional phrase have this in common: they are both human and both ordinary. That the poor peasant was God and prepositional phrase is the Word of God does not change this fact. Therefore, if God humbled himself to take on human flesh and to speak human language, woe to us if we arrogantly presume to ignore the humanity of Christ and the grammar of Scripture.” [John Piper, Reading the Bible Supernaturally]

“Language is the house of being. In its home man dwells.” [Martin Heideggar]

“Where language is weak, theology is weakened.” [Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water]

“We think because we have words, not the other way around. The more words we have, the better able we are to think conceptually.” [L’Engle]

“We cannot Name or be Named without language.” [L’Engle]

“When language is limited, I am thereby diminished.” [L’Engle]

“I now regularly meet students who have never heard the names of most English authors who lived before 1900. That includes Milton, Chaucer, Pope, Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Tennyson, and Yeats. Poetry has been largely abandoned. Their knowledge of English grammar is spotty at best and often nonexistent. That is because grammar, as its own subject worthy of systematic study, has been abandoned. Those of my students who know some grammar took Latin in high school or were taught at home. The writing of most students is irreparable in the way that aphasia is. You cannot point to a sentence and say, simply, “Your verb here does not agree with your subject.” That is not only because they do not understand the terms of the comment. It is also because many of their sentences will have no clear subject or verb to begin with. The students make grammatical errors for which there are no names. Their experience of the written language has been formed by junk fiction in school, text messages, blog posts, blather on the airwaves, and the bureaucratic sludge that they are taught for “formal” writing, and that George Orwell identified and skewered seventy years ago. The best of them are bad writers of English; the others write no language known to man.” [Anthony Esolen (author of Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child), Exercises in Unreality: The Decline of Teaching Western Civilization]

“[Sentence diagramming] was a bit like art, a bit like mathematics. It was much more than words uttered, or words written on a piece of paper: it was a picture of language.” [Kitty Burns Florey, author of Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences]

Cosmos and Classical Conversations Essentials (Math)

“Numbers are a map of the beautiful order of the universe, the plan by which the divine Architect transformed undifferentiated Chaos into orderly Cosmos.”

[Michael S. Schnieder, as quoted by Stratford Caldecott in Beauty for Truth’s Sake]

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Let’s continue our discussion of Cosmos by exploring the ways in which it relates to math.

Order + Beauty = Cosmos

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From Merriam-Webster, the definition of MATHEMATICS: the science of numbers and their operations, interrelations, combinations, generalizations, and abstractions and of space configurations and their structure, measurement, transformations, and generalizations. [Whew!]

Keith Devlin defines math as “the science of patterns.”

Another source defines math as the study of relationships using numbers.

The quadrivium consists of arithmetic (pure number), geometry (number in space), music (number in time), and astronomy (number in space and time) [Beauty for Truth’s Sake].

Our focus in Classical Conversations Essentials is arithmetic.

There are only are 3 (three!) basic things to learn in arithmetic. Everything else is just more complex combinations of these three categories:

Numbers (8), operations (6), and laws (4). That’s it!

This is our FORM!

Math in a nutshell: “There are digits, you do things with them, and they follow laws.” Leigh Bortins

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Math as Language

Number symbols are like nouns. They represent things. There are many ways to represent numbers.

39%  4.75  5/6  -92   IV  llll

Operation symbols are like verbs. They represent actions.

+ - x ÷

Grouping symbols make associations like punctuation.

( ) [ ] { }

Relation symbols make comparisons.

= < >

Placeholder symbols work like pronouns. They take the place of numbers.

X y a b ? __

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My Personal Focus for the Year

** Learn and use math vocabulary in class so that students are better prepared for math conversations in Challenge. [Dividend, divisor, quotient, addend, sum, subtrahend, product, etc.]

Ask students to attend to details and name what they know in math equations.

