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.

Literature Selections and a LTW Basic Persuasive Essay [A Gathering of Days]

The ten literature selections for the Classical Conversations Challenge A program were all chosen with the theme “Ownership” in mind, and I have loved almost all of them. I appreciate the variety of fiction and historical fiction (from Ancient Rome to World War II, and two based on the lives of real people) as well as the balance of male and female protagonists (usually around the age of Challenge A students when they face their greatest conflict).  

Number the Stars and Amos Fortune, Free Man were both first-time reads for me, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them.

It seems as if I had heard some negative comments about The Door in the Wall, but it was one of my favorites and it led to great discussions when we were working on the ANI chart.

We are discussing Crispin: The Cross of Lead this week, and I couldn’t put it down once I started reading. My book is all marked up. I hope to share some discussion notes next week. I immediately purchased the other two books in the trilogy, Crispin: At the Edge of the World and Crispin: The End of Time.

The Bronze Bow, our last literature selection, is up next. I’m looking forward to re-reading and discussing.

[I shared some thoughts about our discussion of The Secret Garden here and here and our essay outline here.]

A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-32 was the book I struggled with the most. The writing felt forced or awkward, and I didn’t care for the journal-entry style writing (which contributed to the forced story-line). I also found it very difficult to come up with a large number of entries for our ANI chart without getting wildly inventive. It wasn’t awful, I just wasn’t particularly inspired to discuss the book.

Levi and I worked on the essay together, however, and it turned out better than I expected so I am sharing here. We chose to argue a different side of the issue from what we normally do. As I shared yesterday, these basic persuasive essays are intended to be precise, reduced writing with correct structure that will allow for beautiful, high-quality, productive growth in the coming years.

It’s not perfect (especially the support for proof 3), but we’re making progress.

A Gathering of Days by Joan W. Blos

Lost Tools of Writing Basic Persuasive Essay II

Is it possible to do the wrong thing with good intentions? 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.

The first reason Catherine should not have left the blanket and food for the “phantom” was that she failed to protect herself and others from danger. Catherine, who was only a fourteen-year-old girl, knew that the “phantom” was a man by the size of his stride and footprints like craters in the ground. She did not know what kind of person he was or what his intentions were. Catherine also risked her friend’s life by asking her friend to accompany her on the mission.

The second reason Catherine should not have left the blanket and food for the “phantom” was that she failed to obey the authorities over her. Catherine kept her actions secret from her father who thought indentured servants ought to be returned and was likely to advise against helping a probable run-away slave. Catherine did not ask for any adult’s help or advice within her community. Catherine’s government, the United States, considered her action illegal. Toward the end of her journal Catherine wrote, “Thus it now appears to me that trust, and not submission, defines obedience.” (p. 139) She should have trusted her authorities.

The third reason Catherine should not have left the blanket and food for the “phantom” was that she failed to respect the property of others. The “phantom” legally belonged to someone else. He disrespected her property by stealing her book and writing in it. The quilt and food were not Catherine’s property to give away.

Catherine should not have left the blanket and food for the “phantom” because she failed to protect herself and others, she failed to obey authority, and she failed to respect the property of others. Catherine’s actions mattered most to her father because his daughter was in danger, she was under his authority, and the property given was his.

Thoughts on The Lost Tools of Writing

Have you read The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers? The essay is available online, and it is short enough that reading it yearly is a reasonable, not to mention profitable and inspiring, exercise if one is interested in the field of education, particularly classical education.

I recently re-read the essay and discovered a few nuggets that I had previously missed or perhaps forgotten. It could be that we’ve entered a new stage in our homeschool that comes with new challenges. For instance, the following quote has a painful accuracy that I did not feel so acutely a few years ago:

“It will, doubtless, be objected that to encourage young persons at the Pert age to browbeat, correct, and argue with their elders will render them perfectly intolerable. My answer is that children of that age are intolerable anyhow; and that their natural argumentativeness may just as well be canalized to good purpose as allowed to run away into the sands.”

Truly, I could not say it more eloquently.

I also experienced many “aha!” moments when I compared Sayers’s essay to the Classical Conversations syllabus.

The Lost Tools of Writing, however, was prominently on my mind at the time, and I highlighted the following passage:

Our Reading will proceed from narrative and lyric to essays, argument and criticism, and the pupil will learn to try his own hand at writing this kind of thing…

Wherever the matter for Dialectic is found, it is, of course, highly important that attention should be focused upon the beauty and economy of a fine demonstration or a well-turned argument, lest veneration should wholly die. Criticism must not be merely destructive; though at the same time both teacher and pupils must be ready to detect fallacy, slipshod reasoning, ambiguity, irrelevance, and redundancy, and to pounce upon them like rats. This is the moment when precise-writing may be usefully undertaken; together with such exercises as the writing of an essay, and the reduction of it, when written, by 25 or 50 percent.

What struck me in this passage was the idea of precise, reduced writing, or pruning, one might say.

My late grammar-stage students are allowed some haphazard “flowering” and growth while using the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) program. They liberally douse, and occasionally drown, their writing with strong verbs, quality adjectives, “ly” adverbs, vocabulary words, who/which clauses, and decorations such as alliteration. They are playing with language in order to become familiar with it. I’ve had the opportunity to listen to many IEW papers written by students in 4th-6th grades, and it is not only my boys who are not precise with their language play. This is reasonable in the grammar stage of learning.

But what of the dialectic? Dialectic is a pruning stage, and pruning is rarely beautiful.

Have you pruned a rose bush? The pruning process is orderly and precise, and the sight of the spare, harsh branches is a bit shock after the leggy late-season growth. But the benefits of judicious pruning of plants include balanced shaping and directed growth, improved air flow, improved plant health, targeted removal of non-productive or structurally unsound material, and increased yield or quality of flowers and fruits.

The rudimentary, introductory, and basic persuasive essays that students write when they begin The Lost Tools of Writing are not intended to look like the untidy sprawling of the grammar stage or the flowering masterpieces of the rhetoric stage. They are intended to be precise, reduced writing with correct structure that will allow for beautiful, high-quality, productive growth in the coming years.

The students begin playing with ideas rather than words, and they focus their attention and efforts on the systematic gathering and processing of ideas (the “invention” stage of the art of rhetoric) as they pertain to a well-turned argument. The beauty comes slowly, allowing the students to be attentive, judicious, and artful, one scheme or trope at a time.

