Classical Writing

Offense-sensitivity

2010-12-31T17:09:00.002-07:00

http://www.gocomics.com/feature_items/explore?page=1&tag=20973

Invective (also known as ‘vituperation’) is language that denounces or casts blame on somebody or something. Invective can be highly abusive, such as

A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir to a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deni’st the least syllable of thy addition.

~ William Shakespeare, King Lear, II.2

And also sometimes witty:

I see. Well, of course, this is just the sort of blinkered Philistine pig-ignorance I’ve come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome spotty behinds squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker’s cuss for the struggling artist. You excrement, you whining hypocritical toadies with your colour TV sets and your Tony Jacklin golf clubs and your bleeding Masonic secret handshakes. ...Well I wouldn’t become a Freemason now if you went down on your lousy stinking knees and begged me.

~ John Cleese in Monty Python’s The Architect Sketch

The Classical Genre of Invective

The genre of invective was a form of classical libel used in Greek and Roman verse. It was often written anonymously in verse form against public figures. The ancient Greek comedy writer Aristophanes wrote high-spirited satire of public persons and affairs. Through song and dance as well as these blazing invectives his plays also criticize literary and philosophical persona of his day. His comedies aim at illustrating, in humorous and often bawdy detail, the implications of deadly serious political issues, mixing invective and slapstick acting.

Freedom and Invective

Only in free nations are invectives tolerated. The fact that the Athenians had the liberty to speak, even to criticize their own political leaders was a sign of the freedom their society allowed them.

In later Roman times major authors such as Juvenal and Catullus also wrote extended invectives openly and publicly to defame political figures. Any piece from antiquity or from medieval times beginning with Contra, as in Cicero’s Contra Catilinam (‘Against Catiline’) or St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles (‘The higest Against the Gentiles’) are invectives, speeches or writings ‘against’ (contra) something or someone.

Cicero wrote many invectives. Demosthenes the Greek orator during the time of Philip II of Macedon wrote many invectives. His most famous is Against Philip of Macedon, whom Demosthenes saw as a threat to Athenian independence. Caesoninus Pliny wrote invectives against Greek physicians; the church father St. Augustine of Hippo wrote invectives Against the Manicheans, and so forth.

Public Discourse

Invectives were a part of public discourse. For example, Martin Luther’s famous ninety-five theses contain several invectives against the Pope of Rome, some of which are quite humorous and exaggerated:

Why does not the pope empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a Church? The former reasons would be most just; the latter is most trivial.

Invective and humor in invective were also standards among the high born rulers of the eighteenth-century. The language used, whether to praise or to deplore, was more eloquent and expressive (as well as more bawdy) than what we manage today. Jonathan Swift wrote about the second Viscount Allen, a member of the Irish Parliament for Kildare:

Let me now the vices trace,

From the father’s scoundrel race …

In him tell me which prevail,

Female vices most, or male?

What produced him, can you tell?

Human race, or imps of hell? …

Positive and overbearing,

Changing still and still adhering,

Spiteful, peevish, rude, untoward,

Fierce in tongue, in heart a coward,

Reputation ever tearing,

Ever dearest friendship swearing,

Judgement weak and passion stony,

Always various, always wrong.

For example when Tertullian in the early centuries of the Church calls women ‘the devil’s gateway to hell’, is he really berating all women, or is he merely berating the sort of woman that may cause a man to fall?

Likewise Abraham Lincoln often blasted his opponents with hyperbole.

Modernity and Invective

Perhaps we in modern times have lost our sense of humor, our sense of our own pettiness, and become so blasé that we cannot take criticism (humorous or otherwise) from anybody. Here is a modern example of invective:

Back in the mid-90s, I took a pop at Colin Powell for having failed to finish off Saddam Hussein; in a New Yorker interview, he popped back mildly with “Saffire is getting arrogant in his old age’’ (which didn’t rate as genuine vituperation because it was too close to the truth). Even so, at a subsequent New Year’s Eve party, the general felt the need to apologize.

~ William Saffire, New York Times, April, 2003.

William Saffire’s lament here is that Colin Powell’s invective needed no apology. Normal political discourse allows for such, and humor is the only appropriate response to such.

Invective is as old as speech itself; men have always had the ability both humorously (as well as seriously) to insult each other.

In The Inferno, which was written in the high Middle Ages, Dante put many of the people he disagreed with in Hell, giving them the punishment he thought they deserved (mini-invectives). Likewise Johanthan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels served up a book replete with invectives against political figures and institutions of his day (eighteenth century). Sharp wit and strong words which indiscriminately lash out at folly were the standard public discourse of previous centuries.

For example ...

...Algernon Charles Swinburne, a Victorian era English poet, held that in calling Ralph Waldo Emerson ‘a gap-toothed and hoary-headed ape’, he had confined himself to ‘language of the strictest reserve’.

...Disraeli said of a political opponent, “He has committed every crime that does not require courage.”

...Mark Twain charged that Kipling ‘‘did measureless harm; more real and lasting harm, perhaps, than any other individual that ever wrote.’’

In modern times any of the above accusations spoken publicly could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars in punitive damages should the accused decide to file suit.

Not so then ...

...Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was called ‘a babbling old woman’ by Horace Walpole, who further more added that “prejudice and bigotry, and pride and presumption, and arrogance and pedantry are the hags that brew his ink.’’ No suit.

...Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) never brought suit against Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) for saying of him, “I have no wish to know anyone sitting in a sewer and adding to it.’’ Swinburne was probably relieved that Carlyle did not treat him as he himself treated Emerson. No suit.

...Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) said of George Meredith (1828-1909) that “As a writer, he has mastered everything except language; as a novelist, he can do everything except tell a story; as an artist, he is everything except articulate.’’ No suit.

...George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), in a kindly mood, told Chesterton (1874-1936): “I know everything you say is bunkum, though a fair amount of it is inspired bunkum.’’ Sinclair Lewis said of one of his critics who had annoyed him: “I denounce Mr. Bernard De Voto as a fool and a tedious and egotistical fool, as a liar and a pompous and boresome liar.’’ No suit.

Such were common speeches that people slung against each other in centuries gone by. Constance M. Furey comments on how things have changed:

The scathing insults that fill texts by sixteenth-century Christian reformers can shock even a jaded modern reader. In the prefatory letter to The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), for example, Martin Luther begins by wishing for “grace and peace in Christ” before launching his attack on the “brainless and illiterate beast in papist form” and its “whole filthy pack of … asses,” and concludes by exhorting his reader to rise up against the Catholic hierarchy: “Continue courageously, noble sir; in this way the disgrace of the Bohemian name will be abolished, and the sludge of the harlot’s lies and whoring shall again be taken up in her breast.” Or consider the nasty invectives by the English Lord Chancellor and future Catholic martyr, Thomas More, against not only Luther but also Matthew Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English. More calls these men the “devil’s disciples”: Luther “a pimp, an apostate, a rustic, and a friar”; and Tyndale “a babbler, and a devil’s ape.” Even Desiderius Erasmus, the erudite Catholic humanist, filled his writings with insults both satirical and blunt and proclaimed that theologians “are more stupid than any pig”. Fierce words commonly appear in the midst of religious controversies, and one may choose to skim past this hyperbolic outrage in search of the real message. Insulting rhetoric, however, does provide a sensitive barometer of religious concerns in the sixteenth century and yields unexpectedly complex answers to a simple question. What does negative speech accomplish?

