Anything That Makes You Look

Skunks and Snails and the Science of Relations

Charlotte Mason says that "education is the science of relations" and that children should build a relationship with the things that they study.

I think we can check the box for "nature study" recently. Lola adopted 8 motherless babies who had been meandering around our house, porch, and yard last month. [We did eventually get rid of them, but it was a pretty darling relationship for a couple days.]

This relationship led Luke to read Kildee House (a book we read together as a family several years ago). It a darling chapter book that just happens to be illustrated by Barbara Cooney, my favorite illustrator.

It seems as if a switch has flipped in Lola’s brain in the last few months. She is paying attention and is interested in so many things. Together we’ve watched deer as well as an adult squirrel and two babies in our yard. Since she started playing with her bird cards, she has pointed out a robin and an eagle to me when we were outside and she was pretending to be a baby ruby-throated hummingbird (but she didn’t think it was quite fair that only males had ruby throats) while picking out a tiny rock that could be her egg.

A while back I posted this video on my FB page and then in one of my blog posts:

A kind reader, upon watching the video, suggested that we might enjoy The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating. When one can’t make a direct relationship with nature, making a relationship vicariously through another person’s direct relationship is the next best thing. And what a delightful relationship it has been. The book has caused more rabbit snail trails than I can count. Lola and I had already memorized this lovely haiku by Kobayashi Issa:

O snail
Climb Mount Fuji,
But slowly, slowly!

I originally chose that haiku because we learned the location of Mount Fuji this past year, but it turns out that Kobayashi Issa wrote 54 haiku about snails! We’ve been enjoying the picture book Cool Melons—Turn to Frogs! The Life and Poems of Issa. It’s a gentle reminder to pay attention to nature and savor it.

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is full of literary references—Issa, A.A. Milne, John Donne, Emily Dickinson, and so many more. We’ve looked up definitions for words like humus (not to be confused with hummus); we’ve discussed the words sinistral and dextral and wondered if the word sinister originally had to do with left-handed people. We have been allowed to see life from the eyes and mind of someone who is bed-ridden; we have have been taught to slow down and see that a small thing can be very large indeed if you take the time to look.

We are now in search of our very own snail to love.

Luke, as I’ve mentioned, has enjoyed baking and experimenting in the kitchen this past year or two. My sister, knowing his love of baking and his love of interesting science facts and his love of reading, gave him What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained for his birthday at the end of May. Luke sped through it and loved it, and then Leif devoured it as well. Chemistry in the kitchen—a perfect relationship.

Knowing how much Luke enjoyed that book, I ordered The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements. He had already enjoyed The Mystery of the Periodic Table and had spent hours poring over the exquisite Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe, so I thought this would be a great next read. I was right—he loved it!

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table.

The Disappearing Spoon reminded me of Salt: A World History, so I grabbed that one off the shelf and handed it to Levi. Who knew that salt was so involved in world history, from ancient to modern times? Kurlansky’s Cod and Paper are on my wish list.

As soon as we finish reading aloud The Sound of a Wild Sail Eating, we will start on The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir's Greatest Adventures. We’ve read several picture books about John Muir, but this will be the first time we have read about his adventures in his own words.

We may not be successful nature journal-ers, but we’ve had a rather successful summer of living books and outdoor exploring. I call that a win.

Give Your Child the World

Jamie has done it! Her book is finally in my hands, and it’s beautiful.

Jaime Martin of Simple Homeschool has given us guidebook—a way to tour the world with our children, to savor the flavors and explore the riches of the people and places on earth, without leaving our couches! Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a Time belongs on the shelf with other excellent book lists such as Honey for a Child’s Heart.

In Part I, Jaime shares with us the story of her own global family, coming together from four different continents. She gives us many simple but effective ways to invite the world into our own homes. And she challenges us to embrace a good story as a powerful way to enlarge our hearts and minds.

In a lengthy Part II, Jaime shares a feast of stories. The generous book list is conveniently sorted by region (Multicultural, Africa, Europe, Asia, Middle East, North America, Latin America, and finally Australia, Oceania, and the Polar Regions). Within the regional lists, she further sorts the books into target age ranges (4-6, 6-8, 8-10, and 10-12). A quick review accompanies each book selection.

The Index section is particularly helpful with an index each for authors, country/region, and titles, as well as a historical index with books sorted chronologically!

As I perused the book lists, I spied many favorite titles but also many that are new to me. I look forward to discovering new family favorites.

Jaime and Sarah Mackenzie of Read-Aloud Revival have teamed up to create the Read the World Summer Book Club for those of us interested in joining others on the journey. Kids and parents are encouraged to read one book a week, one region a week. The book club is in its second week, so don’t delay! Enjoy weekly themed recipes and videos at Simple Homeschool and enter to win prizes!

Relationship, Attention, Empathy, and Imagination

For the Children’s Sake

Stacks of books tower on every flat surface (and some not-so-flat surfaces) of my house. I’ve been allowing my imagination to wander lately, and it has designed a beautiful library/meeting hall to be built in the field in front of my house. “Imagination” is the key word here, but if I don’t do something soon it will be either my family or the books—I don’t think there’s room for both. [wry grin]

One of these towering stacks is the “education and culture” stack (not to be confused with the culture and educational philosophy shelf).

Some books in this towering stack are more recent favorites: The Core, The Question, and The Conversation by Leigh Bortins; Beauty for Truth’s Sake and Beauty in the Word by Stratford Caldecott; Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakable Peace by Sarah Mackenzie; and Leisure, the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper.

Some are important books that require more intelligence than I currently possess in order to finish: Norms and Nobility by David Hicks and Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons. [Clearly I’m delusional about when that intelligence will manifest itself because I haven’t shelved them yet.]

Some are books I’ve finished in the past few months and whose riches I’m still digesting: Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness & Beauty by Stephen R. Turley, PhD (a good but dense read) and The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education by Ravi Jain (an excellent must-read, even though it is over my head in parts).

[We won’t even talk about the books still on my wish list!]

After reading The Liberal Arts Tradition in particular, I had so many thoughts swirling in my brain and I began synthesizing some ideas to share in blog posts. My real hope was to somehow synthesize all of the above books into something resembling a cohesive educational philosophy complete with derivative practices.

Hahahaha!

So what does Heidi do when she is overwhelmed by a task in front of her? [Other than binge on chocolate and Netflix?] She watches multiple educational videos and series. She attends an educational retreat.

She starts another book. Or two.

Instead of buying more books, I looked at my educational philosophy shelf and grabbed two books I hadn’t read in forever.

First up: A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levison. This one is completely manageable. Less than 100 pages. A brief introduction to Charlotte Mason. Very brief chapters covering all the subjects with practical how-to advice. A few lists and graphs (yay for lists and graphs!). In summary: brief and practical.

On a roll, I grabbed the second book: For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay.

I’d like to have a little chat with the younger me who first read the book some years ago.

Why didn’t you allow these beautiful words and ideas to change your life?!

[Okay, I know why: I was overwhelmed. There just wasn’t enough of me to go around. My main goal was to keep everyone alive. But, still.]

I was convicted with every word. Convicted that I could spend a profitable 10 years just reading and re-reading the books I already own without buying another single book. Convicted that it doesn't matter how many books I read if they don't change me. Convicted that I need to choose a few beautiful books to re-read often. Convicted that I have failed myself and my children in setting good habits that would make doing the right things so. much. easier. for all of us because we could do all the little things without thinking and without effort and save our thinking and effort for the big things.