The strength of a piece of writing is rooted in its ideas and basic structure, and the strength of The Lost Tools of Writing is the way it guides a student through the thinking (invention) and structure (arrangement) processes before moving on to style (elocution). I shared more thoughts on The Lost Tools of Writing as a thinking and conversing program here and here.

But let’s talk for a moment about the “should question.” The Lost Tools of Writing process begins with this important foundation. Students consider a character in a story (or in history), choose an action the character performed, and ask, “Should he have done that?”

Andrew Kern says that wisdom is judgment, and late-dialectic-stage students are just beginning to practice wisdom as they make judgments about a character’s actions.

Who cares if Jane runs? I sure don’t. But everybody wants to know whether the ants should have fed the grasshopper, whether Caesar should have crossed the Rubicon, and whether Odysseus should have slaughtered the suitors. These things matter because they arouse the right questions. They help students clarify their thoughts about what is just and fair, what is wise and prudent, and what is noble and honorable. [From The Greatest of All Things by Andrew Kern @ CiRCE]

In the preface of Norms and Nobility, David Hicks says this:

Although in my curriculum proposal I use history as the paradigm for contextual learning, the ethical question “What should one do?” might provide an even richer context for acquiring general knowledge. This question elicits not only knowledge, but wisdom, and it draws the interest of the student into any subject, no matter how obscure or far removed from his day-to-day concerns. It challenges the imagination and makes life the laboratory it ought to be for testing the hypotheses and lessons of the classroom. As this implies, the end of education is not thinking; it is acting.

Have we spent enough time thinking about the end of education? Is knowledge the goal? Is flowery writing the goal? Or is wisdom and right action the goal? Knowledge such as a robust vocabulary is a necessary building block, but it is nothing if the student does not move on to judicious use of words and then on to wisdom and right action.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

A few related thoughts and articles for your perusal:

:: The Holy Grail of Classical Education by Andrew Kern @ CiRCE. [Read the full article to find out why the “why?” matters. I love the concept that this question is the key to an integrated curriculum.]

If I want to see into the meaning of this event, learning the content is necessary. But it is not enough. You have to ask why he did it, what were the outcomes, what he overcame, whether he was wise to do so, what his courage purchased for us, and other big picture questions.

:: Wisdom in the Age of Information and the Importance of Storytelling in Making Sense of the World: An Animated Essay by Maria Popova [You can read the transcript at Brain Pickings, linked in title, or watch the animated video below.]

 

“At the top is wisdom, which has a moral component — it is the application of information worth remembering and knowledge that matters to understanding not only how the world works, but also how it should work. And that requires a moral framework of what should and shouldn’t matter, as well as an ideal of the world at its highest potentiality.”

The Lost Tools of Writing introduced me to the five Topics of Invention, which are tools (questions) for structured thinking. I have been amazed over and over again while playing with the first tool, definition. It astounds me that such fruit can come of something so simple as naming and defining. This first topic of invention is a fantastic way to introduce younger children to dialectic conversation. The next article and the following video show just how rich this single tool can be for a person of any age.

:: Into the Essence of Things by Danny Breed @ CiRCE.

Once you see into a thing’s heart, you can appreciate its beauty, its relationship to things around it, and how it can bless others. Yet, how does one learn to see into the essence of things? It starts with naming, which was one of the first tasks the Lord set before the first man.

:: Matt Bianco Teaches Socratic Circles

Jennifer Dow compares IEW and The Lost Tools of Writing:

:: Comparing IEW and The Lost Tools of Writing @ Expanding Wisdom

Our Basic Persuasive Essay Outline

 

[Part 1]

[Part 2]

The second morning, Levi and I worked on sorting the ANI chart and writing parallel proofs. The third morning, we talked through the exordium and amplification and typed up the essay outline. Again, we’ll have more time for these tasks and discussions for the upcoming literature selections as long as we are prioritizing our morning meetings each day! The forth morning we turned the outline into a basic persuasive essay.

For a perfect ending to a great week, we attended a local play production of The Secret Garden with a total of 35 of Levi’s classmates and family members after we all enjoyed a potluck dinner together. There is so much to be said for educating our children within a community. I love these people.

Here is our outline, for those of you who might be interested!

The Secret Garden

 

Basic Persuasive Essay Outline [The Lost Tools of Writing]

(With exordium, amplification, and parallel proofs)

I. Introduction

A. [Exordium] “While the secret garden was coming alive and two children were coming alive with it, there was a man wandering about certain far-away beautiful places in the Norwegian fiords and the valleys and mountains of Switzerland and he was a man who for ten years had kept his mind filled with dark and heart-broken thinking. He had not been courageous; he had never tried to put any other thoughts in the place of the dark ones…He had forgotten and deserted his home and his duties.“ (The Secret Garden, pp 223-224)

B. [Thesis] Archibald Craven should not have purposefully stayed away from his son, Colin.

C. [Enumeration] 3

D. Exposition

     1. To fulfill his duties as a man, father

     2. To meet Colin’s needs for a relationship

     3. To experience true joy, rather than misery

II. Proof

A. [Proof 1] To fulfill his duties as a man, father

     1. [Support 1.1] Brave

     2. [Support 1.2] Face responsibilities

     3. [Support 1.3] Father responsible for care of child

B. [Proof 2] To meet Colin’s needs for a relationship

     1. [Support 2.1] Spoiled, needed father’s discipline

     2. [Support 2.2] Needed father’s love and attention, especially since mother was dead

     3. [Support 2.3] Needed father to show him how to be a man--strong, brave, loving

C. [Proof 3] To experience true joy, rather than misery

     1. [Support 3.1] Colin not a hunchback

     2. [Support 3.2] Alone and in prolonged grief rather than loving relationship

     3. [Support 3.3] Delayed reward of happiness greater than hope of immediate comfort or convenience

III. Conclusion

A. One sentence recapitulation

     1. [Thesis] Archibald Craven should not have purposefully stayed away from his son, Colin.

     2. Summary of Proof

          a. [Proof 1] To fulfill his duties as a man, father

          b. [Proof 2] To meet Colin’s needs for a relationship

          c. [Proof 3] To experience true joy, rather than misery

B. Amplification

     1. [To whom it matters] Children

     2. [Why] Children whose honorable fathers are present and have a relationship with them have a better chance at living a happy, healthy life.

Contemplation, Conversation, and the ANI Chart ~ Part 2

Or “Lost Tools of Writing, the ‘How to Talk with Your Teenager’ Program, Continued”

[Read Part 1 here.]