~ Constance M. Furey , Invective and Discernment in Martin Luther, D. Erasmus, and Thomas More, Indiana University

Sensitivity

Are we too sensitive today? Would we feel put off if it were said of one of us that we were “too arrogant in our old age?” Do we have a RIGHT not to be offended by those around us? Is this one of the rights that the Founding Fathers in their otherwise infinite wisdom forgot to include in the Bill of Rights? Is our lust for respect so strong that we need to secure it by laws prohibiting other people to express their opinions in public speech?

As a society we get offended over issues of gender, race, religion, and politics if someone casts disparaging remarks on our pet issues or pet institutions. Sometimes our ‘rights’ not to be offended trumps our need as a people to exhibit good will, humor, wit and a light-hearted attitude towards others. Being too sensitive can bar honest public discourse on important subjects. Nobody can teach us proper humility as well as our enemies can.

The Context of Invective

In the past, it was part of a speaker’s skills to be able to sling commonplace-type abuses around. It was understood as such and not taken seriously. In the past, there was a rhetorical context within which the very norm and rhetorical skill of discourse included throwing commonplace praises and blames around.

Today we do not have that rhetorical context. Every word spoken is taken literally. We have lost the rhetorical hermeneutic within which to interpret what someone says, praise, blame, or otherwise.

We can no longer sling abuses around because we as people cannot take it. We do not know HOW to take it, rhetorically speaking, interpretively speaking. Perhaps the bottom line is that today we are simply not educated enough. Or at least the way we are educated lacks this crucial component.

The Purpose of Language?

2010-10-26T14:28:00.000-06:00

Persuasion

The term ‘persuasion’ can be loaded. When we try to persuade someone, our persuasion may be loaded with our agenda, with our goals, and with our opinions—and that is a danger. It is a danger because we are flawed human beings. We make mistakes in our beliefs, in our thinking, and in our actions. Furthermore, life is not all about ‘us and our opinions’—not even if we happen to get everything right. Not even if we go to the right church, have the right political opinions, live a virtuous life, etc.

Getting it Right

But then the bigger picture is this—that life is not all about ‘getting it right’ (whatever 'it' is). So ...

What is Classical Writing's aim?
Why write books about argumentation and proofs if ‘being right’ does not matter?

Communication

What are we trying to effect when we communicate—be it with humans, God, self, animals, plants, or any other object or place in creation?
What is the purpose of communication?

To get what we want? To influence people for good? To love others? To change the world to be a better place?

Rhetoric and Communication

All communication is done by use of rhetoric, whether we are aware of it or not. And it is not just in the way we use language. Language is just one part of communication. (It so happens that language generally is the most precise vehicle for communicating complex concepts.)

Facial expressions and body language are also critical for communication, especially in the appeals of ethos and pathos. But when we discuss the role of material logic as related to the canon of invention, body language will not get us far.

Harsh Words

There is a time and a place in our world for words, even critical, harsh words and brutal debate. Civilization, after all, exists because men often decide to argue rather than to come to blows over issues.

But are our argumentative skills weapons we wield in self-service to prove to other men that we are right?

- lmj

Discovering the Arguments: Artistic and Inartistic proofs

2010-01-12T16:43:00.006-07:00

Disclaimer: At times I write what I would call an 'advanced blog post', one intended for those who have studied our advanced books. This is one such.

When writing an essay you need to generate support for your thesis statement. To that end you may employ either artistic or inartistic proofs.

Aristotle says:

Of the modes of persuasion some belong strictly to the art of rhetoric and some do not. By the latter I mean such things as are not supplied by the writer but are there at the outset—witnesses, evidence given under torture, written contracts, and so on. By the former I mean such as we can ourselves construct by means of the principles of rhetoric. The one kind has merely to be used, the other has to be invented.

The two types Aristotle mentions above are

1. Artistic proofs - arguments that the speaker must invent: definition, comparison, relationships, circumstances, testimony, notation and conjugates.

2. Inartistic proofs - quoting what others have said: laws, witnesses, contracts, or oaths.

By ‘inartistic’ proofs are meant proofs which are not supplied by the writer’s efforts, but existed beforehand, such as witnesses, admissions under torture, written contracts, and the like. By ‘artistic’ proofs are meant those that may be discovered through rhetorical invention. The first type need only to be used; the second type has to be 'invented'.

The Three Appeals

Aristotle says each artistic proof is derived from one of the following three appeals:

ethos - appeal to the integrity and expertise of the writer
logos - an appeal to appropriate and logical arguments
pathos - an appeal to the audience’s sympathies

Artistic and Inartistic Proofs in Writing

Aristotle defines artistic proofs (invention) to be within the scope of the art of rhetoric, and inartistic proofs (testimony) to be outside the art of rhetoric.

Aristotle’s was the first attempt to separate the art of argument from evidence and facts. He was the first to realize that a collection of facts (inartistic proofs) is just a collection of facts. It takes a skilled rhetorician to study those facts and bring them together in a composition that is interesting, persuasive, and useful to others.

There are, according to Aristotle, five types of inartistic proofs: laws, contracts, witnesses, tortures, and oaths. Today we would ethically eliminate tortures, and add to Aristotle’s list—from our technology-driven world—photographs, video clips, Gallup polls, and scientific experimentation. Inartistic proofs should never comprise the bulk of your essay, they are merely the raw materials from which your essay will be constructed.

A Painting Analogy

To understand more clearly how Aristotle differentiates between inartistic and artistic proofs, think of a painter standing in front of his canvas. He has in his possession a selection of colored paints, and he has also chosen a theme or motif for his painting. Indeed, everything is present that makes it possible for a beautiful picture to be created, but until he chooses to combine his colors and apply them to the canvas, there is no picture, there is merely a collection of raw materials in their inartistic form. Even the best raw materials will not bring about a work of art unless there is an artist who works to bring it about.

In the same way, a writer may search through all the available sources at the library, read himself silly with facts on a subject, but unless he artfully puts all that information together, arranges it carefully, extracts the arguments from the facts he has uncovered, all he has on his desk or on his computer is a list of references and collection of quotations. It is part of the art of rhetoric to collect information, analyze it, arrange it, and present it a form that brings useful, interesting, truthful, and pertinent information to its readers or listeners.

It is often said that ‘the facts speak for themselves’, but sadly, that is not true. Facts and data require interpretation in order to be understood. They need to be put in context, their range and domain needs to be explained, the circumstances under which the facts were gathered must be clarified. Furthermore, the facts need to be put in contrast to previously discovered facts. For all that a writer is needed.

Context-Context-Context

Years ago an old Sunday School teacher of mine admonished our class to be careful about our approach to Bible study. There were three important things to keep in mind, he said, and those three things were: Context, context, and context!

This is true for all study and for all writing. The author who does not explain the context from which his quotations have been taken, nor the way in which he is applying it, has failed indeed.

Rhetoric, as the artistic evaluation of the data and facts collected, is at the core of the art of writing.

Your sources, your data, your documentation does not speak for itself. It requires context, first of all. You need to place the data in the setting it came from when you explain that data to your readers. That is the first step in the careful analysis you need to put your data to. It is your arguments interpreting these data that are the substance of rhetoric: your arguments alone belong to the art of rhetoric. Any fool can collect the data, not everyone can interpret it.