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Math Quotes

“[The universe] cannot be read until we have learned the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language.” [Galileo Galilei]

“The world is God’s epistle written to mankind. It was written in mathematical letters.” [Plato]

“The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.” [Euclid]

“Math teaches you to see what other people see. It teaches you to see what another author has written down. When we read, we don’t see the words ‘a’ or ‘the.’ Math makes you stop and say, I have to see the decimal, I have to see the exponent. Math is just good practice for being a human being who sees the world. Just think how an artist can see… shapes, colors. Our kids should see a math formula better, if someone would just show them. It is the same as artistic endeavors. If you can see the numbers, if you can see the operations, if you can see the laws, it will all change your ability to see complex ideas.” [Leigh Bortins]

“When I was a boy, we had to memorize the multiplication tables in the second grade, up to 12 x 12 = 144. Let’s set aside the fact that it takes a deal of intelligence and some ingenuity to accomplish that task. Forget that you would have to learn that anything multiplied by 5 ends in 5 or 0, alternately. Forget that if you were sharp you’d see that odd times odd is odd, and everything else is even. Forget the patterns showing up among the 2s, 4s, and 8s. Forget the nice progression in the 9s, with the tens digit gaining one and the ones digit dropping it: 09, 18, 27, and so forth. What that memorization did was to free you up to become comfortable with numbers themselves, and with the structure of arithmetic. Once you had done that, you could play with numbers creatively, long before you’d ever suspected the existence of algebra or calculus, with their toboggan curves and their infinite series and their radio waves, their transcendental numbers and the mysterious i, the square root of -1, whose existence we must leave to philosophers to determine.” [Anthony Esolen, Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child]

“The study of mathematics should instill in students an ever-increasing sense of wonder and awe at the profound way in which the world displays order, pattern, and relation. Mathematics is studied not because it is first useful and then beautiful, but because it reveals the beautiful order inherent in the cosmos.” [from The Education Plan of St. Jerome Classical School, Hyattsville, MD, quoted by Thomas Teloar in The Purpose of Mathematics in a Classical Education @ The Imaginative Conservative]

Cosmos and Classical Conversations Essentials (Intro)

I was asked to lead a local Classical Conversations Essentials Academic Orientation this past month. I have spent three years in Essentials class as a parent and another three years as a tutor (and parent), but this was my first opportunity to lead Tutor Orientation at a CC Practicum.

As I was preparing to lead the orientation and then spending time in discussion with the tutors and directors during the orientation, I was reminded (again) why I love Essentials.

It is the class in which students are beginning to play with Cosmos. They are learning FORM.

I’ve written about some of these ideas before, after speaking at the math practicum and then as I was preparing to tutor Essentials the first year, but I re-organized my notes to correspond with the three elements of an Essentials class: math, English grammar, and writing. I’ll be sharing these thoughts in a 4-part series, beginning with this introduction.

“Cosmos” is the thread that ran through the three days of training and connects all three class elements together.

Let’s begin here.

A cosmos is an orderly, harmonious system or “world.” The word derives from the Greek word “kosmos,” meaning “order” or “ornament.” Cosmos is diametrically opposed to the concept of chaos. 

While we’re at it, let’s look up the definition of ornament: (Merriam-Webster)
2a. something that lends grace or beauty
3: one whose virtues or graces add luster to a place or society

Order. (Form. Structure. Truth.) Ornament. (Beauty. Harmony. Grace. Virtue.)

Order + Beauty = World

(We’re really starting at the very beginning, here.)

Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Formless. And what did God do? Created form: separated light and darkness, waters and sky, land and seas.

Empty. And once the form established, he filled the place with beauty: plants, stars, birds, sea creatures, animals, man.

Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

(Words matter!)

Array: verb (used with object):
1. to place in proper or desired order
2. to clothe with garments, especially of an ornamental kind; dress up; deck out.

And, as Leigh Bortins says, that’s how you teach everything to everybody. Figure out what the form is, and then you have all the content in the world to make it creative, beautiful.

Sentence forms
Latin ending forms
Math formulas
The structure of story

You can put in whatever content you wish once you know the form. The content is what makes it unique and interesting.

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In Classical Conversations communities, Essentials students are learning the FORM of three arts.

Math: Learning the Form of Numbers, Operations, Laws

Grammar: Learning the Form of Sentences

Writing: Learning the Form of Paragraphs (Reports, Stories, Essays, and Critiques)

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Orient and Invite

As tutor trainers, tutors, parents, and fellow students, we have the opporunity to “orient and invite.”

Orient Our Tutors, Parents, and Students to Essentials and the Arts of Math, Grammar, and Writing 

Review Past Concepts

Introduce New Grammar

Invite Our Tutors, Parents, and Students to the Conversation

Begin Dialectic Discussion in Class

Point to Available Resources

Continue Grammar and Dialectic Discussion at Home

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May I invite you along on my learning journey?