So I had a "chat" with my kids, which was probably the wrong thing (ha!), apologizing to them for my own poor habits and apologizing for failing to make their lives easier, and explaining that we are all under authority to do the right thing.

It's really difficult to turn a large passenger ship around. Especially when the captain has shockingly poor habits. Sigh.

But good stuff, friends. Good and beautiful stuff in this one.

This is not just a homeschooling book. It is not even just a book about education.

It is a book about these beautiful humans who inhabit our homes and how we should treat them. How we can respect them as persons and work to enlarge their lives.

From the Introduction:

This book…is not a specific guide to one particular plan. Education is an adventure that has to do with central themes, not the particular packages a given generation puts them into. It’s about people, children, life, reality!

In the first chapter, What Is Education?, the author introduces the reader to Charlotte Mason and her world. 

In the lengthy second chapter, the reader learns that “Children Are Born Persons.”

At first glance, this idea does not seem revolutionary to us, but a deeper look at this idea reveals the truth.

Look well at the child on your knee. In whatever condition you find him, look with reverence. We can only love and serve him and be his friend. We cannot own him. He is not ours… Respect him. Do not see him as something to prune, form, or mold. This is an individual who thinks, acts, and feels. He is a separate human being whose strength lies in who he is, not in who he will become.

We are told to place a feast of ideas and experiences in front of a child and then get out of the way.

Allow the child to have an interior life that you don’t meddle in. Let the Holy Spirit and the child do what they will with what he has seen and heard.

Charlotte Mason highly valued a child’s time and opportunity to play. Encourage play, give a child time and materials and remove other distractions and pressures, but do not organize play.

Charlotte Mason fed children with Living Ideas from outside of those children’s world. Read beautifully written biographies, stories of other cultures, fables, stories about animals, literature. Read slowly. Have a child narrate back what he has heard. Don’t test the child. Allow her to choose the details that she remembers. Allow a child to learn as his own speed.

The third chapter covers the topic of Authority and Freedom.

This is the chapter that hit me the hardest.

Charlotte Mason exhorts us to train a child in good habits so that right behavior becomes easy and the student’s efforts and energy can be used for greater challenges.

What I truly loved about the perspective here is that it is so full of grace. It is not a rigid system of endless dos and don’ts from an authoritative perspective, but an understanding that we are all under authority to do the right thing and that we must first understand the child’s needs. We must give children “freedom within known limits, both physically and morally.” We must not be aggressive. We as parents must “exercise great self-restraint” and not place too many limits or pile on expectations.

We must show that we are mature enough to stick to the lines which are right, and that we don’t merely boss the child about for our convenience.

In this lengthy chapter, I was reminded continuously of this quote by G.K. Chesterton: “The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.”

Chapter four introduces us to Charlotte Mason’s educational principles.

[You can read them here.]

Teach the skills for their own sake.
Introduce the child to a wide curriculum of living books.
Keep teaching time short enough so that his natural hunger for “real” life can be satisfied.

Macaulay focuses on Charlotte Mason’s motto: “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.”

Atmosphere can be cultivated at home and at school.

Students can learn the discipline of attention and concentration, truthfulness, self-control, and unselfishness. Parents and teachers can provide structure and form.

Parents and teachers can give students access to the best sources.

“Let the children at the best of life!” is Charlotte Mason’s challenge to us. Life includes not only living experiences, but also the best that mankind has produced in art, books, music, ideas, and many more areas.

We don’t have to chart exactly what a child has “learned” from any of these sources to make it worthwhile using them. This is a different way of thinking about learning. Our job is to give the best nourishment regularly. The child takes what is appropriate to him at that time.

We are also encouraged to allow students to do real work, take on real responsibility, and spend time in creative pursuits.

Chapter five delves into the principle “education is a science of relationships.”

We must take steps to provide a diet which opens doors for each child to build a relationship with God, other persons, and the universe. If it sounds broad, it is broad!

Knowledge is divided into three categories: knowledge of God, knowledge of man, and knowledge of the universe.

These divisions correspond well to the three categories of philosophy outlined in The Liberal Arts Tradition: divine philosophy, moral philosophy, and natural philosophy.

In this chapter (again, lengthy), Macaulay covers the “subjects” of theology, history, literature, morals and citizenship, composition, languages, art, music, science, geography, mathematics, physical development, and handicrafts.

The Word of God is like fertile seed you drop into the soil. The child does not take in everything that is there. He thinks about some aspect of it.

“Why do you study, or do math, art, etc.?” should be swiftly answered by “Because it is part of the whole which God has created.”

Math does relate to the whole of truth; it has its place. It is like art, music, horticulture, or cooking: the “Christian-ness” of it lies in itself. We are secure in God’s truth, which is a framework into which we can fit all the parts of reality.

Having given the basis for the knowledge, plus a place for the telling of ideas or discussion, please allow each child to live his own private life. We tend to crash in where angels fear to tread. We want to push along the work that belongs to the Holy Spirit. Let the child do his own living—please!

The life of education has to include the whole of our humanness. We need to relate as persons to the God who is there, to be nourished with good ideas through books, art, music, history, literature, etc. We need to relate to other persons, to know and be known. We need the beauty of nature, and we are made to respond creatively in speech, music, through art, etc. We need to know the limits of law, and yet the freedom of our separate choices.

The book closes with a brief sixth chapter which introduces Charlotte Mason’s motto “I am, I can, I ought, I will.”

I am made in the image of God and made to have a relationship with Him. I can act with confidence. I ought to do what is right (not just what I want). I will choose what is right under all circumstances.

And God’s grace is available to me when I fail.

The motto, “I am, I can, I ought, I will” makes a circle, a perimeter, inside of which my human life may be lived with joy and fullness. There is song, lightness, spontaneity. There is the possibility of attaining height proper to one’s self.

Lovely.

Friends, I highly recommend this book, whether you are homeschooling or using other schooling methods, whether your children are still young or growing older.

 

So now I have so many beautiful ideas to synthesize that I may die trying. But stay tuned for more to come…

Awakening Wonder

As I mentioned in my last education post, I have a stack of books in front of me that have informed and are informing my educational philosophy, particularly as I plan for this coming year. I will be sharing several quotes and important concepts from each in the next few posts, but I want to start with Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness & Beauty. This is a dense book that was difficult for me to read and understand, but it contains beautiful truths that are vital in our lives. I will need to read it several more times through in order to grasp most of them. For now this summary quote is greatly impacting my contemplation of my role as a teacher in the lives of my children:

Thus, we must ask ourselves: Are we presenting music and mathematics, Beauty and symmetry, as inseparable? Do we teach our students to see athletic skill as an embodiment of control over chaos and thus exemplative of the processes of creation? Do our science classes teach that discovery of the workings of the world not only gives us knowledge but awakens us to the awe and wonder of the Incarnation itself? Do our history classes present the totality of history as an eschatological narrative from Garden to city, from creation to communion, from water to wine? Do our Bible classes present theology as rooted in philokalia, the love of Beauty? Do we teach our students that there is something extraordinary about the imagio Dei, that we yearn for a meaning and a purpose outside of ourselves, that we long for a Beauty that awakens us from our self-centered slumbers, that our hearts ache for a life filled with wonder and awe? Are we cultivating an insatiable desire in our students to encounter the True, the Good, and the Beautiful in a life-transforming way, a way that enables our souls to reach for and embrace a state of being than which none greater can possibly be thought?