Dialectics

Dialectics fit into rhetoric in that the arguments we initially develop are discovered through the dialectical process of digging up information, and uncovering the issues involved in the subject. The rhetorical aspects of writing enter when we decide to advocate a particular position, namely the one we find most plausible and coherent.

Two Types of Arguments

In this rhetorical context we can present two types of arguments.

1. An argument which consists of a conclusion supported by reason which is documented by evidence.
2. An argument which is a confrontation between two parties in disagreement over a claim.

In both cases, the rhetoric needed to produce a persuasive argument must produce communicative clarity about the subject and about the evidence presented. You as a writer must be able to articulate your position beyond what your evidence says. You need to display not only your knowledge and your sources, but also an understanding of your topic.

The division between artistic and inartistic proofs as articulated by Aristotle more than two thousand years ago remains a fundamental form of argument whether the argument is in the form of a term paper, editorial, thesis or dissertation. Artistic proof is still the primary mode of argument. Inartistic proofs (the data, the facts) do not speak for themselves.

Lene Jaqua

The Importance of Outlining

2009-09-05T12:23:00.006-06:00

Generating an outline before working is not just a good idea, it is essential. Most of the thinking that goes into an essay should be done by the time the outline is written, so that when you actually sit down to write your essay from the outline, your writing is not a matter of formulating ideas in your mind but merely a matter of presenting those ideas in a coherent and persuasive manner.

Let me present a fictitious situation with following essay prompt:

For more than six hundred years-that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215--there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused.
~ Lysander Spooner.

Research the process of trial by jury in America and write a five paragraph essay confirming or refuting Lysander Spooner's statement above.

A composition student may write an outline, which looks something like this:

"Trial by Jury"

I. Introduction
1. Development of trial by jury throughout history.
2. Thesis: Trial by jury is a good idea.

II. Body of Essay
1. Explain what trial by jury is.
2. Explain the use of trial by jury throughout the world.
3. Give some alternative to trial by jury.

III. Conclusion.
1. Explain why trial by jury is such a good idea.
2. Spooner's quote about trial by jury system

This outline is too sketchy and too vague to bring about a focused and persuasive essay. Any student who wrote an essay based on this outline would not really know what he or she was really going to write about, not in general, nor in any specific sense.

The thesis statement is too vague, no criteria can be set up for evaluating whether something is a 'good idea'.
Each paragraph in the essay is so vague as to leave the student still wondering what he is going to write when he finally sets pen to paper or fingertips to keyboard.
The essay does not ask for trial by jury throughout the world, it asks specifically that the student refute or confirm Spooner's statement. Any thesis statement that does not confirm or refute Spooner has not answered the essay prompt.

Apart from not answering the essay prompt, the outline above has another fatal flaw. It does not perform the 'office' that an outline should perform. It does not serve as a blueprint for what the student is going to say, nor how he is going to say it. A student with a poor outine doubles his work and also the possibility of getting writer's block. He has to both think about what he is going to say at the same time that he is trying to figure out how to say it when he gets down to the task of writing his paragraphs.

The outline should be written so well that it guides and serves the student through the essay writing process by laying out the arguments long before the student gets to the paragraph writing stage.

Let us look at how to achieve this, first by discussing how to write a strong thesis statement and then by discussing how to write a strong outline.

A Strong Thesis Statement

The thesis statement is the guiding sentence around which the essay revolves. A weak thesis statement such as "trial by jury is a good idea" is impossible to defend or refute definitively. We need to help our students focus that thesis statement down to something that can be demonstrated.

The first step is to boil the essay prompt down to a specific question that can be answered. In the prompt above Lysander Spooner says that it is the right and duty of juries in trials to judge the facts, the law, and the intent of the accused. The student is asked to confirm or refute Lysander Spooner's statement that it is the right and duty of juries in trials to judge the facts, the law, and the intent of the accused. This essay prompt is then boiled down to the question.

Question: "Is it the right and duty of juries to judge the facts, the law, and the intent of the accused?

Answer: The function of juries in a criminal court case to discern the facts of the case, decide how they align with the law, and to establish the intent of the accused.

Now the outline can be written. Every point in the outline points back to the "Answer" above, supporting it and elaborating the thoughts contained in it.

A Strong Outline

For any essay, the general outline will look something like this

I. Introduction

Introductory opening strategy
Thesis statement __________________________________

II. Body

1. Paragraph 1: Topic _______________

Opening sentence
Detail 1
Detail 2
Detail 3
or more details ...
Concluding sentence

2. Paragraph 2: Topic ______________________

Opening/Transition sentence
Detail 1
Detail 2
Detail 3
or more details ....
Concluding Sentence

etc for as many paragraphs as the body of the essay has

III. Conclusion

Recapping the essence of your thesis
Summarize what you said.

For the specific essay prompt I gave above, the outline might look something like this:

I. Introduction

Introduction - Discuss briefly medieval trial by ordeal, the the modern more objective form of justice found in trial by jury.
Thesis statement: The function of juries in a criminal court case to discern the facts of the case, decide how they align with the law, and to establish the intent of the accused. This assures the accused of a fair and objective trial.

II. Body
1. Paragraph 1: Topic - Define what a fair trial is.

2. Paragraph 2: Topic -discerning the facts of the case

Opening sentence - The first step in getting a fair trial is establishing what really happened and whether the accused committed the crime he was accused of.
Detail 1 - What does the narrative account say the accused did?
Detail 2 - If so, what did he do? Define the action he did in light of the facts presented .
Concluding sentence - Establishing the facts leads to a fair trial.

2. Paragraph 2: Topic - decide how the facts align with the law

Opening sentence - We know what the accused did. Is it a crime?
Detail 1 - What does the law say about his actions?
Detail 2 - If what he did was a crime, of what severity was it?
Concluding Sentence - Establishing what the law allows is part of a fair trial

3. Paragraph 3: Topic - Establish the intent of the accused

Opening sentence - If we have established that the accused committed a crime, and of what severity the crime was, we now need to establish his state of mind while committing the crime.
Detail 1 - did he do it by accident, in anger, or on purpose and pre-meditated
Detail 2 - Intent is the indicator of the moral state of the mind of the accused when he committed the crime.
Concluding Sentence - Establishing intent ensures a fair trial.

III. Conclusion

A fair trial is ensured by establishing the facts of the case, by knowing what the law allows, and by establishing the intent of the accused when he committed the crime
Quote Spooner's quote to back up the thesis statement.
Conclude that trial by jury is the best way to ensure a fair trial and an improvement of trial by ordeal.

After Writing the Outline

When the outline has been written, it needs to be checked (preferably today and then again tomorrow when the mind is fresh) against the thesis statement.

Every paragraph must refer back to and support the thesis statement. If it does not, it needs to be revised or possibly even thrown out. It is not enough that the paragraph is about the same topic as the thesis statement.

To Sum Up

Write a strong outline for every essay assignment, and the essay writes itself. It is an indispensable tool for writing confidently and well.

~lmj

Basic Rhetoric: The Canon of Invention and the Progymnasmata

2009-07-18T12:42:00.016-06:00

Rhetoric has as its purpose to persuade. It is for the sake of persuasion that we educators torture our students with essay writing. We want them to be able to express their ideas persuasively and well.

For the purposes of writing, there are three 'canons' of rhetoric, not the sort of cannons that go 'boom', but 'canons' with just one 'n', the accepted principles and standards in the field of rhetoric. Those are: the canon of invention (figuring out what you are going to say), the canon of arrangement (figuring out in what order you want to say it), and the canon of style (figuring out with what style you are going to say it).