I had to ask Levi not to give me immediate answers (usually “I don’t know!”)—I wasn’t expecting immediate “right” answers. I wanted him to think about each question or idea for a little bit. There would be no “points” detracted for not knowing, and we’d talk it through if he really couldn’t come up with something; we’d ask more questions until we did think of something!

[Keep in mind, the affirmative or negative reasons don’t need to be “good” reasons. We all have reasons for doing something that turn out to be bad reasons, but they are still compelling reasons for us at the time! We’re exploring all reasons in the ANI chart phase. The judgment comes later.]

:: The first topic of invention is definition.

We’ll start with the basics. What is Colin’s father?

He’s a man.

What is a man? Wait. Do you know what objective and subjective mean?

I think so, but I can’t remember which is which.

Well, think of objective like an object. You can give facts about an object, such as its weight or substance or color, that most people wouldn’t argue about. You can touch it; it’s concrete. Think of subjective as an idea that is subject to someone’s opinion or interpretation.

So what are some objective definitions of a man?

A man is a male human who has gone through the biological changes of puberty. In our culture, every 18 year old male can vote, be drafted for military service, get married, or go to jail; every 21 year old (and older) male can purchase alcohol and is considered a fully legal adult. In some cultures, boys become men when they go through initiation ceremonies. Those are all facts.

What are some subjective definitions of a man?

A man is brave. A man is adventurous. A man respects women. A man honors his country and family. A man faces his duties. A man provides for his family.

Do any of those definitions tell you whether Colin’s father should have stayed away?

He shouldn’t have stayed away, because he needed to be brave, and he needed to face his duties to his family. He should have stayed away, because his duties were business and traveling.

What else is Colin’s father?

He’s a father.

What are some objective definitions of a father?

A man who has a biological child or a man who has legally adopted a child.

What are some subjective definitions of a father?

A man who considers the needs of his children and provides for them and loves them.

What are some objective needs of a child?

Water, sleep, food, shelter, protection.

What are some subjective needs of a child?

Books!

Do all children need books? Did they need books in 400 BC? Do they need books in remote tribes in Africa? How about education? Does a mother polar bear educate her cub? Is this necessary for survival?

Maybe some education is an objective need. [A universal definition of education might be the knowledge and skills a human needs to survive independently. Our own cultural definition of objective education might be the ability to read, write, and understand basic math.]

How about attention, nurturing, and love? Are those objective or subjective? How about entertainment and possessions? Is pizza food or entertainment? How about birthday cake?…

Colin’s father should have stayed away because he made sure he had provided for Colin’s objective needs and hired someone to take care of him, but he should not have stayed away because Colin needed his father’s love and attention.

[What else is Colin’s father? An uncle. A widower. A rich man. A physically weak man. An Englishman… He should have stayed away because he was grieving and sick... Really, simply discussing the definition of one “term” of the issue could take hours.]

What is Colin?

A boy. A sickly, spoiled, lonely, confined boy who can’t walk but doesn’t have a hunchback and whose mother has died.

We talked about the basic needs of a child, but what were some of his needs specifically?

Colin’s father should not have stayed away because Colin needed a father’s discipline, a parent’s love and attention, and someone to model how one should face difficulties and embrace life. Colin’s father should have stayed away because Colin was unpleasant and reminded him of his dead wife.

:: The second topic of invention is comparison.

How is Colin’s father similar to Mary’s father? How are they different?

[Going back to the text to re-read how Mary’s father was described…]

They were both sickly and busy men and fathers. They were both rich and hired someone else to take care of their children. His father was a widower, but her father was not.

How is Colin’s father similar to Dickon? How are they different?

They are both male. Their homes are in the same part of England. Colin’s father is a man, but Dickon is only a boy. Colin’s father is rich and absent, Dickon is poor and nurturing.

Oh, rich and poor! Are there different cultural expectations for a rich father and a poor father?…

[How is Colin’s father similar to or different from Mrs. Medlock? A horse? A rock? Grief? How is Colin similar to or different from Mary? Dickon? You?]

:: The third topic of invention is circumstance.

When and where did the issue take place?

Misselthwaite Manor, Yorkshire, England around 1900. Colin’s father traveled all over Europe instead of being at home.

[Oh, what were the cultural expectations of a rich father in England in 1900?]

What was happening in the place with which the question is concerned?

Colin’s father left the manor and traveled all over Europe. He was grief-stricken and miserable. Colin became sickly and spoiled. Mary came to live at the Manor. The garden was revived and Colin learned to walk. (Colin’s father should not have stayed away so that he could care for his niece, experience the revival of the garden, and find that happiness was to be found at home.)

What was happening elsewhere?

Great Britain was ruling India. (He should have stayed away because Englishmen were supposed to be adventurous.)

[Teddy Roosevelt, the Wright Brothers, and the Ford Motor Company were happing in the U.S. around 1900.]

[This is probably the moment Levi looked at the clock and said, “Mom, our time’s up.” I told him there is no scheduled time limit. We’re going to talk as long as we are enjoying the conversation and we have something to talk about or we come to a natural stopping place.]

:: The fourth topic of invention is relationship.

What happened immediately before the time of the issue?

Colin’s mother died. (He should have stayed away because he was grieving. He should have stayed away because Colin reminded him of his dead wife.) The garden was shut. (He should have stayed away because the garden held bad memories for him.)

What happened immediately afterward?

When he returned home to the garden, everyone was happy. (He should not have stayed away because his home, family, and garden are what would bring him true happiness.)

[What are the objective and subjective definitions of home?]

[This is where questions about cause and effect fit in, as well.]

:: The fifth topic of invention is authority.

What is the difference between a witness and an expert?

Who is a witness to the issue within the story? What did they have to say about the issue? How reliable is their testimony? Are there additional witnesses?

Who is an expert about the issue within the story? What is his opinion? What is the source of his opinion? Is he reliable?

[This led to an interesting conversation about Dr. Craven. Was he Archibald Craven’s brother? Is he considered an expert when he didn’t seem to do Colin much good and he let his own interests interfere with his responsibility to treat Colin?]

______________________________________________________________________________________________

I didn’t share our whole conversation, just a small sample. If we had been diligent about doing Lost Tools together the past couple weeks we would have had more time to delve into each topic (a whole week to discuss the 5 common topics rather than a single day). So much more could have been discussed! It was my own fault. Obviously, definition alone could take hours if we wanted it to, starting with just one issue and two terms to define!