State of the Academy Address ~ 2016 [Looking Forward]

Last month I shared a bit about where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing this past year in our home academy. In essence, it’s been a year of rest for us all.

In the past few months I’ve been contemplating the idea of Christian classical education as I’ve read Awakening Wonder and The Liberal Arts Tradition and reviewed Beauty for Truth’s Sake and Beauty in the Word. As I move forward with our upcoming plans, I will be considering a more holistic and robust approach to classical education and integrating the ideas of piety (“properly ordering one’s loves”), gymnastics (physical training, coordination, and fine and gross motor skills), and musical or poetic education (music, singing, poetry, acting/imitating, drawing, fine art, and stories—fiction and non-fiction) with the arts of the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy) in addition to the arts of the trivium (grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric). I’ll share about this in upcoming in-depth posts.

For now, this post will serve as a quick overview of our upcoming studies.

As long as I’m being completely honest, I’ll just say it: I’m terrified of our next school year. [wry grin]

I will have four distractible children with completely different needs and studies—who need me at all times. I’m trying to sort out the logistics of it all. Where will they each work so that they have enough space, without the distraction of siblings, with their mother on hand to help with questions and discussion? How can I clone myself to be in 4 places at once? I’m still not exactly sure how this is going to work. Even if I think I get it figured out, we’ll probably still have to adjust several times throughout the year (or maybe the first month or two).

Lola [5/6 Years Old—Kindergarten]

Lola will be in Classical Conversations Foundations. This will be her second year (and our family’s 7th!). She will attend play camp and music class/choir during the afternoon on our CC day. She will continue learning to read (All About Reading), write (Handwriting Without Tears), and count (math picture books and games). She’ll continue to focus on memorizing poetry (Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization) and Bible verses (Sing the Word), and she’ll listen to more audio CDs during independent play time. We’ll also be reading many wonderful books together. [I have long lists of music and story CDs and favorite books coming up here on the blog.] We’ll be working together on physical coordination and games, particularly biking and swimming over the summer.

In the best possible world, Lola would spend about an hour a day (in small chunks of time) on formal lessons (that are rarely formal—more of a snuggle-on-the-couch and learn together sort of thing). I want her to spend most of her time in play. Ideally. The problem here is that Lola does. not. play. independently. She is either messing with her brothers and distracting them, doing one-on-one work with me, or sneaking screen time. It does not matter what fun little activity she is given (bubbles, play dough, rice or beans in bins, coloring, whatever)—it is 5 minutes of play time for her, 45 minutes of distraction for her brothers, and an hour of clean-up for me. The only other option is heavily enforced isolated play time. So I’m trying to do some figuring in this department. She really needs a twin sister to play with. Ha!!

At a glance:

• Classical Conversations Foundations [One morning a week for 24 weeks: fine arts, science projects, public speaking, geography drawing, and memory work in history (+timeline), science, Latin, geography, English grammar, and math.]
• Choir/Music Class
• All About Reading
• Handwriting Without Tears
• DK My First Number Book and other living math picture books and games and manipulatives
• Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization (and other poetry)
• Sing the Word
• Music and story CDs [lists in upcoming posts]
• Many wonderful picture and chapter books—fiction and non-fiction [lists in upcoming posts]
• Bike riding, swimming, hiking, cordination exercises and physical games

Leif [10 Years old—5th Grade]

Leif will be in Classical Conversations Foundations and Essentials. This will be his 7th year in Foundations and 2nd in Essentials (and I am tutoring his Essentials class). I am considering choir for him, and he will be starting piano lessons in the fall. During the week he will work on CC memory work, math (Khan Academy), Latin (Song School Latin 2), spelling (All About Spelling), CC Essentials grammar and writing (IEW Medieval History-Themed Writing), geography drawing, and independing reading in all subjects plus literature. He will also continue swim team practice four days a week.

At a glance:

• Classical Conversations Foundations and Essentials [One day a week for 24 weeks. Fine arts, science projects, public speaking, geography drawing, and memory work in history (+timeline), science, Latin, geography, English grammar, and math plus grammar, writing, and math games in the afternoon.]
• Piano lessons
• Khan Academy Math [5th-6th grade]
• Song School Latin 2
• All About Spelling
• IEW Medieval-Themed History Writing
• Story of the World, Volume 2 (and Medieval-themed fiction and non-fiction)
• Astronomy and Physics
• Map drawing and online geography games
• Swim team

Luke [12 Years Old—7th Grade]

Luke will be in Classical Conversations Challenge A. This will be his first year in the Challenge program (with one of my favorite people, Heather Timmons, as his tutor). The Challenge program will dictate the bulk of his studies during the week, but he will also begin piano lessons in September and continue swimming on the swim team four days a week.

At a glance:

• Classical Conversations Challenge A (One day a week in class for discussion and presentation.)
• Piano lessons
• Latin Alive! [We are subsituting this program for the CC recommendation of Henle.]
• Khan Academy Math [Pre-algebra. We are substituting this program for the CC recommendation of Saxon.]
• Science research and drawing body systems
• Literature (10 book selections) and The Lost Tools of Writing
• Drawing the whole world (including capitals and land forms, all by memory)
• The Fallacy Detective and It Couldn’t Just Happen (science catechism questions, note taking, class discussion, and apologetics paper)
• Swim team

Levi [14/15 Years Old—9th Grade]

Levi will be in Classical Conversations Challenge I. This is a first for us (the oldest is always the guinea pig), and the first year I’ve had a high schooler in the house! His tutor is another one of my favorite people, Cheryl Halsey. He will again be in class with my best friend’s son, McKinnon, and they will probably continue to do some work together during the week. The Challenge program will dictate the bulk of his studies during the week and he will continue swimming on the swim team daily.

At a glance:

• Classical Conversations Challenge I (One day a week in class for discussion and presentation.)
• Henle Latin [He’ll take the National Latin Exam in the spring.]
• Khan Academy Math [Algebra. We are substituting this program for the CC recommendation of Saxon.]
• Exploring Creation with Physical Science
• American Literature (20 novels!) and The Lost Tools of Writing
• American Documents
• Economics
• Policy Debate
• Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew, individual Shakespeare projects)
• Music Theory
• Swim team

 

I think that about covers the basics.

I’ll be sharing more details in up-coming posts. Do you have any questions you would like me to attempt to answer?

State of the Academy Address ~ 2016 [Looking Back]

Ahem.

I haven’t talked much about the details of our homeschool this past year (2015-2016), have I? I didn’t even keep a book list for the boys!

It has been a lazy, relaxing year. Probably our laziest yet. I purposefully stepped back and took a rather significant break.

Lola [4/5, K4]

Lola started Classical Conversations Foundations in the fall (she turned five in October). Her tutor, my good friend Jessye, was wonderful, but Lola was not exactly invested in the experience. She basically attended just to learn the routine, get used to following directions, and all that. She memorized nothing. In fact, she hardly even said the words. She’s not much of a science project, map-tracing, fine arts kid, either. She was in her own little world. A very talkative, wiggly, opinionated world.