In this not-so-short blog, I will discuss the canon of invention.

Imagine yourself back in the good old days when you were a student. You have been given an essay prompt, and you now have the task of spending the rest of your week, thinking about, writing, and editing (and re-editing) your essay.

You need help, and to that end, the canon of invention is at your disposal -- should you choose to make use of it.

The canon of invention helps you decide what you are going to say (as well as what you are NOT going to say). The canon of invention is where you generate your thesis statement as well as the arguments to support that thesis statement.

Invention

First of all, let us discuss invention. Most of us think of Edison with his light blub, or of physicists inventing atom bombs. Rhetorically speaking, what is ‘invention’? It comes from the Latin 'in-venire' which means 'to find'. Invention is where we find a list of thoughts to think through in response to the the essay prompt. It is a tool we use to make sure we have investigated the issue raised in the essay prompt comprehensively.

Invention stipulates the occasion for the writing, the audience that you are writing for (college professor, perhaps), as well as the message (of the essay) exhaustively.

Included in invention are the following:

Rhetorical Occasion
Rhetorical Situation
The Special Topics
The Three Appeals
The Common Topics

and finally

Stasis Theory.

Most of those terms should be unfamiliar to you. Let us unpack them, one at a time beginning with 'the rhetorical occasion'.

Rhetorical Occasion

Why are you writing? Well, bluntly put: you're a student; you were given an essay assignment; you're writing because you have to. But as artificial as a college essay feels, teachers try to make the essay writing experience real by imagining real-life situations where you may be called on to write. They ask you to write in that spirit. People in real life do write political speeches, funeral orations, court room sentences, magazine articles, law codes, cook books, or dubious Internet blogs on writing education :). Worse, some of us write whole books that are over five-hundred pages long, and we haven't even said half of what we intended to say yet.

But back to your specific rhetorical occasion. You are writing an essay for a class. And this occasion combined with your rhetorical situation serve as the background for your essay.

Rhetorical Situation

Whom are you writing to and what are you going to write about? Simple questions, but ones that need to be considered carefully.

First of all there are two types of people involved in your communication attempt here (ahem... your essay):

1. you—the writer
2. your audience (or reader[s]).

You know yourself, or at least you think you do.
(But, even so, in invention you will take a closer look at yourself and how you present yourself).

More to the point: Do you know your reader? Who is he? What state of mind is he in? What does he already believe about the topic you are writing about? What level of education, religious background, political predispositions does he? How might you best convince himm of what you are about to say?

What you are about to say is your ‘message’. It consists of the position that you are taking on the issue you are writing about.

The Special Topics: Deliberative, Judicial, and Ceremonial

Now you have an occasion, you have a reader, and you have a message (your response to the essay prompt). The next thing you need to consider is what type of rhetoric you going to be using.

The special topics help you with this. They define the purpose of your essay. There are three special topics, one dealing with issues of the past, one dealing with issues of the present, and one dealing with issues of the future.

Are you writing to condone or condemn and act of the past? Are you writing to celebrate or vilify a person or an event in the present? Or are you writing to recommend or reject a course of action or an idea for the future? The special topics that deal with those three types of writing are judicial rhetoric, ceremonial rhetoric, and deliberative rhetoric.

Judicial speeches deal with justice and injustice. They assert whether an act committed in the past was right or wrong, or whether a person accused of a crime was guilty or innocent.

Ceremonial speeches address the issues of virtue and vice. They tell the reader whether something or someone in the present is noble or base.

Deliberative speeches may speak of the good, the worthy, and the advantageous. Or they may speak of the bad, the unworthy, and the disadvantageous. Deliberative speeches speak for or against our plans for the future.

The Three Appeals: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos

Now, you have an essay prompt (rhetorical occasion), you have a reader and a message, and you have identified which one of the special topics that applies to your essay, and now you need to consider what sorts of appeals you need to use in your essay.

Do you primarily want to engage your reader’s mind or heart in your essay? Is your focus primarily to show him that you are an intelligent and thoughtful and sympathetic writer (appeal to ethos)? Do you want to engage his mind with clear and persuasive arguments that will convince him (Appeal to Logos)? Or are you trying to evoke his sympathies for a particularly difficult and perhaps outrageous situation (Appeal to Pathos)?

We use all three appeals when we write, but in general we can classify an essay in terms of its dominant means of persuasion. You may wish to persuade your reader that something is true; to this end, logical arguments (appeal to logos) may be employed. However, it is usually not enough that your reader should agree with you. Often a writer will want to stir his readers into action: Vote for me; don’t buy this product; demonstrate against this or that bill in Congress. To this end, the writer may seek to arouse the reader’s emotions (appeal to pathos). But— no amount of emotional appeal is successful unless the reader trusts the writer. Before we allow our emotions to be engaged by something someone says, we must believe that the writer is a man of intelligence and good will. Therefore, as a writer, you must appear attractive and trustworthy (appeal to ethos).

Stasis Theory

Now, if your essay involves judicial or deliberative rhetoric , stasis theory is a useful tool that you may employ. Stasis theory clarifies the nature of the argument and defines the specific issue that people are in disagreement about.
Stasis theory can be used in the court room where the job of both the prosecuting and the defense attorney is to tell the jury what it is that has brought the defendant to court. What is he accused of doing? How far do both parties agree on what happened, and where is the exact point (‘the stasis’) where they violently disagree on what happened.

Let us say John Smith is accused of murder. Then first of all, what does the word ‘murder’? Define it carefully without reference to John Smith or anything specific that he is accused of doing. Once the word ‘murder’ has been defined, it is the job of either lawyer to establish whether or not John Smith did in fact commit this murder. Of course, the prosecutor is arguing that John Smith did commit the murder, the defense attorney is arguing that John Smith did not commit the murder. Sometimes.

Sometimes both attorneys agree that John Smith did commit murder, but what kind of murder did he commit? Did he do it in self-defense? Was it an accident? Did he lose his temper, or did he plan this act for months in advance?

Stasis theory includes four steps, all designed to answer the questions we posed above:

1. Definition (The event of the past)
2. Conjecture (What happend and who did it?)
3. Quality or degree (What kind was it?)
4. Procedure (What shall we do about it?)
Stasis theory can be particularly powerful in helping you generate thesis statements for your judicial or deliberative essay.

The Common Topics

Now that you have considered your occasion, reader, type of rhetoric, special appeals as well as generated a thesis statement, you need to dig into the specific content of your particular essay.

To this end, you use the common topics, a list of topics from which you ‘invent’ arguments for each paragraph of the essay about your subject, X.

Do you need to define what X is? Do you need to show how your use of the term X differs from how people normally understand it? Are you going to show how the issue associated with X is actually very similar to issue Y (an issue your audience already has sympathy for)? Are you going to quote a famous expert who agrees with you? Are you going to construct a long logical argument that will prove you point? Will you need to explain the reasons why X has gotten as bad as it is today? Are you going to present examples from history or literature? All those types of paragraphs can be generated from a list called the ‘common topics’--a part of invention.

Progymnasmata

So, how does all this (rhetorical occasion, rhetorical situation, special topics, three appeals, common topics, and stasis theory) fit in with the progymnasmata?
Most of Classical Writing's students are used to the term progymnasmata, but for those who are new, the progymnasmata were a series of writing exercises that Greek boys of antiquity used to learn speech writing. The exercises introduced them to the basic concepts and techniques of rhetoric that I mentioned above.