We worked through the topics orally and only made notes on our ANI chart.

As we compared our A column with our N column, we noticed that the majority of our column A had to do with immediate comfort or convenience and the majority of our column N had to do with facing a difficult task and reaping delayed rewards.

We can say that the answer to this issue is obvious.

But do we make bad decisions for the wrong reasons, convincing ourselves that our actions are justified? Yep.

Do we make poor decisions even when we know we should have done the opposite? Yep.

People,

I had a leisurely conversation with my 13 year old son about what it is to be a man, to be a father. The objective and subjective needs of children. The definition of education. How cultural expectations change the way we see our roles in life. That it is better to make decisions based on long term rewards rather than immediate comfort.

He would search for information in the text and read aloud interesting passages. Or I would read a passage to him.

This, THIS is what my 13 year old needed.

Contemplation: big ideas and disciplined, structured, deep thinking.

Conversation: big ideas and disciplined, structured, deep thinking—together.

Relationship: relaxed, one-on-one, verbal, no “right answers,” no “hurry up, we’re behind,” no lecturing, no frustrated interaction with another human being.

He is firmly in the dialectic/logic stage of development and of his education, and these questions are my tools to meet him where he is as a student and a human being.

It’s what I needed.

A reminder that education is not about a check list or a product or a schedule. That slowing down to think and connect is education. That playing with ideas is education.

A chance to connect with my son in a joyful, fascinating discussion, without frustration and unmet expectations.

If that’s all we do in a day, it is a day well-spent.

If I dropped every subject but one, we’d keep literature and The Lost Tools of Writing—even if we never got past the ANI chart and the 5 topics of invention. (We’d probably continue to do an hour of math each day, as well. But we’d ask questions about numbers!)

This is the dialectic stage of education, and I need to remember that my main teaching tool is a good question, and conversation is a relational activity. The goal of this stage is to begin thinking well. The papers the students write now (in Challenge A, at the beginning of Lost Tools), after the deep thinking, are very simply the pruned, organized thoughts. I don’t want Levi (and myself) to become distracted by an expectation of eloquent writing. The elocution will come slowly, one carefully implemented trope or scheme at a time, as Levi moves into the expressive rhetoric stage in the following years.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

If you are interested in exploring the dialectic stage of development and education as well as the 5 common topics of invention, I highly recommend The Question by Leigh Bortins. She explains each topic and shows how to use the questions across all subjects.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

[Next up: Our Basic Persuasive Essay Outline with Exordium and Amplification]

Contemplation, Conversation, and the ANI Chart ~ Part 1

Or “Lost Tools of Writing, the ‘How to Talk with Your Teenager’ Program”

After Levi expressed his frustration over his Lost Tools of Writing assignments, I promised him that we’ll do that subject together, every day, first thing in the morning.

We had our community day for Challenge A on Monday, but Tuesday morning he remembered. “Mom, you said you would do Lost Tools with me, first thing.”

I told him to bring his papers to the kitchen table and we’d sit down together while I ate my breakfast and drank my tea, leisurely*. (I often eat standing up because, you know, hurry, hurry, hurry. And hello, Whole30, because I didn’t have enough on my plate—ha!—and I’m modeling doing hard things.)

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Christian education is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on truth, goodness, and beauty by means of the seven liberal arts and the four sciences so that, in Christ, the student is enabled to better know, glorify, and enjoy God.” [CiRCE]

A liberal education is not for the purpose of productivity but for the purpose of making minds free.

I can believe that with every cell of my body. But I am also human. And a mother who has a lot on her plate. And I’m lazy. And impatient.

I like either having nothing to do, or doing something quickly and having something to show for the work.

 

But this educating our children and ourselves, it is not easy, and it is not a sprint. It is a marathon, a life-long labor of love.

In our rush for output, we skip the difficult, nonquantifiable but essential step of contemplation and hurry along the quantifiable products of filled-in blanks on a worksheet or, count them, 30 items in each column of the ANI chart. We succumb to the pressures of schedule- and productivity-based educational goals.

I had been using the Lost Tools of Writing as a worksheet and writing program, but I was wrong.

The Lost Tools of Writing is a program that teaches students how to think.

I KNEW this. But I had forgotten.

The problem with thinking, or contemplation, is that it takes time and a willingness to set aside time-limits, to set aside the to-do list, to set aside the expectation of a product, to set aside all the trivial distractions in our physical space and in our minds. And, for those of us (me) not accustomed to focused, structured contemplation, it is difficult.

If it is difficult for us as adults, how much more difficult must it be for a thirteen-year-old boy?! And if we cannot spare the time and energy to model the process and value of contemplation, how will our children and students learn; will they believe us when we say it is important?

The Lost Tools of Writing is also the opportunity to talk about big, formational ideas with an adolescent—indirectly (not about their own decisions), without lecturing or moralizing. It is the opportunity to educate relationally.

It’s the “How to Talk with Your Teenager” program. And it’s GOLD.

This is what I discovered yesterday morning, during a two-hour un-rushed conversation, while we enjoyed each other’s company and ideas. True leisure.

*“At the heart of any culture worthy of the name is not work but leisure, schole in Greek, a word that lies at the root of the English word ‘school.’ At its highest, leisure is contemplation. It is an activity that is its own justification, the pure expression of what it is to be human…” ~ Stratford Caldecott, Beauty for Truth's Sake

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I began by sharing with Levi the benefit of creating an issue and an ANI chart (more about those in a minute for those of you not familiar with Lost Tools).

We contribute ideas to an ANI chart using the five common topics of invention in order to:

1. Think about and understand a story more deeply, and return to the text to remember more details.

2. Think about and know a character more deeply.

3. Think about and understand human nature more deeply, which should make us more empathetic.

4. Think about and understand ourselves, our nature, and our own decisions more deeply.

5. Practice making better decisions, and learn to use an ANI chart when faced with big decisions.

6. Learn to study the other side of arguments for clearer (unbiased) thinking, reasoning, and debating (which will be particularly helpful for policy debate in Challenge I).

 

With Lost Tools of Writing, the student chooses a “should question,” which he then turns into an issue on which he writes a persuasive essay.

In Classical Conversations Challenge A, students have assigned books to read (10 books in 30 weeks) from which they pull their issue. This month (the first weeks of the second semester), students read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Levi asked the question “Should Colin’s father have stayed away from him purposely?” This question becomes the issue “whether Colin’s father should have stayed away from him purposely.”