She has been learning to read slowly and casually, but has little interest in any other learning. This is a completely different experience compared to her brothers, especially Leif, who entered CC at barely four and could read all the memory work and add double digits (though he, too, could not sit still or be quiet or participate cheerfully). Because there is such a large age difference between the boys and her as well as a lack of interest and ability to listen or cooperate, she rarely joined our group learning time at home. She either did her own thing or interrupted us (mostly interrupted us if she wasn’t on a screen, because she does not play independently). She is an expert at Minecraft, however. I’m being really honest here. This is reality, folks.

Leif [9, 4th Grade]

As a 4th grader, Leif enjoyed his sixth year of Foundations, tutored by my “little sister” Lindsay. She had her hands full, but she also was a fantastic tutor. Leif has always struggled with maintaining control of his body and mouth, and he knows all the things and how they should be done and he must say everything out loud the moment it pops into his head. He also takes up the space of two kids because he has no concept of personal space. He was diagnosed with Tourette’s, impulsivity, and ADHD at the beginning of the school year—all things I already knew, but it was nice to be affirmed in my mother’s intuition and know that he wasn’t trying to be a difficult kid. In fact, he is one of the biggest, most affectionate teddy bears you will ever meet. He is also a very smart kid who looks much older than he is because he’s huge. He has most of the memory work down cold, but I dropped the ball in geography so we’ll have to work a bit over the summer to complete Memory Master at home.

This was his first year in Essentials. Class was a struggle for Leif because he had already expended all his energy on being “well-behaved” for the whole morning and had nothing left in the afternoon. He is a whiz at grammar, but writing is a struggle. We did only a few of the writing assignments together. He has plenty of time (at least 2 more years of Essentials), and he was the youngest kid in class. There were days when I just let him read a book in the back of class.

Leif did very little formal work at home this year, but he reads voraciously and is working above “grade level” with Khan Academy math. He also swims four afternoons a week with the swim team.

Luke [11, 6th Grade]

Luke also completed his sixth year of Foundations, but as a 6th grader. He was tutored by Char, my best friend of 28 years, and it was a joy for me to sit in their class often. She did an excellent job, and I’m glad she and Luke had that time to bond. Luke has matured so much over the past couple years, so morning class was much easier for him. He completed Memory Master for the 3rd time (his 2nd time for cycle 1; he missed cycle 3 last year) without much effort, but he did little else at home for CC.

This was Luke’s third year in Essentials. He was often in his own little world during class, as he’s not all that fond of grammar and certainly not at all fond of writing. We worked on many of the papers together at home. [I don’t know if I could have tutored without him, though, because he was my right-hand man when it came to loading up in the morning, setting up class, tearing down class, cleaning up, and unloading at home.]

Luke did very little formal work at home this year, but he reads voraciously and is working above “grade level” with Khan Academy math. He also swims four afternoons a week with the swim team.

Luke did spend quite a bit of time this year baking. He is my most focused kid when it comes to something he is interested in! And he’s a tremendous help to me when I need assistance in any way.

Levi [13/14, 8th Grade]

After a rough year of CC Challenge A last year and for various other reasons, I decided not to enroll Levi in Challenge B for his 8th grade year this past year. He spent most of our community days home with Russ, working on independent tasks and reading. He spent another day each week working with his friend McKinnon and McKinnon’s mom (my best friend, Char) on Challenge B Latin and Logic. One other day each week, McKinnon, Levi, and I worked together on Challenge B literature discussions and The Lost Tools of Writing. Levi didn’t do much formal independent work in these subjects other than reading the literature selections. [Levi did nothing for Ch. B debate and did no science research other than reading through a few books.]

Levi read several pieces of more challenging literature [To Kill a Mockingbird, The Chosen, The Book Thief, The Silmarillion, The Boys in the Boat, The Count of Monte Cristo (unabridged), and others]. [I intended to work through Roman Roads Western Culture Greeks with him this year and I totally fell through on that, but he read quite a bit of The Iliad.] He worked through some of Life of Fred Pre-Algebra and is almost finished with Pre-Algebra on Khan Academy. He spent a bunch of time doing his own story writing and drawing. He loves Skyping with friends and planning projects (mainly fiction writing, Minecraft videos, and such). He also swims five afternoons a week with the swim team. Levi has joined three other boys from CC (they were all in the same class six years ago) and one of the moms (my good friend Heather) for a monthly Bible study.

He grew a bunch and is now a few inches taller than me, and he spent the year in orthodontics. He’s hairy (and he is partial to the mop of hair on his head). He now loves to stay up late and sleep late in the mornings.

 

_______________________________________________________________

 

Despite all the challenges, Classical Conversations was one of the main threads holding us all together. This was our 6th year in community. I tutored an Essentials class (English grammar, writing, and math games) in the afternoon with Leif and Luke and 13 other students (plus parents). The experience was overwhelmingly positive, and I look forward to tutoring again next year. As always, the friendships within our community are priceless to me. Our community days give structure to our week, and I know that we have learned something and challenged ourselves even if we do little else all week long.

Khan Academy was another huge success this year. I posted about it at length here. In short, it is a brilliant FREE online math program. It is interactive and gives students excellent video instruction, step-by-step help, and instant feedback. It requires students to master concepts. It is rigorous and comprehensive, but attractive and motivating. Math has never been my favorite subject to teach, but it is extremely important to me that my boys have a consistent program to work through. After using Teaching Textbooks for several years and Saxon for one, I’m thrilled that the boys can complete their math education with Khan.

The boys and I also finished reading A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens this year (probably my favorite read-aloud accomplishment) and we also read Heidi together (the boys’ favorite read-aloud novel).

I led a Book Detectives parent-child literary analysis group monthly during the school year, and the boys participated in those discussions.

For my own scholarship, I joined a group of CC moms who met at my house each month to discuss the works of Flannery O’Connor, led by my brilliant friend Mindy. This was an incredible experience for all of us, and we have one or two more meetings ahead. (This was in addition to meeting with a slightly different group of women several times to discuss The Question, a book about Aristotle’s 5 Common Topics for the logic-stage student by Leigh Bortins, as well as meeting monthly with my long-time book club, ChocLit Guild.)

 

Coming up: Looking Forward

Summer Plans [May-July] and 2016-2017 Plans.

Food for Thought ~ Birthday Edition

Yes, it’s my birthday. [No, there is no 3 in my age. Ha!]

I’ll pause the Oregon Coast pictures to post links and quotes and videos from the past month.

Enjoy the buffet!

Living a Good Life

:: This Could Be the Difference Between a Life of Suffering or Joy @ UnTangled [I adore this one. Go read it.]

Suffering is resistance to what is.

Suffering is opposition to the present moment and demand for the next moment. Suffering is having this but wanting that. Suffering is the search for the next thing. Suffering is the mental roaming we do for what might be.

Suffering, for instance, is trying to read something brilliant, while wondering about something better.

:: Forty Days | Forty Sacraments @ CIVA [So gorgeous. Click on the link to see her paintings.]

I find myself in a time of waiting right now in certain facets of my life, and this project was birthed out of that—being present with waiting, present with solitude. These paintings are marking time, and they are also calling out beauty where you might not expect it—in the extremely ordinary.

Politics

:: On Jane Austen in the General Election by G.K. Chesterton [Relevant. And hilarious. And a tiny bit terrifying.] 

"A dictator has to be a demagogue; a man like Mussolini cannot be ashamed to shout. He cannot afford to be a mere gentleman. His whole power depends on convincing the populace that he knows what he wants, and wants it badly."