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“The reason you study math, science and art is so that your imagination will be filled with wonder and awe at the Creator of the most mind blowing project ever: the world. And whether you are learning to read music or playing an instrument, whether your hand is holding a pencil or gesturing in the theater, you are training yourself for the warfare of worship. You are teaching your body gratitude; you are teaching your soul thanksgiving. There is hardly an adequate evaluation of your progress, but the best grade you can receive is the outworking of a thankful heart. If you have truly learned Algebra, if you have mastered the story of Western Civilization, if you can tell me the names of the constellations that whirl about our heads, then you will do it with laughter in your voice, you will do it with joy in your heart and gratitude in your bones. Worship is the point of learning because worship is the point of life.” Toby Sumpter, in response to the questions ‘Why are you in school? Why are you reading this page? Why are you reading Mein Kampf?’ This is an excerpt from Veritas Press’s Omnibus III Textbook.

Words

Language is magic.

If I say a word, an image or idea from my mind magically appears in yours. For instance, I can say (or write) the word "house," and the image/idea of house appears in your mind. But the house in your mind may look very little like the house in mine. What if I add vivid modifiers to the word house? With each modifier, the image in your mind more closely resembles the one in mine. Brick. Two-story. Colonial.

Alternatively, I can replace the word house with a more precise noun, the definition of which includes the idea of house + modifiers. Chalet. Mansion. Cottage. Yurt. Nest. Now a single word from my mind builds a vivid, precise image in yours.

Do you know how many words we have in the English language? Depending on the qualifications of "word," we have between 200,000 and a million words in English.

We use language to think about and communicate ideas.

The more words I know, the better able I am to think and reason abstractly. The more words you and I share, the better able we are to communicate, vividly and precisely.

Yesterday, my young son was feeling emotional about something. I asked him if he was concerned. He said no, that wasn't accurate. Stressed? Distressed? Worried? Apprehensive? On edge? No, those weren't strong enough. Panicked was the word that best communicated his emotions.

Give yourself the gift of language. Give your children the gift of language. Give your community and culture the gift of members who can communicate with others in a vivid, precise way. With knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. And heaps of grace.

Parallelism ~ On the Grammar and Poetry of Things

I haven’t waxed philosophical about The Lost Tools of Writing yet this season, so I’ll try to make up for lost time this month.

In this post I won’t go on and on about the brilliance of the 5 Common Topics of Invention and using The Lost Tools of Writing as a “thinking program.” [They still are and we still do, but there’s more!]

Instead, I’d like to talk about parallelism.

One of the very first tools of style or “elocution” a Lost Tools of Writing student learns to wield is parallelism.

[To wield means “to hold (something, such as a tool or weapon) in your hands so that you are ready to use it.” I love this imagery. It reminds me of the quote “A word after a word after a word is power” by Margaret Atwood. We are teaching our students to be powerful with their words and ideas!]

What is parallelism?

Parallelism, also known as parallel structure or parallel construction, is a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure. Some definitions of parallelism include repeated single parts of speech.

The most common number of repetitions is three. (I believe I have heard Andrew Pudewa say “Thrice, never twice.”)

Two famous examples of parallelism (I apologize, I have ancient history on the brain):

“Friends, Romans, countryman, lend me your ears…” (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)

“I came; I saw; I conquered” (attributed to Julius Caesar)

The first contains a repetition of three nouns, one after another. The second contains a repetition of three clauses (subject and verb).

Exact words can be repeated within the structure (such as the use of “I” for each clause in “I came; I saw; I conquered” or “a word” in the earlier quote by Margaret Atwood “A word after a word after a word is power”), but it is not necessary.

If you still don’t quite get it, stick with me. I hope the concept will be clearer by the end of the post.

Why parallelism?

Parallelism requires a student to be balanced and clear in the expression of his ideas.

Lost Tools of Writing students learn to write their persuasive essay proofs in parallel structure. This is a natural place for parallelism as the students list three reasons to support their thesis. We desire their reasons to be clear and balanced in order to be more persuasive.

For example, in our persuasive essay for Where the Red Fern Grows, our original thesis and proofs were as follows:

“Billy should have traveled to town alone to get his dogs for three reasons: his good character traits, he was prepared, his actions paved the way for his hunting successes.”