Students then create an ANI chart—one column for A (affirmative reasons), N (negative reasons), and I (interesting statements or questions about the story that do not seem to fit in column A or N).

This is often when the instinctive, impulsive “of course he shouldn’t have” or “I don’t know” statements begin. Or the tedious torture of wringing blood from a rock and finding 30 reasons to place in each column.

But, BUT, the student is given TOOLS, and those tools are called the 5 Topics of Invention, which is the first cannon of Rhetoric. Essentially, they are five categories of questions to ask (about anything!) to help a person think—structured brainstorming, really.

These tools can help eliminate the spontaneous reactions (of course he shouldn’t have done it) and the empty head (I don’t know, I have no idea, where do I even start). They are tools of inquiry to gather an inventory of facts and ideas. They promote focused, organized, interactive thinking. They are conversational.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[Next post: Our Conversation]

Poetry, Music, the Nine Muses, and More

I went down a bit of a rabbit trail earlier today, although the subject matter has (obviously) been on my mind recently.

It started while reading the language arts series by Michael Clay Thompson. I am re-reading the Island level with Luke and including Leif this time around. We diagram sentences together daily from one or another level of practice books (we have Island, Town, and Voyage), and Levi often joins us. MCT provides wonderfully imaginative sentences to analyze, and he includes fantastic comments for each one including vocabulary and Latin stems, grammar notes, and poetic devices (alliteration, assonance, etc.).

Today’s sentence was “Yes, after the ceremony the enthusiasm was manifest.” I always write the sentence on the white board incorrectly (e.g. missing punctuation, misplaced capitals, duplicate words, or misspellings), and Leif and Luke’s most favorite task is the “mechanics check” when they are given the chance to correct all my mistakes using editor’s marks. We then identify the parts of speech, parts of the sentence, purpose, structure, and pattern. After the hard work of analysis comes the delightful reward of diagramming.

After our grammar work this morning, we moved on to start the vocabulary book, Building Language, in which the author takes us back to the history of Rome and the beauty and strength of the arch as it relates to architecture. He then compares the arch to the Latin language and how it influences our own.

The boys began to construct Playmobil worlds in the front room while I continued to read aloud from the poetics book, Music of the Hemispheres. It opens with a poem by Emily Dickinson: "How happy is the little stone/ That rambles in the road alone/ And doesn't care about careers/ And exigencies never fears..." [My oldest son piped up to tell me the definition of "exigencies" as applied to logical fallacies. As hard as this life can be many days, I was reminded why we’re on this adventure called homeschooling.]

In the preface of Music of the Hemispheres, Michael Clay Thompson writes:

“Being a poet is much like being a composer of symphonies. Just as a composer writes each note on a musical staff, and composes harmonies for the different instruments, and knows when to enhance the percussion or the woodwinds, a great poet has an array of tools and techniques at hand, and puts each sound on the page, one sound at a time, in a deliberately chosen rhythm, for a reason.”

MCT talks about poetry being the "music of the hemispheres" meaning that poetry uses both sides of the brain in a way similar to music (utilizing sounds, rhythm, precise form, and creativity).

Just a few short minutes after finishing our reading for the morning, I came across the following short, entertaining, and fascinating video (thank you, Facebook).

 

I started wondering if structured dance affects the brain in the same way, as it is musical and physical. A smidge more rabbit-trailing, and I came across this video (also short, fascinating, and entertaining—oh, how I love TED). Ah, of course. The nine muses of Ancient Greece: tragedy, comedy, poetry, dance, songs, history, astronomy (music of the spheres!), hymns, and epic poetry.

 

[At this point in my rambling, I’m itching to share twenty quotes about educating the poetic imagination, music, and the history of classical education from Beauty for Truth's Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education by Stratford Caldecott, but that would make an already lengthy blog post unreasonably unwieldy. You’ll just have to read the book yourself.]

And then I began free-falling down a rabbit hole.

::  How to Read Music (engaging introductory video, again by TED). This brilliantly sums up the current music theory unit we are studying in the Classical Conversations Foundations program.

 

::  Reading a Poem: 20 Strategies @ The Atlantic. This is a surprisingly humorous and quite helpful how-to essay.

7. A poem cannot be paraphrased. In fact, a poem’s greatest potential lies in the opposite of paraphrase: ambiguity. Ambiguity is at the center of what is it to be a human being. We really have no idea what’s going to happen from moment to moment, but we have to act as if we do.

12. A poem can feel like a locked safe in which the combination is hidden inside. In other words, it’s okay if you don’t understand a poem. Sometimes it takes dozens of readings to come to the slightest understanding. And sometimes understanding never comes. It’s the same with being alive: Wonder and confusion mostly prevail.

::  This Bird’s Songs Share Mathematical Hallmarks With Human Music @ Smithsonian. The hermit thrush prefers to sing in harmonic series, a fundamental component of human music.

::  50 Great Teachers: Socrates, The Ancient World's Teaching Superstar @ nprED. [Yes, this is a stretch, but we’re talking about education in Ancient Greece, right?]

"That's at the heart of the Socratic method that's come down to us from the streets of Athens: dialogue-based critical inquiry. The goal here is to focus on the text, ideas and facts — not just opinions — and to dig deeper through discussion."

"The Socratic method forces us to take a step back from that and ask questions like: What's going on here? What does this possibly mean?" Ogburn says. "What's important? What's less important? What might be motivating this person to say this?"

::  Researchers explore links between grammar, rhythm @ Vanderbilt University. [If this doesn’t bring us full circle, I don’t know what would.]

In grammar, children’s minds must sort the sounds they hear into words, phrases and sentences and the rhythm of speech helps them to do so. In music, rhythmic sequences give structure to musical phrases and help listeners figure out how to move to the beat.

And to reward you for your perseverance all the way to the end of this post:

Memory and Writing [and some strong words about math]

Andrew Pudewa blessed our socks off this past week. He was in town (in our little town!) for four days of writing workshops and parent seminars. Luke and Leif (and I) attended an introductory writing workshop and Levi attended an intermediate research writing workshop. I attended both evenings of parent seminars—4 Deadly Errors of Teaching Writing and Freedomship Education (you can find those talks in the IEW Resources). I had heard both talks years ago, but I needed, desperately needed, to hear them again. Andrew Pudewa is an entertaining and inspiring communicator. The boys were completely engaged at the workshops, even though they are not fond of writing.