Books, Education, and Family Culture

:: As Soon As He Returns by my friend Nicole Mulhausen @ Book Riot

The human voice is my favorite instrument, and reading aloud is important in ways that I can hardly express. Ordinary and ancient magic: breath and sound and time, weaving a narrative. And whether it’s a story of return, Mole to his home, or a story of grand adventure, Marie-Laure and her Uncle Etienne with Jules Verne on the Nautilus, to begin aloud together, especially a longer work, always involves both risk and promise—the risk of interruption, broken narrative, and the promise that the reading will always be shared, requiring patience and fidelity, when, like Marie-Laure, we are tempted to read on alone.

:: Loving the Lost Boys: Some Thoughts on Boyhood and Reading by Zach Franzen @ Story Warren

Let me add one more point on this score: The failure to recognize male distinctness leads to a marginalization of femininity. I just read a sample reading from a 2011, fourth grade National literacy test about a girl wrestler named Daisy. A story for fourth grade boys about a girl wrestler? Why don’t boys enjoy reading?

:: For Useless Learning by Peter J. Leithart @ First Things

"Lewis points out that there is always some crisis, some alarm that demands our attention; there are always a million and one things more important than reading Homer. Yet we continue to read Homer because we are not creatures whose behavior is solely guided by a crabbed criterion of usefulness. We are creatures made in the image of a Creator who makes things that He does not need, things that are not of use to Him. As we imitate His excess, we play music and recite poetry and tell stories... We should not be ashamed of the uselessness of the liberal arts, for making what we do not need, and doing what we have no ordinary use for, is part of the glory of being made in the image of the infinitely creative God."

Constraints and Creativity

:: Two teenagers started a street school to educate poor and homeless children in Pakistan

:: Edible Spoons

 

:: Richard Turere: My invention that made peace with lions [This reminds me so much of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.]

 

Art [Movies and Music]

:: I’m a Christian and I Hate Christian Movies by Alissa Wilkinson @ Thrillist

Christian theology is rich and creative and full of imagination, that's broad enough to take up residence among all kinds of human cultures. It contains within itself the idea that art exists as a good unto itself, not just a utilitarian vehicle for messages. (In the Greek, the Bible calls humans "poems" -- I love that.) There is no reason Christian movies can't take the time to become good art. Each one that fails leaves me furious.

:: J.S. Bach - Crab Canon on a Möbius Strip

Looking for the Helpers

:: Walking The Beat In Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Where A New Day Began Together @ npr [Sob. This one is exquisite.]

"Yes, I have been talking to you for years," Rogers said, as Clemmons recalls. "But you heard me today."

:: It was a touching sight at a Dutch Bros Coffee stand in Vancouver, where workers comforted and prayed with a woman who just lost her husband. [FOX 12 Oregon]

"We're going to do what we do every time we get someone who’s in pain or hurt. We're going to give them our love."

:: 'If We Left, They Wouldn't Have Nobody' @ npr

"I just couldn't see myself going home — next thing you know, they're in the kitchen trying to cook their own food and burn the place down," Rowland says. "Even though they wasn't our family, they were kind of like our family for this short period of time."

Food for Thought ~ “Permanent Things”

:: What Art Can—And Can’t—Do by Philip Yancey @ First Things [This is an older article, and it’s not a short one, but please, please read it. Let it breathe life into your soul. (Hello, Flannery O’Connor.)]

For those of us who labor in the arts and who believe in transcendence, here is a place to start. Some are called to be prophetic goads, and some giants may hammer in firmly embedded nails. But the rest of us can aspire, with no tinge of shame, to scribbling in the sand. Spaces need filling. The father of cellist Yo-Yo Ma spent World War II in Paris, where he lived alone in a garret throughout the German occupation. In order to restore sanity to his world, he would memorize violin pieces by Bach during the day and then at night, during blackout, he would play them alone in the dark. The sounds made by the reverberating strings held out the promise of order and hope and beauty. Later his son, Yo-Yo, took up the father’s advice to play a Bach suite from memory every night before going to bed. Yo-Yo Ma says, “This isn’t practicing, it’s contemplating. You’re alone with your soul.”

:: After you have read the above article, go read this Facebook post by S.D. Smith.

You lose elections long after you lose the stories that shape. Elections are a hundred years too late to save us. In other words, an election only reveals the stories we believed, loved, and allowed into our hearts to shape our affections. Elections are more effect than cause.

:: Lord of the Flies: Evil Recognized Is Redemption Begun @ CiRCE. I read Lord of the Flies for the first time last year and am reading Flannery O’Connor this year.

Like a Flannery O’Connor story, Golding’s ending completes the meaning of his work, not by resolving it, but by creating the possibility of resolution. The characters are not saved, but they are prepared for salvation. And readers are prepared along with them, for they, too, have been given the opportunity to take a long, hard look at themselves.

:: Candor: What Jane and Lizzy Bennet Can Teach Us about Charity @ Roman Roads Media [The Four Loves | A Series Exploring C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves] What a beautiful essay! Again, I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time last year (though I had watched both movie versions numerous times) and The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis is on my to-read list this year.

This will sound very anticlimactic, but when we face our human enemies, we need to face them as literary critics. A good critic does not react to what he reads. He reads it. He reads it carefully, over and over if necessary. He considers its genre, its context, its author, its author’s intentions, stated and unstated. He considers what circumstances the author himself may have been reacting to. And then, given all that consideration, he gives the work the most generous interpretation he can. The virtues of a literary critic are patience and generosity, but something deeper too: the good critic has to want there be something in that book to be understood—something, however small, that is worth understanding.

:: My Wife is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World: C.S. Lewis on Eros, Beauty, and Plato @ Roman Roads Media [The Four Loves, Part 2]

But I would submit that our starting point and first response to the question, “What makes a woman beautiful?” should be “Participation in the image of God.” Man is created in the image of God, male and female, but woman is given a special aesthetic placement in that order—she is the glory of man. She bears the image of God in a unique way—a way that’s glorious and beautiful, a way that’s defined and measured by participation in something greater and more universal than herself.

:: The Eye of the Beholder @ CiRCE [Supper of the Lamb was one of my favorite books from 2015]

:: Harper Lee, Author of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Dies at 89 @ The New York Times [Go Set a Watchman was one of my favorites in 2015 and To Kill a Mockingbird is in my all-time top 10.]

:: Christian Books and Christian Reading: Part 2 @ Center for Lit

Lewis realized that anyone who has never read widely is liable to become a prisoner of narrow and weakly held opinions, because his experience is limited by his own time and place. The one who participates in great literature, on the other hand, encounters the opinions of a host of other thinkers. He can see the consequences of their ideas without having to adopt their philosophies himself. In the process of comparing his assumptions with those of others, his own worldview gains strength and clarity.

:: The Necessity of the Imperfect Community (Inspired by Jayber Crow) by Angelina Stanford @ CiRCE

"I think Berry makes a profound point about the community being imperfect and yet that imperfection is just what we need to grow. The Enlightenment has us all obsessed with creating the perfect environment for us to achieve our potential. But maybe our obsession is making it harder for us."

:: The book most people have lied about reading - and it's not War and Peace @ The Telegraph [As of this month, I’ve read 11 of these, not counting half-heartedly listening to Alice in Wonderland. I have Anne Frank on my to-read pile.]

:: Punctuation in novels @ Medium [So fascinating!! Brief strong language alert.]