The structures in that list are adjective-adjective-adjective-noun, pronoun-linking verb-adjective, and adjective-noun-transitive verb-adjective-direct object-prepositional phrase. No similar structures. The sentence is clunky.

We changed the thesis and proofs to the following:

“Billy should have traveled to town alone to claim his dogs for three reasons: he possessed positive character traits, he prepared for the journey, and he paved the way for his future hunting success.”

Now, we have three similar clauses. “He” is the subject of all three clauses. We have three strong past-tense action verbs (with alliteration!): possessed, prepared, and paved. And we have a direct object, a prepositional phrase, and a direct object and a prepositional phrase. Not exactly alike, but the main body of each structure (clause with “he” followed by an action verb) is the same and we maintained a certain consistency of ideas. The new sentence sounds more persuasive to the ear.

When we outlined our persuasive essay for A Gathering of Days, we began with:

[Thesis] Catherine should not have left the blanket and food for the “Phantom.”

C. [Enumeration] 3

D. Exposition

1. Dangerous

2. No authority

3. No respect for property

We had to expand on the ideas in order to present them persuasively. In the end, we wrote the following:

“In A Gathering of Days Catherine had good intentions, but she should not have left the blanket and food for the “phantom” for three reasons. Catherine failed to protect herself and others from danger, she failed to obey the authorities over her, and she failed to respect the property of others.”

“Catherine” (or “she”) is the subject of each clause. “Failed” is the transitive verb in each clause. Each clause contains an infinitive (to protect, to obey, to respect) as a direct object. And each infinitive has a direct object with a prepositional phrase (herself/others from danger, authorities over her, property of others). These proofs are very closely parallel, and the ideas sound strong.

Have I lost you?

This may lead us to the next point.

Parallelism requires a certain proficiency of grammar.

Yes, the justice of things. Students need to know how the English language works in order to use it most intentionally and effectively. For some people, grammar (or justice) is not fun. But it is necessary. It gives consistency, clarity, and structure to our thoughts. It allows us to communicate more powerfully.

The wonderful thing about parallelism is that it is also poetry, which leads us to our next point.

Parallelism pleases the ear.

Parallelism lends a certain pleasing rhythm to a sentence or a paragraph. It gives it a musical, poetic quality. It enchants the reader or the hearer.

Literary devices that appeal to the senses (the sense of hearing in particular) are called schemes.

Parallelism leads to more complex literary devices used for a higher degree of rhetorical style.

Once students master the basics of parallel structure, they can use their knowledge and experience to create antithesis, anaphora, asyndeton, symploce, epistrophe, and climax.

Again, these devices give a powerful, poetic quality to writing and speaking.

I love this building process.

In Teaching Writing with Structure and Style from Institute for Excellence in Writing (which Classical Conversations uses for kids ages 9-12 in the Essentials classes), students learn the advanced “decoration” (or style tool) “Triple Extensions” by repeating words, parts of speech, phrases, or clauses. Students (and parents!) in Classical Conversations Essentials classes also receive a firm foundation in English grammar.

With Lost Tools of Writing (used in Challenge A, B, and I? for kids 12 and older), students learn the formal rhetoric terms “elocution,” “scheme,” and “parallelism,” and learn to build parallel structures in their writing.

Then, students use this parallel structure to learn new literary devices.

There’s an intentional purpose and sequence and progression of complexity. It’s beautiful, really.

In Classical Conversations Challenge B, students have just learned to use antithesis in their writing. Antithesis “juxtaposes two contrasting ideas in parallel form… sometimes parts of speech made exactly parallel, sometimes with a looser structure” (mercy!).

There are many, many examples of antitheses in literature and speeches. One benefit of antitheses is that it is memorable. One famous example:

“That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.” (Neil Armstrong)

This sentence uses parallel phrases. “Small step” is contrasted with “giant leap” and “man” is contrasted with “mankind.”

Our opening quote uses antitheses in its parallel clauses, as well. “Justice” is contrasted with “mercy” and “grammar” is contrasted with “poetry.”

In our recent essay on Where the Red Fern Grows, we wrote:

“While he was pulling away from his parents, he was bonding with his dogs.”

This sentence uses parallel clauses. “Pulling away” contrasts with “bonding” and “from his parents” contrasts with “with his dogs.”

Do you see how that works?