Since we’re on the subject of writing and I’ve recently shared a couple posts about memorization, I thought it would be fun to revisit Levi’s little tirade about math from earlier this year (he had just turned 12). I shared this quote (and essay link) from Andrew Pudewa a couple weeks ago:

“One simple and immutable fact about the human brain is that you can’t get something out of it that isn’t there to start with. Supernatural inspiration notwithstanding, human beings in general—and children in particular—really can’t produce... thoughts or concepts that they haven’t first experienced and stored. In other words, we cannot think a thought we don’t have to begin with. Even the most unique, creative, and extraordinary ideas can only exist as a combination and permutation of previously learned bits of information.” ~Andrew Pudewa, 1 Myth, 2 Truths

Levi does not enjoy writing assignments of any sort because he does not process words and ideas well before he speaks or writes. The words come spontaneously and he processes after the fact. I have a feeling that the poetry and speech memorization we do as a family will have more impact on his future writing than anything else. The following was written spontaneously in his math workbook when he was supposed to be processing numbers instead of words, and I can see bits and pieces of his memory work (Shakespeare, John Donne, and more) sprinkled throughout. It is indeed a “permutation of previously learned bits of information.”

Musings of a Student

Math, be not proud. Thou art mean and base. Thou hath no royal luster in thy eyes. Give me those who art tired of thy blusters and brags. Send these to me. Math, thou shalt die. Thou shalt die a death so profound that none shall remember thee, or revive thee. Thy death shall be cause of rejoicin’. All the school masters shall be merry for math was a subject none would learn. The schoolboy would no longer creep like a snail, now he would run faster than a cheetah. A cheetah would wonder why he had been so challenged. One king will decree that addition symbols will be fed to his falcons. Ah, these simple musings do no good. I must be done, gentle listeners, for even papers have ears.

A Friday

 

Hangnails

Luke crawled in bed with me at 6am. He said his leg hurt and he wanted to go to the hospital. I gave him some ibuprofen and we snuggled for a bit. I crawled out before 6:30 to shower. Spent a little more time pampering myself than usual. As I was walking out of the bathroom before 7, Lola was calling me. Sigh. I walked up to her room and she asked, “What is that beautiful smell, Mom? I can’t know where it’s coming from.” When I lay down beside her, she smelled my arm and said, “That’s it.” I told her I had put on lotion. She said, “It’s beautiful.” I snuggled with her hoping she would go back to sleep. No such luck. I left her lying there and woke up Levi at 7:20. So much for alone time today.

I didn’t fill out my SPS or do Bible study or stay on task this morning, but it is what it is. My days are not in competition with each other.

My morning was filled with little tasks. I realized Levi was almost finished with his math program, which sent me on a rabbit trail thinking of what we needed to be doing in the next few months. (I obviously do not follow a strict lesson plan and schedule!) In order to know what we need to be doing for the next few months, I had to think ahead to next year. That set me to thinking about the Classical Conversations Challenge program, which Levi will be entering in the fall. Serious rabbit trail. I’ll have to write and share about that in a separate post. But I did order a new math program today (completely new for us, not just leveling up).

I also registered us for outdoor school in April with our distance learning program. This is our first year to attend, and Russ and I will go along with the three boys (leaving Lola with…someone, ha!).

Lola needed a nap today, so I managed to get her down and then spent some concentrated afternoon time working on lessons with the boys. Luke and I wrote a rough draft of his writing assignment. I might share it below. Levi went. to. town. on his writing assignment. I decided to let go of the reigns and let him write whatever and however he wanted as long as he was inspired. He has been writing for hours, and I don’t see an end in sight. It might end up being a book. Certainly not the three paragraph story that he was assigned. But it’s on lined paper, double spaced, with neat handwriting. I think he is up to nine pages.

Levi and Russ headed to swim practice, while the rest of us went to Costco. Then I made beef and veggie stir fry (over rice for Russ, over cauliflower fried rice for me) for dinner. I’m at the end of “paleo-ish” day 5 and feeling well—not as foggy and sluggish. Just as my 40 Days of SPS challenge came with additional benefits (most importantly, quiet time/Bible study), the 40 Days of Food comes with the additional challenge, not just of eating good food instead of junk, but of meal planning and cooking regular meals.

[I hate to cook dinner. Truth. Spending an hour or more in the kitchen cooking and more time cleaning up only to watch dinner either downed in 3 minutes or complained about is not my idea of a good time.]

So, here I sit ready for a weekend. Lola will be up for a while, so I’m thinking a tv show is in order. Yes, Netflix Streaming to the rescue.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cosmic Order

Wouldn’t you know it, God sent perfect words of encouragement and affirmation to me today, on a day my children woke early and things didn’t go quite as planned.

::  Hands Full of Good Things @ CiRCE

"We are profoundly skilled at being frustrated with the never-ending goodness of God. Among the blessings of God are the labors to which He has called us. For those of us laboring in Christian classical education - at home, in a school, or in some other context - we would do well to remember that, while our hands are full, they are full of good things. Nurturing the souls of students on truth, goodness, and beauty is a high calling indeed. Sure, it would be easier without students, but it would also be non-existent."

::  A Slave in My Own Kingdom @ The Rabbit Room (Inspired by The Silver Chair by CS Lewis)

“In this little house, with the front closet that’s always filling with damp and mildew, with the warped boards in the floor beside the washing machine, with the shelves spilling over with books, and the walls covered with photographs of chunky babies . . . in this place, the place where God has given me some measure of dominion, I have lived like a slave. I’ve seen every mess, every meal, every load of laundry as a link in a chain. I’ve answered endless questions and filled endless mornings and changed endless diapers as acts of penance. The Enemy is so subtle, and I am so easily bewitched. Ever he comes to “steal and kill and destroy,” and I relinquish my freedom, my authority, my joy. I let him take it all, without a fight, without a word of protest. That’s slave mentality for you.”

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

A Short Story

The Peasant and the Knight (a retelling of Aesop’s The Fox and the Leopard; IEW Medieval History-Based Writing: Lesson 18)

By Luke and Heidi Scovel

Once upon a time there lived an elite knight and a lowly peasant. Near a massive castle in the English countryside, villagers were lavishly feasting to celebrate the outstanding harvest. While some villagers were dozing and some villagers were dancing, the knight and the peasant were disputing. The knight, who was clad in impeccable, embellished armor, smugly relished his superb appearance. Scornfully, he remarked on the peasant’s dilapidated cloak. Now, the peasant prided himself on his agile, muscular body, made strong by years of hard labor in the fields, but he was wise enough to know that he could not rival the knight’s appearance. The peasant chose to exercise his wits and have fun debating. The knight’s temper soon exploded. He scowled. The peasant yawned. “You may have smart armor,” the peasant rebuked the knight, “but it is better to have a smart head.”