:: Words are for Lovers @ The Philology Institute

Third, words reveal the contents of our minds and hearts. That means words involve a certain amount of vulnerability. We are disclosing to the other something personal and private. We are uncovering something of our interior life, something of ourselves.

:: Standards, Grades And Tests Are Wildly Outdated, Argues 'End Of Average' @ nprEd

"Absolutely no one is precisely average."

The term he uses for this--jaggedness--is perfection. I have at least two kids who are much more jagged than average, for sure. This article is excellent, especially paired with a re-reading of the children's book Understood Betsy:

"'What's the matter?' asked the teacher, seeing her bewildered face.

"'Why--why,' said Elizabeth Ann, 'I don't know what I am at all. If I'm second-grade arithmetic and seventh-grade reading and third-gradespelling, what grade am I?'

"The teacher laughed. 'You aren't any grade at all, no matter where you are in school. You're just yourself, aren't you? What difference does it make what grade you're in? And what's the use of your reading little baby things too easy for you just because you don't know your multiplication table?'

"'Well, for goodness' sakes!' ejaculated Elizabeth Ann, feeling very much as though somebody had stood her suddenly on her head.

"'What's the matter?' asked the teacher again.

"This time Elizabeth Ann didn't answer, because she herself didn't know what the matter was. But I do, and I'll tell you. The matter was that never before had she known what she was doing in school. She had always thought she was there to pass from one grade to another, and she was ever so startled to get a glimpse of the fact that she was there to learn how to read and write and cipher and generally use her mind, so she could take care of herself when she came to be grown up, but in that moment, she had her first dim notion of it, and it made her feel the way you do when you're learning to skate and somebody pulls away the chair you've been leaning on and says, 'Now, go it alone!'"

:: Celeste Headlee: 10 ways to have a better conversation @ TED. I need to listen to this TED talk weekly, if not daily.

:: Death, the Prosperity Gospel, and Me @ The New York Times

"The prosperity gospel has taken a religion based on the contemplation of a dying man and stripped it of its call to surrender all. Perhaps worse, it has replaced Christian faith with the most painful forms of certainty. The movement has perfected a rarefied form of America’s addiction to self-rule, which denies much of our humanity: our fragile bodies, our finitude, our need to stare down our deaths (at least once in a while) and be filled with dread and wonder. At some point, we must say to ourselves, I’m going to need to let go."

This reminds me of the Flannery O'Connor essay I read recently (The Fiction Writer & His Country).

"He will feel that any long-continued service to [the topic of prosperity] will produce a soggy, formless, and sentimental literature, one that will provide a sense of spiritual purpose for those who connect the spirit with romanticism and a sense of joy for those who confuse that virtue with satisfaction."

In The Mind of the Maker (also on my "currently reading" stack), Dorothy Sayers quotes C.S. Lewis:

"There is kindness in Love: but Love and kindness are not coterminous...Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering... It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms..."

:: Misty Copeland Recreates Iconic Edgar Degas Artwork @ Coloures [Gorgeous!]

:: Master of Light: A Close Look at the Paintings of Johannes Vermeer Narrated by Meryl Streep @ Open Culture [video] Vermeer is one of my favorites!

:: Loving Vincent

 

More about the movie:

 

:: Music

In Which I Pour Out My Love for Khan Academy Math

Math. Honestly, it has never been my favorite subject to teach.

I started out using RightStart Math with Levi. It’s an incredible program, but incredibly teacher-intensive. It was difficult to teach Levi (my distractable non-math kid) with two younger brothers running around getting into mischief. It was even more difficult to consider teaching two boys at different levels. RightStart Math was only going to be great if I actually used it, and it started to sit on my shelf much more often than it was off the shelf in use. [I’m considering pulling it back off the shelf to teach Lola early math, however. We’ll see.]

After much math frustration with Levi and then a long break to regain sanity (around 2nd or 3rd grade), I purchased Teaching Textbooks and ended up using it for all three boys (my two younger boys were advanced in reading and math) for a few years. Honestly, it was a God-send. Math was much more enjoyable for everyone. I loved that the boys could do it independently, that it gave them instant feedback, and that it was self-grading.

Last year, Levi’s first year in the Classical Conversations Challenge program, we switched him to Saxon Math. I can see how Saxon Math is a thorough, rigorous program. But it almost killed us. Even doing only half the problems.

What I really wanted was an interactive, inspiring, engaging, self-teaching (with excellent visual/audio instruction), instant-feedback, self-grading, mastery-based, challenging, attractive, comprehensive math program. Similar to Teaching Textbooks, but better.

I had used Khan Academy occasionally in the past for a video here and there, and I loved Sal Khan’s teaching style. What I hadn’t realized is just how much they’ve added to Khan Academy recently. It is now a complete math program.

So we’ve been using Khan Academy as our main math “spine” since September and I adore it.

It is an online math (and so much more!!) program, and it’s free. Let me repeat that in case you didn’t read it correctly the first time:

It’s FREE.

It blows my mind.

Students can work online on a computer or on mobile devices with the Khan app.

Parents sign up for an account and then their students sign up for their own account under the parent.

Students choose a grade level (K-8th) or a subject (pre-algebra and up through college math). They complete a Mission Warm-Up to assess their current knowledge.

When a student logs in, they can go to their mission page (the grade level or subject they are working through).

This is what Luke’s mission page looks like:

On the left it tells him what percent of the mission (grade level or subject) he has completed. It also tells him which skills he has practiced, which skills he has mastered, and which skills he has yet to complete in each topic. He can click “show all skills” to see all the little boxes, or “hide skill breakdown” to minimize it. He can click on any one of the little squares if he wants to choose his next skill to practice. When he hovers over the square, it will tell him what the skill is and give a preview.

On the right he is given suggested next tasks.

When he clicks on a skill to practice, his screen looks like this (I think this is a screen-shot of a 5th grade skill):

The program is mastery-based. In the upper right-hand corner, students can see exactly how many problems they need to complete correctly and independently to successfully practice the skill. For this particular skill, they must get the first two correct or five in a row if they miss one.

If they need instruction, each problem gives them a direct link to the video with instruction for that particular skill. The video pops up on their screen. They can watch it and then return directly to the practice. If they need help working through the problem, they can click on “show me how.” Each time they click the button, they are shown one step of the problem. (This screen shot shows one hint.) They can watch every problem worked through and explained step by step! If they ask for a hint, that problem does not count as correct. Students then work through the problems until they can get the designated number in a row correct.

Students can use a scratchpad on the screen when needed (with a mouse on the computer or finger with the app), but my boys usually use scratch paper and a pencil. A calculator function pops up on the screen when they are allowed to use it for the skill.

After a student has successfully practiced a skill, they are given a mastery challenge after a specified amount of time has passed (often 16 hours). Previous skills are randomly tested in mastery challenges to determined whether the skill or concept is still mastered. If not, it gets bumped back down to “practiced” status rather than “mastered” status.

The levels are connected and build on each other. Some skills are covered in multiple levels. If a student masters a skill in 4th grade that is also covered in the 5th grade level, it will already show as mastered when they move up a level so they do not have to repeat concepts (unless they show up briefly in mastery challenges).

Students work at their own pace. They work on skills and concepts until they are mastered. They level up as soon as they are ready.

I’m not even touching the surface of the program. Students earn “badges” and avatars. They can see graphs of their activity. You can add “coaches” to their account so other adults can encourage or challenge them.