One of the earliest exercises was narration, which taught the student to present a clear, concise and plausible account of events. Later, the paired exercises of refutation and confirmation brought the student back to narrative, and taught him to take a critical view of narration (written narratives).

The student would then learn deliberative rhetoric by writing essays about common proverbs, telling why the proverbs were wise. Students also took common legends and myths and wrote essays for and against each myth, telling why it was credible or not credible.

The students would write essays praising and blaming people, praising and blaming a virtue, writing descriptive detail, writing dialogue, as well as writing a research paper.

In other words, the progymnasmata were the 'textbooks' that the ancients used to teach rhetoric to their students. Rhetoric was the curriculum of the ancient schools, because without being able to understand material and express oneself in writing and in speaking, how can we communicate anything about what we have learned?

Stay tuned. Canon of Arrangement is next.

Lene

Classical Ed 'Lite'

2009-06-08T09:59:00.006-06:00

This weekend I was talking to some folks about the different levels of rigor that may be employed in a classical education.

Some were adamant that there is a lot of new 'fad' curriculum out there that calls itself classical because being classical is all the rage these days, and so the mere label of classical will attract customers.

So what? some said. So what if some just do classical 'lite'. It is not our job to make sure that those who claim to school classically do so with rigor. But, others objected, words have meaning, and the very word 'classical' implies something rigorous and traditional.

But do we need to ensure 'quality control' in the world of homeschooling? Is it even possible?

When I mentioned this to my husband, he paralleled it with his experience in the world of martial arts. There are many karate schools out there, where you can get a black belt in two years. Those who are serious in the arts call such places McDoJos. The point is, those schools are'lite' drive-through dojos that allow you and your family to dabble a little in the martial arts while having fun and getting exercise. There is nothing wrong with them. They just aren't the rigorous real schools that will get you in top shape and give you a credible black belt.

The same could be said for a classical education. We live in an age where most people achieve literacy, but not all people get their jollies by spending Monday nights reading Dante's Divine Comedy with other avid literature fans. Not all people care to be able to read the Aeneid or the Iliad in the original. Not everyone needs to enjoy this. Some would rather watch "The Hulk".

But we are such a society of appearances. We all feel a NEED to LOOK like we're doing the best. And what sounds better than "a classical education". So we like the labels, even when they don't deliver what they appear to be about. We like to fool ourselves a little, to feel good about the education we're giving our kids. Certainly few of us are honest enough to say: I just don't care enough to give Johnny a rigorous education.

We want our kids to be well-educated; we really do. But the reality is that most of us do not provide a rigorous course of rhetoric for our students, nor do most of us care enough to read all the Greek tragedies, or delve into the Early Church fathers' writings. And that's OK. We don't all need to read all that... but in some sense, neither do we need to pretend we do. We're not better people, more valuable, more admirable for having read those Greek tragedies. Greek tragedy should be read for its own sake, for the love of it, not for showing off.

What when curriculum that is not at all rigorous calls itself classical?? Should we care? Well, when it happens the word "classical" has been diluted. It causes those who are more rigorously classical to need to beef their self-description with superlatives akin to "real committed" classical--we see this in Christianity where some feel a need to differentiate their faith as more authentic than others by the use of those very same modifiers, "real" and "committed".

But at the root of it, may lie a mistaken need to box everything into neat little compartments. This curriculum is "real committed classical". This curriculum is "not". So that once we have the boxes clearly defined, we can decide which camp we're in and then we all know "who we are"? -- And then what?

Well, I suppose life is easier at that point because I don't have to think as much. I can just react, because I know who and what IS and ISN'T of the sort I would lump myself together with.

But that is impossible. We can never definitively box everything (much less everyBODY) in. Yes, there will always be "rip off" curricula trying to get our money without delivering what they promise, there will always be watered-down versions of something that has become a fad (like classical education). We will always need to use discernment--with each person we meet, with each curriculum we evaluate. We will always need to watch to see, first of all whether this is 'someone/something' for me, and then secondly whether (in the case of curriculum) this is really classical.

No amount of classification or boxing in of anything will ever preclude our need to consider things carefully for ourselves (at each instance) before deciding to use, or not use, something.

In the case of classical education, you don't just need to decide whether something is classical or not. None of us are 100% authentically classical. That is not even the goal. The goal is for each homeschool family to evaluate carefully what the goals for each student and for each school year is, and then allow as much rigor, and as much authentic classical education as time, money, child's abilities, and teacher resources allow. -- This will look different for each family.

Don't sweat it. Nothing good was ever achieved by over-simplification, much less your child's education. You simply have to do your homework.

:)

Preparing to Read the Great Books

2009-05-10T16:51:00.009-06:00

Classical Writing's recommended literature pages are up here:

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

But I have since received several emails about how to prepare for (as well as how to tackle) reading what we call "Great Books".

Well, let's start by saying that every classical school, every tutorial, every co-op, every curriculum, every Christian group may have a different list for what to read in terms of Great Books. Your list will not exactly be mine. And that is OK. The "western canon" is not carved in stone.

Some have more modern books, some have more medieval books, some have an emphasis on Church doctrine, others prefer literature, and still others social, political, or philosophical emphases.

My recommendations for preparation for Great Books studies below are based on the idea that the goal of Great Books studies is to UNDERSTAND (to enter into) the mind of the author behind each work. Not necessarily with the aim to agree with each author ultimately--we couldn't possibly agree with them all--but with the aim to understand before we judge.

The most important steps to prepare for Great Books classes or Great Books reading are

1. Biblical literacy: If you and your students don’t know the Bible stories, Bible history/timeline, and the ‘orthodox’ doctrines of the Church (little ‘o’, orthodox), you will struggle with understanding the minds behind many of the Great Books. [That means familiarity with basic doctrines of the Medieval Church, even if your family is not Catholic. It means knowing the creeds and the early councils of the Church, even if your family's local church does not teach or make use of those directly.]

2. Graeco-Roman mythology literacy: READ ALOUD Edith Hamilton’s Greek Mythology (or a like volume of Greek myths) from beginning to end. Then read aloud children’s versions of Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid. All this is to familiarize your students with all the deities, their oddities, and their stories.

3. A good sense of history from antiquity to now…. You and your students need a time-line sense that knows when the Iliad supposedly took place, when Socrates lived, what and when was the Golden Age of Greece, when did Jesus live, what was Rome like then, when do the middle ages start, what is the diff between the early middle ages and the late middle ages, when what and why were the reformation and the renaissance… that sort of stuff.

After that you READ aloud... and read alone. Read the Iliad and Odyssey aloud to each other. Read 19th century good literature (Dickens, Austen, Eliot, etc.), and then ‘dare’ to go backwards into the harder stuff. If you go back before the 1700s (before the eve of the novel) the reading consists mostly of epic poetry: Dante’s Comedia, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, medieval allegorical "morality" (as well as not-so-moral) tales. And of course there is philosophy, political theory and theology back there too.

Most homeschool moms and students don’t have an easy time with Great Books at first because the language is wordy and antiquated and the thoughts are alien--many of them. The key is to plunge in and read a little every day. We can all read two pages of the Iliad and attend to it carefully each day (IF we just do 2, even if it takes us a year to get through it). Lack of persistence and patience is what defeats most people with the Great Books, but if you have a regular read-aloud routine and if you stick with it and keep going in smaller chunks, your kids can handle it without being turned off.