Moral: Fine appearance does not equal an attractive mind.

40 Days of SPS ~ Day 5

Cosmic Order

From The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers (quoting her own play, The Zeal of Thy House):

“For every work [or act] of creation is threefold, an earthly trinity to match the heavenly.

“First, [not in time, but merely in order of enumeration] there is the Creative Idea, passionless, timeless, beholding the whole work complete at once, the end in the beginning: and this is the image of the Father.

“Second, there is the Creative Energy [or Activity] begotten of that idea, working in time from the beginning to the end, with sweat and passion, being incarnate in the bonds of matter: and this is the image of the Word.

“Third, there is the Creative Power, the meaning of the work and its response in the lively soul: and this is the image of the indwelling Spirit.

“And these three are one, each equally in itself the whole work, whereof none can exist without other: and this is the image of the Trinity.”

This book is so rich. I’ve found it fascinating so far. Madeleine L’Engle wrote the forward, and The Mind of the Maker dovetails very nicely with L’Engle’s book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art which I am re-reading this year.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hangnails

Yesterday the boys had swim team practice again until 7:30. We ate dinner after that and I manned bedtime while Russ headed out for more work. (Yes, his schedule is ridiculous. He works from 6am until 2:30, often later. Three days a week he commutes an additional 45 minutes each way. Mondays he has been taking the boys to archery in the evening. Then Tues-Friday he leaves for the pool around 4:30, swims from 5-6, coaches from 6-7, gets home around 7:30, quickly eats dinner, and then usually has a couple hours of work to do in the evening. He often coaches or works some over the weekend. And lately, he’s spent hours fixing things that have broken down around here—like the truck. He goes on out-of town business trips every couple months.)

I was so tired last night, but it took everyone a while to get in bed and fall asleep. I came down from Lola’s room at 9:30 pm. Russ was just walking in the door with ice cream. He knows me too well. I fell into bed after more house chores, and couldn’t keep my eyes open to read. In addition to less sleep and more productivity, I’m fighting off a cold.

[Is this cold the natural ebb and flow of life? Is it spiritual opposition to my productivity and intentionality? Or is it spiritual opposition to my ability to extend grace not only to my family, but also to myself? Or is it spiritual opposition meant simply to confuse me and make me expend energy in thinking about it? Should this be filed under hangnails or cosmic order? Ha!!]

It was very, very difficult to wake up this morning. I was up 40 minutes late, and dragging. Skipped life-coaching exercises and worked with kids instead. They are having a hard time getting independent starts in the morning, but we got quite a bit accomplished today and it felt good. Our three chapters of Watership Down were definitely the highlight. [Well, that and the homemade chocolate chip cookies.] The boys wanted to keep going, but we had to spend some serious focused time on our IEW writing assignment for Essentials today.

The above quote? I couldn’t think of a more accurate way to describe what writing assignments are like in this house. Luke and I co-write his papers, a la Brave Writer style—which she compares to making cookies with children. I’d say it is more like me modeling the process for him, as he finds writing decidedly more difficult and less desirable than making cookies. Levi is encouraged to be at the table with us while we hash out ideas aloud, but he doesn’t seem to be able to work that way. He just wants to listen and not write. Or be distracted. Or stare at his paper until words magically appear. I told him that the words were not going to come until his pencil started moving. I told him that the process is there to help him: The key word outlines. The prompting questions about the elements of story. The brainstorming pages. The checklists for content.

He fights prescribed or required process (or content).

But, in the end, he buckled down and rather quickly (after days of wasting hours of designated writing time) came up with this. Three different kinds of paper. Many colors. Random shapes and sizes. Upside-down words. [No outline. No double spaces.]

…Irate and scornful, Kay ordered Arthur, his squire, to immediately go back for his sword. Arthur tried to argue, but Kay stood firm.

“But there is no time!” Arthur exclaimed for the last time.

“GO NOW!” Kay yelled maliciously.

Arthur raced towards the inn. He spied the sword in the stone. Quickly he clutched its golden hilt. Effortlessly he removed the sword from the stone. He didn’t realize that he had accomplished the near impossible. He raced back to Kay, not noticing Merlin in the shadows…

…The crowd clamored to try. Ector commanded Arthur to replace the sword in the stone. Arthur obliged. When all the knights had tried except Kay and Arthur, Kay stepped up to the stone and strained with all his might. The sword didn’t even budge an inch…

It needs just a little bit of editing for a final draft, but not bad. Not bad at all.

 

And for the past three hours, my mantra has been “KEEP MOVING.” Laundry. House-straightening. Dinner. Blogging. I so badly wanted to crawl into my bed with a book, but I knew I’d never get back out.

I’m praying for a little bit of down time (maybe a show?) with my husband this evening before hitting the weekend. Swim meet Saturday and Sunday. Meal planning. Grocery shopping. House cleaning. Nursery at church. Finishing our assignments and presentations for CC, and all the night-before prep (backpacks, clothes, snacks, lunches…). Some administrative tasks. We’ll survive another Monday and then I’ll be single-parenting for a few days…

Book Detectives ~ Mirette on the High Wire

For this month's (parent-child literary analysis) book club selection, we read Mirette on the High Wire, a Caldecott Medal book written by Emily Arnold McCully.

Rather than discussing characters, setting, plot, conflict, and theme, however, we tried something new. We used part of the "invention" process from The Lost Tools of Writing. Invention is the first of Aristotle’s five canons of rhetoric. (The other four are arrangement, elocution, memory, and delivery.) (We didn't delve yet into the five topics of invention, but you can read about them here if you are interested.)

We started by saying, "What questions can we ask about this story?" Once the kids got used to the idea that they got to ask the questions and we weren't answering them (we just wrote them on the white board), they really embraced the spirit of the discussion and participated enthusiastically.

Our questions were:

Should Mirette have been eavesdropping?
What did Mirette's mom think?
Should Bellini have trained Mirette?
Why was Bellini scared?
Why did the author name her Mirette?
Did Mirette fall at the end?
Is the story true?
Why did Mirette want to learn how to walk the high wire?
Where did they travel with their show?
Should Mirette have gone up to join Bellini on the wire at the end of the story?
Why were Mirette's feet unhappy on the ground?