One of the best aspects of the program is the parent page. Parents have access to detailed, customizable reports for each of their students.

I can see with an easy glance at his activity summary, for any specified period of time (including daily), just how much time my child has actually spent working on Khan, what videos he watched, what skills he practiced, what skills he is struggling with, and more. Or I can click on “full progress report” (below). I can expand or minimize each category.

 

 

So here are the cons:

Students have to have internet access. (But they can log in from anywhere at any time!)

Students are not given a specified day’s lesson. I usually give my boys a set amount of time, and I can verify the time they spend and their activity from my parent account. I’ve found this helpful because the boys can work on math even if we have varied amounts of time available depending on the day.

Some kids may struggle with deciding what to do next. They are given suggestions, but they may feel it is too open-ended. Some kids may need more parental direction.

A student must be able to read and follow directions or have parental assistance. (Teaching Textbooks, on the other hand, has a narrator reading the problems aloud, so that is helpful for struggling readers.)

 

 

Khan is constantly upgrading and improving the program, as well, so look for more features in the future!

Well, there you have it. I didn’t even mention the computer programing or the science or many other subjects that Khan offers. You’ll have to check it out yourself. [grin]

I’ll end this post with one of Sal Khan’s instructional videos, just to give you a taste.

Self-Education

I spend my days educating my children. Well, I use the term “educating” loosely. I attempt to provide an atmosphere of learning and quality content to draw from. Some days (not often) that looks like strict lessons in Latin and grammar. Most days, for better or worse, that looks suspiciously like unschooling.

One of the greatest things parents can do to create a home atmosphere that encourages learning is to let their children see them learning. This benefits children in several ways, but I’d like to highlight just one benefit at the moment.

Learning new things is hard.

I think parents forget this sometimes. 

Some of us have been long-removed from situations in which ideas or skills are brand-new to us. Maybe we forget the frustration that sometimes accompanies the learning process. Maybe we forget how it feels to be awkward at something new. Maybe we forget the stress that hits when we are asked a question we have no answers for.

Have your kids watched you struggle with something new? Something difficult? Have your children watched you choose to learn something for its own sake, because learning is a worthwhile pursuit?

When your kids are struggling with learning something new or doing something difficult, do you think of a time when you felt the same way?

Have you experienced that moment of break-through, when a skill or an idea you’ve been wrestling with suddenly (or not so suddenly) comes with something resembling ease? Have you shared that moment with your children?

I’ve had Spencerian handwriting copybooks on my shelf for a few years, always meaning to get around to them—some day. This past month I realized that I needed a now or never moment, so I pulled them off the shelf and just began. No planning. No ceremony. No beautiful fountain pen. Just the kitchen table, a pencil, and me.

It so happens that I discovered something: Spencerian handwriting is difficult for me. It’s frustrating. I, who have always enjoyed handwriting, have found a challenge.

So each day, as the boys sit down at the table to do their math on Khan Academy (which deserves a whole post of its own), I sit down at the table with my handwriting copybooks and my belated inexpensive fountain pens and write. I’m still waiting for a break-through. But my boys are watching me try and struggle and keep at it, and I’m experiencing empathy for them as they try and struggle and need encouragement to keep at it.

In addition to the Spencerian handwriting—which is just for me; I’m not requiring the kids to do it—I’ve also restarted Duolingo Spanish. Just a few minutes each day is all it takes (at home on the computer or on the go with the app, and it’s FREE!). The boys are not learning Spanish; it’s just for me. (Though guess who wants to learn Spanish now? That’s right. All of them.)

Just a few minutes each day—but I make sure my boys see me trying something difficult and keeping at it…

…Because learning is a joy, even when it’s hard.

On Rhetoric ~ Socratic Dialogue 2 [Paul Harvey]

In my last post on the subject of formal rhetoric, I introduced you to the canons of rhetoric, the basic arrangement of a persuasive essay or speech, and the modes of persuasion. I’d like to focus on the modes of persuasion and a new topic (elocution) in this post.

Elocution pertains to the style in which you state your ideas. This includes word choice, sentence structure, and figures of speech.

“Parallelism is actually a “figure of speech,” a sentence pattern that varies the ordinary or conventional use of language. Figures come in two types, those which vary standard word order and those which vary standard word usage: a figure is either a scheme or a trope. If parallelism is the most important scheme, metaphor is the most important trope. Metaphor is like similie since both compare two items; a metaphor is an identity, however, where a similie is an analogy.” [Scott F. Crider, The Office of Assertion]

 

There are two main categories of figures of speech: schemes and tropes.

 

Schemes appeal to the senses.

These figures of speech have a pleasing or attention-grabbing sound to the ear. Many schemes use repetition of sounds or structure, rhyme or rhythm.

Alliteration is one of the most familiar schemes. It is the repetition of consonant sounds in close proximity, usually at the beginning of words. For example, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is loaded with alliteration in every line.

This king lay at Camelot at Christmas-tide
with many a lovely lord, lieges most noble,
indeed of the Table Round all those tried brethren,
amid merriment unmatched and mirth without care.
There tourneyed many a time the trusty knights,
and jousted full joyously these gentle lords;
then to the court they came at carols to play.

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds rather than consonant sounds.

Parallelism (about which I’ve written at length here and here) is the repetition of structure (words, phrases, or clauses), and many other schemes of repetition rely on parallelism.

For example:

Chiasmus is reverse repetition of a group of words, clauses, or sentences.

The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n. [Milton, Paradise Lost]

Antithesis uses parallel structure to contrast opposing ideas.

Eloquent speakers give pleasure, wise ones salvation. [Augustine] (Eloquent vs wise and pleasure vs salvation)

Anaphora is the repetition of a word or a phrase at the beginning of clauses, lines, or sentences.

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric, out of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry. [W. B. Yeats]

Epistrophe is the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of clauses, lines, or sentences.

Justice is the grammar of things. Mercy is the poetry of things. [Frederick Buechner]

 

Tropes appeal to the imagination.

These figures of speech twist the usual meaning of words and show resemblance. The two most common tropes are similie and metaphor.

A similie shows explicit resemblance and uses the words like or as.

A metaphor shows implicit resemblance by asserting that one thing is another thing.

 

We could continue on with symbolism, personification, onomatopeia, and more, but this is only a brief introduction. American Rhetoric is an excellent resource for definitions and examples of figures of speech if you want to learn more.

 

Elocution is related to the modes of persuasion, because the writer or speaker must keep his audience in mind when considering what style will be most appealing or persuasive.

Let’s quickly review the modes of persuasion before moving on to the practicum.

Ethos is an appeal based on the speaker’s credibility.

Logos is an appeal based on reason and logic.

Pathos is an appeal to the audience’s emotions.

 

Now it’s time for us to practice what we’ve learned using the following video:

 

 

 

Here’s an imperfect transcript to make discussion easier: 

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.

"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 'tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours." So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church.

“Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'” So God made a farmer.

 

And now a few questions for you. (I’d love for you all to play along in the comments.)

Is this an example of a persuasive argument?

What is this particular video’s purpose?

In the end, who is trying to persuade an audience?

Of what?

Who is the intended audience?

Whose credibility do we consider? Does the video make an appeal based on credibility? How? By association?

Does this video make an appeal based on reason or logic? In what way?

Does this video appeal to the audience’s emotions? How?

Which mode of persuasion is the strongest? Why?