I would not recommend making it your goal to get through all anyone's list of Great Books. Most lists go at a hair-raising pace. My take on Great Books is not to get through as many as possible, but to read thoroughly and well those few works that you do choose to read.

It is somewhat odious to hear people say “I read Machiavelli’s The Prince, but I don’t know anything about it, other than the ‘ends justify the means’.”

If we do not dig in well enough to have somewhat of an idea of the work, or well enough to let the work penetrate our thinking at least a little, we may as well not have read it. I would say “less is more” when it comes to great books, and that a person who thinks he or she has read them all, but knows nothing about any of them is rather a ‘dangerous’ person. It brings about a surface attitude towards reading and understanding which will not stand a kid in good stead in the long run. Read WELL, read slowly, and think carefully, even if you only cover a few works. AND IF you have only a little time, hone in on the Greeks, on Plato’s dialogues, on Greek plays (tragedies). There are few thoughts more profound than those… Those and the early church fathers.

Happy Mother's Day,
Lene

Using Older Literature in Classical Education

2009-05-02T14:09:00.005-06:00

Among those educators who honestly strive hard to teach kids to write well, who believe in punctuation, spelling, syntactical, and logical correctness, there are two schools of thought:

1. The correctness school: People in this school tend to prefer modern literature for study to ensure that kids don't accidentally pick up antiquated usage and infuse it into their writing. This school holds that kids need to study only the 'correct' (modern) way, or they will be confused and misuse what they learn.

2. The holistic school: This is where Classical Writing belongs. We teach modern correctness (of course), but we also look at great writers from all ages, and haven't found that children who imitate Shakespearean syntax, spelling, or punctuation tend to infuse it into their own writing in any way that induces errors by modern convention standards.

Yes, we teach correct conventions for the 21st century as a matter of priority. Yes, we want our kids to spell correctly. We teach that before we teach anything else in the lower grades, but for the higher levels … it's different.

The English language is not static, and correctness in English right now is not correctness forever. Language does "evolve", much as we wish it were different. This is easily seen by the changes from Beowulf to Geoffrey Chaucer to William Shakespeare to Samuel Richardson to today. Correctness in spelling and punctuation, even in word usage, is a slippery slope, which in some countries changes by state-run commissions sitting down after Fifty years and deciding that now THIS spelling is correct and THIS punctuation is the accepted one. It is done, usually, because the people have changed the way they speak, culture has let common usage change, so language commissions or style authorities make the changes official.

Webster in the 19th century (more or less officially??) changed American spelling with his new dictionary which was intended to reflect in spelling how Americans spoke. This was one of the first deviations from British English, and we continue to change from British English in punctuation and spelling. American punctuation differs significantly from that of British English, and not only that, within this country itself, there are different conventions on punctuation, especially over that much disputed mark, the comma. Some punctuation is truly a matter of following a 'rule' learned in school, but in truth, if you want to be hyper-pedantic, much "comma-tation" is a matter of style.

In the US, so far as I know, our official language of English changes when certain self-proclaimed style authorities like the Modern Language Associate or the Chicago Style Manual-- our 'accepted' authorities--put out new style guides. Publishing houses, reputable journals, and educational institutions adhere to these style guides, not all to the same one, but they all more or less agree with each other, at least in the broad strokes.

Because there is no static quality to language, we should expect change in language (not that we need always embrace it with joy) because it has come and will continue come. As such it is actually a LIE to teach kids that correctness is static, because it is not. It may be early to introduce that concept to a kid who is merely doing CW Primer, but the fact is that kids need to know that language is not math; it is not an absolute for all time, it is a dynamic reflection of the culture, political, religious, and sociological ‘climate’ we live in—for better, and often for worse.

Classical Writing, unlike the schools I mentioned in class 1 above, teaches from ancient as well as modern models of English all the way through the curriculum, even in Aesop, our 3rd-4th grade book. We constantly expose kids to English of yester-centuries, and part of that to keep alive the best of our language from other ages, that which otherwise would be lost.

For most kids, it has been our experience that this is an enriching process. Their language skills grow, and they have more expressive powers than those kids who are only exposed to modern texts. For a few children, who struggle severely with English correctness at a very basic mechanical level, this would not be helpful, but for the majority of kids, I believe our broad model selection to be one of the greatest assets our program has to offer.

Most kids will sooner or later read Beatrix Potter, the King James Bible, or Edmund Spenser for themselves. One way or the other they will be exposed to much language that by modern standards has become 'incorrect'. I put 'incorrect' in quotes first of all because we can't 'grandfather' incorrectness into materials written before the particular incorrectness we are addressing was codified. And secondly there were eras, Shakespeare's was one, where 'correctness' was less at a premium than it is today where correctness sadly seems to be one of the only standards left by which we are allowed to evaluate the quality of a piece of writing.

Don’t get me wrong, we at Classical Writing very much want to be up to modern standards in terms of producing writers who can write to satisfy the standards of the world they live in, but in addition we want to produce flexible writers, who possess a broad battery of verbal skills with which to respond both in speech and in writing to the issues that face us today. This requires broad reading (from antiquity and up) and broad analysis and imitation of some of the pieces read.

To sum up: The reason we decided to write CW is because we had delved into classical education at many levels by reading Cicero and Aristotle and Quintilian, and there was nothing out there that went to those sources and taught the way those sources taught.
Lene

To New Homeschoolers Part II

2009-04-30T13:04:00.000-06:00

Reading and writing are the monarchs of learning.

Classical education traditionally aimed at oral and written comprehension and expression. If you do not have command of your own language both to take in what others have expressed and to express yourself, you cannot communicate what you have learned to others.

This is not to say we don’t need to teach math or science or history also, but that an authentic classical education must put a higher premium on language.

Many moms will look at Classical Writing and see 60 minutes per day in language arts in 3rd grade and say, “I can’t spend that much time, I also have curriculum X, curriculum Y, and curriculum Z to cover.”

Well, not every day takes 60 minutes, and not every mom takes 60 minutes to cover the language arts lessons. Nonetheless, it may not be so far off to prioritize lanuguage arts (reading, spelling, grammar, and writing) with an hour on your daily schedule. Can you afford NOT to?

The trick is integrating all the other subjects to be subordinary to your language arts priorities. Take the skills you need to work on in language arts and apply them in all the other subjects.

Lene

To New Homeschoolers part I

2009-02-18T14:05:00.004-07:00

What is a classical education? Can you buy it in a box? Can you find a simple three step formula on how to teach your kids classically?

No.

Why not?

Because being educated classically is being educated to THINK, and there is no instant "just add water" formula to thinking. There is no "stick it all in a box and we have it figured out" sort of mentality in classical education. Thinking takes training, and training is what classical education is all about. Training in thinking systematically, clearly, logically, virtuously, but also, ultimately broadly and imaginatively.

By imagination, we don't mean the nebulous, off the cuff, free association randomness of a mind that never had an education, but the expansive ponderances of possibilities that spring from well-disciplined minds who have feasted on and imitated the great thoughts and ideas of the great minds of human history.

Our aim is thinking, and for that, while boxes are neat containers to sort things into, boxes are also limiting, and there is often more than one way to sort a collection of bric-a-brac. Our aim is to have boxes, but to also teach students to move beyond the boxes.

But back off from imagination for a minute.

A classical education has as its essence the mastery of language, training students to read and understand the thoughts of others, as well as training students to speak and write about those thoughts.