Then we asked if we could change any more of the questions to "Should __(character)__ have__(action)__?"

We changed a few:

Should Bellini have been scared?
Should Mirette have wanted to learn how to walk the high wire?
Should Mirette's feet have been unhappy in the ground?

Then we voted on which "should" question we wanted to talk about. And we turned it into an "issue" to discuss.

"Whether Bellini should have trained Mirette" was the issue we settled on.

We set up our "ANI" (annie) chart with three columns on the white board:

A for Affirmative. N for Negative. I for Interesting.

We listed all reasons he should have trained her under "A." All reasons he shouldn't have trained her were listed under "N." Any miscellaneous comments or questions were acknowledged and written under "I."

I had no way of predicting the outcome of the discussion ahead of time (especially since it was my first time ever leading by this process). It was a smashing success. Everyone participated, and somehow we ended up with a perfectly even 13 reasons in each column.

A:

She could follow her dreams
He could pass on his skills
She could be happy
She could inspire him
He could train her correctly and safely (since she was trying it on her own in the beginning anyway)
It's fun
She showed responsibility with her other duties
She had passion and perseverance
Friendship/partnership
Learning to overcome difficulties
Teaching children benefits adults
She got a career/travel/adventure
She healed his fear

N:

She wasn't ready to learn
She might fall
Her feet would never be happy again on the ground
Not fun
Dangerous
He lacked confidence
He needed to hide his fear
He wanted to hide his identity
Chance of fear or failure
He didn't have permission to train her
He was a stranger
He didn't want to waste his time teaching a kid

I:

(We ended up with a few more questions rather than comments.)
Why didn't she ask someone for help at the end?
Was she lonely?
Did she have a dad?
Why did she want to walk on the high wire?
Did her mom travel with her?
How old was she?

And that was it for this book club meeting. I'm looking forward to digging deeper into invention each month!

Sentence Diagramming Challenge ~ Answers

Did you try your hand at diagramming any of the sentences in my challenge? Did you get stuck, or feel comfortable with the diagrams? I’ll admit, I had to guess in a couple places!!

Kellie @ Blue House Academy joined me, so I’ll share her diagrams as well. (They’re fantastic! Thanks for participating, Kellie!)

Here are our sentences:

Level #1

Oh, I will miss the world!

It was a general disaster.

Is that what you got?

The first one is a straightforward subject (I), verb phrase (will miss), and direct object (world). “Oh” is an interjection, which is diagrammed on a floating line above the subject, and “the” modifies “world.” Yes?

The second sentence has a subject (It), a linking verb (was), and a predicate nominative (disaster) that renames the subject. “A” and “general” modify “disaster.”

Any questions?

Here are Kellie’s diagrams (which give us a head start on level 2):

Level #2

The sprinkler is a magnificent invention because it exposes raindrops to sunshine.

Your mother wanted to name the cat Feuerbach, but you insisted on Soapy.

(ETA: Okay, that second one is a little more tricky that it seems at first glance… Let’s add one more.)

This habit of writing is so deep in me.

Let’s talk about the tricky one first.

Two things.

1. I was thinking that, in the infinitive phrase “to name the cat Feuerbach” (which is being used as a direct object), “cat” is a direct object and “Feuerbach” is an object complement noun.

2. I also decided that “insisted on” could be a phrasal verb with “Soapy” as a direct object, so that’s how I diagrammed it.

But I totally could be wrong about both. Like I said, kinda tricky.

 

The sprinkler sentence was a little more straightforward. An independent clause and a dependent clause are joined by the subordinating conjunction “because.” The first clause has a linking verb with a predicate nominative that renames the subject. The second clause has verb that transfers the action to a direct object. “To sunshine” is an adverbial (modifies the verb) prepositional phrase.

I diagrammed “writing” as a gerund (a present participle verb form used as a noun). Either way, it is the object of the preposition “of.”

Which propels us straight into the final sentences.

Level #3

His mother would take tiny bites of her food and swallow as if she were swallowing live coals, stoking the fires of her dyspepsia.

In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets.

My grandfather seemed to me stricken and afflicted, and indeed he was, like a man everlastingly struck by lightning, so that there was an ashiness about his clothes and his hair never settled and his eye had a look of tragic alarm when he wasn’t actually sleeping.

 

I am missing my conjunction “as if” on the dotted line above. I knew I’d forget something. I decided to treat “stoking the fires of her dyspepsia” as a participial phrase, but it could have joined “swallowing” to make a compound predicate without the conjunction “and.” Kellie chose to diagram it as a participial phrase modifying “coals.” That could be right. Anyone want to share an opinion?

This next quote is from one of my favorite paragraphs in the book.

Kellie diagrammed it a bit differently. Hers could be correct.

And, last but not least…

I don’t know what to say about that, except I tried. Tell me where I went wrong.

Kellie’s looks great:

Some of our differences are simply stylistic differences. There is some accepted variety within diagrams, such as diagramming conjunctions and indirect objects.

And, whew, that took me forever.

Any questions?

Sentence Diagramming Challenge (Ready, Set, Go!)

I’ve chosen a few quotes from Gilead. (I finished it last night, sobbing.)

Take your pick, one or several.

Level #1

Oh, I will miss the world!

It was a general disaster.

Level #2

The sprinkler is a magnificent invention because it exposes raindrops to sunshine.

Your mother wanted to name the cat Feuerbach, but you insisted on Soapy.

(ETA: Okay, that second one is a little more tricky that it seems at first glance… Let’s add one more.)

This habit of writing is so deep in me.

Level #3

His mother would take tiny bites of her food and swallow as if she were swallowing live coals, stoking the fires of her dyspepsia.

In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets.

My grandfather seemed to me stricken and afflicted, and indeed he was, like a man everlastingly struck by lightning, so that there was an ashiness about his clothes and his hair never settled and his eye had a look of tragic alarm when he wasn’t actually sleeping.

Take a picture of your diagram(s) and email them to me (heidi (at) poetsgarden (dot) com). It doesn’t have to be perfect. I don’t have the answers, so I’m working through them (guessing) just the same. Give it a try! (If you need an idea of where to start, this link should help.)

I’ll post my diagrams (and any others that I receive) next Wednesday, along with some basic diagramming instruction.

You can do it!