This is just a brief, imperfect introduction. It’s not meant to lead you to mastery. And, certainly, I’m not close to mastery, myself. I am, however, fascinated by words and structure and ideas, and I’ve found playing with parallelism to be great fun. I have also found myself noticing parallel structure in everything I am reading!

I’ll end this introductory post with a small sampling from my recent book stack, from picture books to Paradise Lost.

Examples from Literature

Hamlet, retold by Leon Garfield

The stars glared, the battlements shuddered, and Hamlet’s heart ceased as the terrible word was uttered. [independent clauses: adjective, noun, past-tense verb]

But Hamlet’s strangeness had already troubled the smooth surface of the court, puzzled the smiling King and vaguely distressed the easy Queen. [verb phrases: past-tense verb, adjective/article “the,” adjective, direct object; you’ll notice an added prepositional phrase with the first verb phrase and an -ly adverb with the third]

They wore their paper crowns, clutched their wooden swords, and shrugged their patchwork gowns with a dusty dignity and a seasoning of pride. [verb phrases: past-tense verb, adjective “their,” adjective, direct object]

“Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,” he hissed; and crept towards the sleeper with a black cloak trailing, like some malignant bat. [noun phrases: noun, adjective—these noun phrases are particularly forceful and poetic with the adjective appearing after the noun]

Crispin: The Cross of Lead by AVI

Above and below the church were our dwelling places, some forty cottages and huts of wattle and daub, thatch and wood, dirt and mud, all in varying shades of brown. [noun phrases, compound objects of the preposition “of”: noun “and” noun]

Stiff in limb, chilled in bone, numb in thought, I shifted about. [adjectival phrases: adjective, preposition “in,” object of the preposition]

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

I had the wind of a deer, the muscles of a country boy, a heart full of dog love, and a strong determination. [direct object noun phrases: adjective/article, noun, adjectival prepositional phrase with “of” repeated in each]

The Master Swordsman by Alice Provensen

“How heavy the pails! How endless the wood! How far the well!” [adjectival phrases]

‘“LOOK SHARP!” glugged the jug… “ATTENTION!” clacked the box… “BE ALERT!” creaked the log. “THAT’S THE WAY” wheezed the teapot.’ [clauses: verb, subject]

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom 

Usually it was fog in January in Holland, dank, chill, and gray. [“Triple Extension” adjectives]

On me—until Betsie caught up with them—hems sagged, stockings tore, and collars twisted. [clauses: subject, verb]

Some great examples of antitheses in The Hiding Place:

Adventure and anguish, horror and heaven were just around the corner, and we did not know. [Nouns: adventure/anguish, horror/heaven… and alliteration as well!]

Young and old, poor and rich, scholarly gentlemen and illiterate servant girls—only to Father did it seem that they were all alike. [Nouns: young/old, poor/rich, scholarly gentlemen/illiterate servant girls]

Here we sat, our backs chilled by the ancient stone, our ears and hearts warmed by the music. [Noun phrases: backs/ears-hearts, chilled/warmed, by the ancient stone/by the music]

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour’d. [Nouns]

Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime, Said then the lost Arch Angel, “this the seat That we must change for Heav’n, this mournful gloom For that celestial light? [Noun phrases with repeated “this”] [We have a little antitheses at the end—”this mournful gloom” is contrasted with “that celestial light.”]

Antithesis:

Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n. [Spoken by Satan, by the way.] [Infinitive phrases: reign/serve, Hell/Heav’n]

And one bonus example. Chiasmus is another literary device that employs a parallel structure. It is a repetition of words in reverse:

The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

 

I challenge you to discover parallel structure in your own reading.

I’d love it if you shared examples in the comments!

Language Love, Part II ~ Logos

[Read Part I here.]

In my first post in this language series, I explored the idea that language is a cosmos, an orderly and beautiful form with which we think and communicate.

Today, I would like to contemplate the word logos.

Logos is defined as “reason, thought of as constituting the controlling principle of the universe and as being manifested by speech. In Christian theology it is the eternal thought or word of God, made incarnate in Jesus Christ.”

Merriam-Webster defines logos as the divine wisdom manifest in the creation, government, and redemption of the world.

Logos comes from an original Greek word meaning “a word, saying, speech, discourse, thought, proportion, ratio, reckoning.”

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the incarnate Logos, the Living Word, through which all things are made.