For the early years this looks much like the sort of education that Charlotte Mason advocated: short simple lessons of phonics, copybook, and math. This is the sort of education where you instill a love of learning in your kids by showing them what a marvelous world we live in, what wonders nature presents us with, how grand the words of the Bible are, as well as reading aloud (and alone) book after book after book, revelling in stories, in myths, and in legends

Your formal academic sessions should focus on reading, spelling, copybook, and math. The other subjects such as history, literature, art, PE, and whatever else you may want to pursue with your students should be accomplished in a playful atmosphere of enjoyment, not as tasks that must be accomplished. That playful atmosphere of exploring does much to stretch that early imagination. That imagination will later be key to innovative thinking, to making connections, and to building bridges of communication to others.

Read!! And read some more.

Modern Minds vs. Minds of Antiquity

2009-01-09T07:58:00.005-07:00

How do we think?

...about ourselves, about our means of persuation, about what other people say and how they say it?

We with our modern heritage think much about 'self', about how we come across, about "the real me", and about whether how we communicate is an authentic reflection of "who we really are?" Our concerns are deeply [and perhaps rightfully so] centered around the integrity of our own persons, and how those persons are received by others.

The big issue during the Romantic era [late 1700s into the mid 1800s] was sort of a 'back to nature' approach. The less schooled I am, the more of the real me will come out. Schooling [that is training in rhetoric and speech and writing] stifles the 'real me' and so better to leave off some of that 'artifice' and just be 'me'.

How did the ancients think?

If you remember your Plato ... and that is P-L-A-T-O, and not "playdough" as my hubby is so fond of teasing me with ... Plato said there was a greater reality beyond. Plato said that there were "FORMS" that we saw shadows of on this earth, which were more perfect beautiful and good in the world beyond. For example, a triangle here on earth drawn on a piece of paper would be but a coarse representation of the perfect triangle to be found in the realm beyond. Likewise, any goodness one would see here on earth, would be but a glimmer of true goodness found beyond.

SO ALSO--with the ancients--in the realm of writing. There were "forms" to observe. A certain way to write a letter of friendship, a certain way of writing a eulogy, a certain way of writing a speech of rebuke, a speech for political action, a speech for condemning a criminal.

AHA! Those of you who have followed this blog in the past know where I am going. Those forms are recorded for posterity in the form of Cicero's De Oratore, of Quintilian's Institutes, of Aristotle's Rhetoric, of Aphthonius' Progymnasmata. Those are names of a few famous people from Antiquity who wrote on the subject of speechwriting and rhetoric. -- FORMS is what we have, not just in Plato's philosophy but also in education and in particular in education in the "use of words" to persuade others.

AS SUCH, the typical "man on the street" in Antiquity who wrote a letter or gave a speech to the Athenian assembly was not trying to project the "real him" in his speech so much as he was trying to persuade the recipient of his letter or the Athenian assembly of his point of view. And to do that he used the accepted FORMS of the day, the forms he had learned in education for how to write persuasively. It is less 'himself' that shines through than it is a mixture of the accepted way to write persuasively mingled with his view on the issue itself.

Self was not front and center -- the message was. And the message was best communicated via the accepted forms of the day, forms of writing, which most effectively persuaded others of one's point of view. His goal was PERSUASION.

Why do I write this?

It may be more difficult for us to understand writings of the past if we do not understand rhetoric... that is if we do not understand what persons of Antiquity found persuasive and what they valued as important.

When a person like St Paul in a letter rants and calls people "stupid/foolish" and then later in the same letter fondly greets some dear friends or commends others for great service, it is not because he is schizophrenic or because the REAL Paul is coming out. It is rather because he uses the accepted rhetorical forms of the day "how to write a letter of friendship", "how to write a letter of rebuke" and so forth... and the folks who received his letters understood this, where we, perhaps, may be more inclined to do a little psycho-analysis on Paul and try to figure out how he really felt.

Ancients, and in particular Greeks [Read Homer], were not so interested in the 'real me' as they were in functioning within the role that they were 'born' into. [no, I am not advocating going back to that, just showing what they thought]. So a woman like Penelope was commended as the ideal wife and mother because she stayed within her role and waited faithfully. The ideal was not 'self actualization' but operating properly within what one was given, within one's purpose in life.

Again, even in life, there was a 'form' to follow, so when one was born a girl, there was a 'form' for growing up into a virtuous wife, etc. If one was born a male and free, there was another form to follow.

The modern mind breaks free of forms, does what it wants, realizes itself. That is who we are, that is how most of us think. But we cannot project that mindset unto the ancient texts and expect to find truth that way.

Learning to think

2008-12-26T10:52:00.002-07:00

So often, new moms using Classical Writing will ask on our message boards whether their students really need to outline.

"My son already knows the story and can tell it from memory," a mom will say. "Why bother with the outline?"

In the name of flexibility, we usually concede that it isn't always necessary to outline. Many kids do have the story sequence memorized almost immediately.

But ... we don't outline to remember the story. We outline to *organize thought*. Why, you might ask, would we want to 'organize' the thoughts behind such a simple story as The Hare and the Tortoise?

We start with The Hare and the Tortoise because whenever we teach a new skill we work with material that is familiar to the student, material that is easy to comprehend. That way we can totally focus on the new task, which in this case is outlining.

The skill of outlining, in the early stages involves choosing the three or four most important words that encapsulate the essence of each sentence. It is important that the student learns to think about a sentence like

The Hare darted almost out of sight at once, but soon stopped and, to show his contempt for the Tortoise, lay down to have a nap.

and decide which are the most important words in that sentence ...most important with regards to the content of the story, that is.

The story version we use is found here

A typical sentence-by-sentence outline for The Hare and the Tortoise would look something like this:

The Hare and the Tortoise

1. Hare, boasts, speed
2. Never beaten, challenge
3. Tortoise accepts
4. Joke says Hare
5. Keep boasting, Tortoise, race
6. Course fixed, start
7. Hare stopped, nap
8. Hare awoke, Tortoise, winning-post
9. Tortoise: plodding wins race

For most students this should be a cinch when it comes to a simple fable--and it should be, but as your student enters high school and college, he will get into difficult passages:

It is being, attained or perceived at the summit of an abstractive intellection, of an eidetic or intensive visualization which owes its purity and power of illumination only to the fact that the intellect, one day, was stirred to its depths and trans-illuminated by the impact of the act of existing apprehended in things, and because it was quickened to the point of receiving this act, or hearkening to it, within itself, in the intelligible and super-intelligible integrity of the tone particular to it.

~ Jacques Maritain

It is essential that he knows how to outline and extract the important words from the sentence to condense that passage down to a precis that says:

Being is understood when the intellect apprehends through the senses the existence through other things.

This is an extreme example of a very difficult passage, designed to underscore my point. It is difficult to outline or summarize a passage which one barely understands.

Merry Christmas,
Lene

Books and Movies

2008-11-29T14:09:00.005-07:00

Recently I began to dig into a book called Story. It is a handbook for writing screen plays for movies. No ...I have no aspirations towards writing for the silver screen, but in preparation for Classical Writing - Shakespeare, I have spent a lot of time for the past two years reading books about how to write fiction, biographies, and plays.

Story is by a ‘famous’ [I never heard of him] screenplay writer Robert McKee. He discusses

1. the standard plot that most people like,

2. the loose plot,

3. the 'anti-plot' plot.