How is elocution—or style—used in this video?  What is the overall style of the presentation? Do you notice any figures of speech?

Do you think this video is persuasive? Why? What is most effective about it?

Any other thoughts?

 

[Spoiler alert. Grin.]

 

 

 

 

 

The recording is a speech originally delivered by Paul Harvey in 1978. This particular video is a Ram commercial from the 2013 Super Bowl. (Paul Harvey passed away in 2009.)

I indentified some of the figures of speech as examples.

Rhyme/rhythm: seed, weed, feed, breed

Assonance: “sigh, reply…smiling eyes”

Alliteration: “planned paradise,” “plow and plant,” “ride, ruts, race”

Parallelism (so many examples!) “clear trees, heave bails, tame lambs, wean pigs…” “tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work,” “shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, make harness out of haywire…”

Anaphora: “God said, I need somebody”

Epistrophe: “So God made a farmer.”

Antitheses: “strong enough/gentle enough” and “heave bails/tame lambs”

Metaphor?: “bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing” “plow deep and straight and not cut corners” (Is he just talking about plowing here?)

Foreshadowing: Images of Ram Trucks in film before identifying item being advertised

Did you notice any others?

Reading List Challenge 2016!!

I have been slaving (delightfully) over creating a reading challenge list for myself for 2016, but I’m having trouble organizing it this year. I’m reading for several different book groups and classes, and I’m not sure how to list the books nor how many books I can possibly read this year. I’d love for that number to be over 100, but it’s never going to happen! So many books, so little time!

I didn’t want to put off posting about books until I could get my act together, so we’ll begin with a starter list and the books I’ve already finished this past month. I hope to have something resembling a final list by next month, but we all know I’ll add a bunch over the course of the year and not get around to half the books on my original “hope to read” list.

 

January Reading

Children’s classic novels, sci-fi, classic short stories, biography, faith/culture/education, classic novel, fantasy, devotional, picture books, Shakespeare, essays, epic poetry… I think I read a little of everything this past month!!

:: Daddy-Long-Legs [Easy, short, old-fashioned, charming, funny, romantic novel—in short, a perfect way to start the new year.]

:: The Martian [Gripping, fascinating, hilarious, and stressful sci-fi novel. The most interesting scientific and technical “manual” I’ve ever read, and science/technology/sci-fi are not my things. Lots of language and short, choppy journal-style writing for most of the book but it fit with the story. It is a fantastic tribute to human ingenuity and spirit, with an up-beat can-do attitude.]

:: The Terrible Speed of Mercy [I loved this biography of Flannery O’Connor. It is peppered with quotes from O’Connor’s own writings (letters and essays) as well as details about her stories. I feel much more equipped to understand her fiction writing.]

:: Dragonflight [Classic fantasy, and Russ’s favorite author. Fantasy is not my genre, but this one was enjoyable. Definitely some adult situations and not for young children.]

:: Far From the Madding Crowd [This was my first Thomas Hardy novel, and I loved it. His descriptions are vivid paintings, and I laughed out loud more times than I could count. His characters sprung to life. This is an early contender for 2016 favorites. I enjoyed the new movie version as well. 4 1/2 stars.]

:: Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness, and Beauty [There are some gems in this book, but I feel as if I had to work so hard to mine them. The last chapter of the book is fantastic, though.]

:: The Family Under the Bridge [This short children’s chapter book was a re-read for me. Our Book Detectives group had a wonderful literary analysis discussion on this one.]

:: Heidi [I don’t know that I had ever actually read this one all the way through before. The boys LOVED it. Every day they would ask for me to read just one more chapter, and then just one more! In fact, one evening Russ sat down and listened with us and he wasn’t content with the two extra chapters, so he sat next to me after the kids went to bed and I watched a movie and he read the rest of the book, laughing out loud and reading passages to me from time to time. 4 1/2 stars]

In Progress

:: Flannery O’Connor: The Complete Stories [I read The Geranium, Revelation, and A Good Man Is Hard to Find.]

:: Mystery and Manners [I read a few of her essays this past month and hope to finish the book in February.]

:: The Iliad [I’m limping along and need to pick up the pace!]

:: Words Aptly Spoken: Short Stories [I’m reading this collection and discussing with Levi and McKinnon over the next few months. We read nine of the stories this past month.]

:: Listening to Your Life [I continue to enjoy this daily devotional filled with excerpts from Frederick Buechner’s writings.]

:: Ambleside Online Year O Reading List [I’m reading all the books on this list aloud to Lola this year.]

:: Plutarch’s Lives [I will be attempting to slow-read this one with the boys this year. I may chicken out and read the Greenleaf Guides Famous Men of Greece and Famous Men of Rome instead. Or even Augustus Caesar’s World.]

:: Julius Caesar retold by Leon Garfield [I’m working through both story volumes with the boys this year.]

:: Understood Betsy [Another re-read, but it had been a while since my last time through!]

 

The Beginning Stages of the 2016 Reading Challenge Master List

(Books marked out have been completed)

Devotional

Listening to Your Life by Frederick Buechner [in progress]

Real-Life Schole Sisters

The Terrible Speed of Mercy: A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O’Connor

Flannery O’Connor: The Complete Stories [in progress]

Mystery and Manners [in progress]

Online Schole Sisters

Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness & Beauty

Leisure: The Basis of Culture (re-read)

[Also discussing Flannery O’Connor with this group.]

Symposium at Parnassus (Facebook Group)

Understood Betsy (re-read) [in progress]

Jack and Jill (Alcott)

Little Women

Little Men

Rose in Bloom

Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education [in progress from 2015]

Plutarch’s Lives [In progress]

Potato Peel Pie Society (Facebook Group)

[Ambleside Online Year O book list with Lola]

Dragonflight

Julius Caesar (re-telling by Leon Garfield) [In progress]

The Taming of the Shrew (“)

The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers (re-read)

The Green Ember/ Black Star Rising

Surprised by Joy

ChocLit Guild

Far from the Madding Crowd

The Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare by Chesterton

Wonder

Becoming Human by Jean Vanier

Book Detectives

The Family Under the Bridge  (re-read)

Dominic (re-read)

The Cricket in Times Square (re-read)

Symposium Read-Alouds (with boys)

Shakespeare (Leon Garfield, both volumes -Hamlet and The Tempest) [in progress]

Heidi

The Princess Bride

Tuck Everlasting

Roman Roads Western Culture Greeks with Levi

[Also discussing with online Schole Sisters]

The Iliad [in progress]

The Odyssey

CC Challenge B short stories [2015-16] (with Levi and McKinnon)

Words Aptly Spoken: Short Stories

God Lives by Hans Christian Andersen
The Teapot by Hans Christian Andersen
The Bet by Anton Chekhov
The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde
Little Girls Wiser than Men by Leo Tolstoy
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Mansion by Henry Van Dyke
Araby by James Joyce
The Schoolboy’s Story by Charles Dickens
That Spot by Jack London
The Red-Headed League by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Celestial Railroad by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett
A Man and the Snake by Ambrose Bierce
The Cop and the Anthem by O. Henry
The Necklace by Henri Guy de Maupassant
The Hammer of God by G. K. Chesterton
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain
The Bird on its Journey by Beatrice Harraden
The Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde
A King in Disguise by Matteo Bandello
The Startling Painting by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Last Lesson by Alphonse Daudet

Novels

Daddy-Long-Legs

The Martian

So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger

Heart of Darkness