We’re starting at the very beginning again.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

John 1:14 The Word (Logos) became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

1 John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word (Logos) of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

“In Greek philosophy and theology, [Logos is] the divine reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning.”

Consider the Cosmos (order and ornament) of creation, which God spoke into being in Genesis 1.

Psalm 33:6 By the word (Logos) of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.

Psalm 33:9 For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.

Hebrews 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word (Logos) of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

A.W. Tozer writes:

One of the greatest realities with which we have to deal is the Voice of God in His world. The briefest and only satisfying cosmogony is this: ‘He spake and it was done.’ The why of natural law is the living Voice of God immanent in His creation. And this word of God which brought all worlds into being cannot be understood to mean the Bible, for it is not a written or printed word at all, but the expression of the will of God spoken into the structure of all things.”

Language is a universal human structure, given to us by God, in whose image we are created.

Exodus 3:13-14 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

The name God gives Himself in Exodus 3, “I am,” is structured. It is a predicated noun, name and being.

The structure, the very fabric, of human language is the subject and predicate.

Andrew Kern writes:

Grammar is where God, man, the soul, thinking, knowledge, and the cosmos all come together.

Grammar is based on the link between something that exists and something that applies to something that exists. God "exists." He called Himself, "I Am." He made us, putting us in the garden to steward it. As stewards, we need to know what we are stewarding, so he made us able to know the world we live in. The world around us exists as things that act or are acted on and have properties or qualities. In other words, the world is full of subjects with predicates. To know the world around us we must think it. When we think something, we always think something about it. In other words, the mind thinks subjects and predicates. Predicate comes from the Latin and means "to say about." All thought and all existence revolve around the relation between subjects and predicates (substances and properties if you like).

On the brilliant simplicity of subjects and predicates, Michael Clay Thompson writes:

Why is grammar fun and valuable? Grammar reveals to us the beauty and power of our own minds. With only eight kinds of words and two sides (subject and predicate) of each idea, we can make the plays of Shakespeare, or the novels of Toni Morrison, or the poems of Elizabeth Bishop. No system, so gorgeously elegant, could be expected to make such a language. Through grammar we see the simple form of our binary minds; in all of our sentences, however elaborate, we are making a predicate about a subject, and this reveals the meaning of clarity. For each sentence or idea, I must know both of these two things: what you are talking about, and what you are saying about it. For each paragraph of sentences, I must know what the paragraph is about, and what you are saying about it. For each essay of paragraphs, I must know what the essay is about, and what you are saying about it. A sentence, with its two sides, is a model of the mind.

We’ll be spending more time with sentences later in this series.

Language Love, Part I ~ Cosmos

[I’ll be exploring the concept of language in this five-part series as I am preparing to tutor an Essentials class (English grammar and writing) with our Classical Conversations community this coming year (year six!).]

We use language to think about and communicate ideas.

We use grammar to think about and communicate ideas about language.

Grammar is a form or cosmos.

Let’s start our exploration of language with the word cosmos.

A cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. The word derives from the Greek term κόσμος (kosmos), meaning literally "order" or "ornament" and metaphorically "world,” and is diametrically opposed to the concept of chaos.

[Explore cosmos in depth here.]

While we’re at it, let’s look up the definition of ornament: (Merriam-Webster)
2a. something that lends grace or beauty
3: one whose virtues or graces add luster to a place or society

Order. (Form. Structure. Truth.) Ornament. (Beauty. Harmony. Grace. Virtue.)

Order + Beauty (literally) = World (metaphorically)

Let’s go to the very beginning.

Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Formless. And what did God do? Created form: separated light and darkness, waters and sky, land and seas.

Empty. Once the form was established, God filled the place with beauty: plants, stars, birds, sea creatures, animals, man.

Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

(Words matter!)

Array: verb (used with object):
1. to place in proper or desired order
2. to clothe with garments, especially of an ornamental kind; dress up; deck out.

And, as Leigh Bortins says, that’s how you teach everything to everybody. Figure out what the form is, and then you have all the content in the world to make it creative, beautiful!

Sentence forms
Latin ending forms
Math formulas
The structure of a story
Poetry forms

You can put in whatever content you wish once you know the form. The content is what makes it unique and interesting.

When we learn the grammar of language, we are learning form so that we have the tools to communicate truth, goodness, and beauty.