The standard plot has all motivations clearly defined and rationalized, and all ends tied at the end. It is 'classic' in the sense that it has existed since the earliest plays were written, but also 'classic' in the sense that it is a form that most human beings enjoy watching for the satisfaction of being presented with an orderly world, and with good moral endings.

The loose plot mirrors the standard plot in basic structure, but it ends less completely, there are still bad guys out there, the world is not perfect, and not everything that happens is completely rationally accounted for. That is, even if potentially there might be rational explanations for most actions, we are not privy to them.

The anti plot would be like a Monty Python movie or even the less structured artsy films that seek to 'explore' events or feelings without coming up with a particular plot. It may or may not 'arrive' at the end. It's streams of consciousness sort of thinking. Often unsatisfying unless the thrust of the movie resonates particularly with its audience. It is the least frequented movie type.

All three types of plots have their purposes and their audiences. I am not writing to endorse one or the other. McKee claims that the standard plot commands the most viewers. In fact, he calls the 'standard plot' the 'arch-plot' and describes its viewers (most of the movie viewing public) like this:

Most human being s believe that life brings closed experiences of absolute, irreversible change; that their greatest sources of conflict are external to themselves; that they are the single and active protagonists of their own existence; that their existence operates through continuous time within a consistent, causally interconnected reality, and that inside this reality events happen for explainable and meaningful reasons.

Most people enjoy movies of the standard plot. His description of 'most humans'' preferences reminded me of movies like Superman, Spiderman, etc. All conflict in those movies is ‘external’. There is an enemy that all good people band together against. The super hero and the strong guys fight that enemy to destroy him and save their world.

This is a fine movie to teach kids that there is good and bad in the world, that they need to side with the good, and that bad will not triumph in the end. It is a fine message, it is a fine plot line. When we just need to kick back with a movie, this sort relaxes us because it does not demand much of our mental or empathetic faculties. All we have to do is nod and agree [and perhaps wag a finger at a kid... maybe?].

But there are problems with a constant movie diet of the standard plot too. The standard plot offers an external view of life which pretty much says that “I am OK”. THAT is why it does not demand much of me.

It's the bad guys in the world that are out to get me that I need to worry about. So my problems are all on the outside. I need to fight those guys to make this world safe for me and mine. That sort of external view of life takes the problem away from me, and it confirms what I like to hear, which is that whatever I perceive as bad in the rest of the world something I have to be on the watch for and fight against (be that in my local clubs, at work, or in church or wherever things are rubbing me wrong.) It is an individualistic and frankly self-centered view of the world. It assumes that I am right to start with, it does not ask of me to empathize with others or learn another point of view because I am already "OK".

In addition, McKee's insistence that we as humans tend to believe in a consistent, causally interconnected reality which we can explain and make meaning out of seems to me dangerous, also. The underlying assumption here, is that *I* with my simple mind and with my fallen nature can expect to fully understand and appreciate the reasons for most things that go on in my world. That along with my mandate in the previous paragraph to go out and fight the issues I disagree with makes me a lone ranger who needs to fix my world to protect my own interests.

The problem with the assumption that I really can understand all that goes on in the world is that so often I don’t fully [if at all] understand reasons for what goes on around me, and worst of all often I don't understand the people around me very well (or at least not completely). When I think I do understand them, and I act decisively and irreversibly on that understanding, I may hurt myself and potentially alienate those others precisely because I do not understand as well as I think I do. But that only exacerbates the problem. They become 'the bad guys' because "I am OK" and therefore I get alienated further.

Most movies feed us those simple ideals all the time.

A recent survey across America showed that over half of us never read a book. We read magazines, newspapers, Internet blogs :) and more than anything we grativate towards TV and movies.

This lack of literature, or only getting literature through movie adaptations seems a dangerous trend since movies so often only give us only the externals: simplistic morals of fighting bad guys.

Books--at least in the case of well written literature--more so allow us the luxury of basking in the thoughts of others, opening up to us thoughts that we would never think of our own, teaching us to have understanding, compassion, and empathy with others more than movies are usually able to do, enriching and broadening our own minds. Whenever we have read a great book and see the movie made of it, the inevitable conclusion for most of us seems to be that the book was better. There is a reason for that.

Here's to books!!! Read them to yourself, read them aloud with your kids, EVEN when the kids are 18 years old. Replace some of your movie nights with reading aloud to each other instead.

And just to tie it in with writing, since this is a blog about writing--broad reading, regular reading, regular immersion in complex sentences and varied vocabulary are the 'osmosis' part of teaching writing. The words, the phrases, the ways of thinking stick with your students, even when they don't know they are being taught.

Keep a book on your night stand always. Read before you go to sleep.

I have a stack of books on my stand, and I read a chapter of each every night before turning out the light. Currently my stack consists of Daniel Deronda by Eliot, Letters to Malcolm: On Prayer by C. S. Lewis, Plato's Dialogues, Story (as mentioned above) by McKee, a fiction manuscript of my own that I proof a chapter of each night, Progymnasmata by Kennedy, and the Bible. In addition our family is reading aloud War and Peace by Tolstoy and also One Corpse too Many by Peters [A Brother Cadfael Mystery].

Your stack may look quite different from mine, but read and read broadly. Read... and read!! :)

Lene

About the meaning of words

2008-10-21T11:21:00.008-06:00

This weekend I was musing over the word 'nature'. It struck me that 'nature' has to be one of the most abused/over-used/confusing words in the Western languages.

When we talk about a person's 'nature', we may mean the essence of that person--that which makes him who he is. His 'nature' might be kindly and quiet, or it might be loud and funny. He was born that way. That is what we mean when we speak of his 'nature' in that context. As such, we hail his nature as something he should be true to. It is the REAL him, as opposed to all the constraints and artifices that those around him would like to impose on him.

On the other hand, in another sense of the word, a person's 'nature' could also be precisely that which he strives against: his propensity towards all the vices. When we say that someone has an 'animal nature', we are implying something brutish and thoughtless. (This of course is unfair to 'nature' and to the animals, because often when man is most 'animal' in his behavior--greedy, selfish, and murderous--he is often least like the animals.)

'Natural Law' when seen from a Thomistic perspective is the general moral law that we all (sort of 'know') in our hearts. But turn the words around and the 'Laws of Nature' as we discuss them in science have nothing to do with 'Natural Law' or morality. Indeed, 'the Laws of Nature' are not laws but really just physical principles which scientists have observed, principles that the universe invariably operates by (they are never broken, and always in some sense deterministic).

'Natural' foods are what we term foods grown without pesticides and meats from animals reared to roam free on the range. In addition they have to be manufactured without preservatives and chemical additives. It is thought, in some quarters, that food which is not genetically engineered, is more 'natural' and less dangerous to consume... And yet, the very 'nature' that we look to for health and good living is also treacherous to us. No matter how healthily and 'naturally' we live, at some level 'nature' itself is ultimately our destroyer. Neanderthals (who surely ate foods without pesticides and hormonal injections) still got cancer, pneumonia, and suffered strokes.

In fact, however artificial it is, it was multiple surgical interventions that extended the life of our newborn son twelve years ago when he otherwise would not have survived his first year of life precisely because 'nature' had supplied him with a heart that had no walls.

A 'nature painting' can either be a painting painted with all 'natural' materials (materials from nature that have not been subject to 'artificial' chemical processing), or it could also be a painting of 'nature'. In this case by 'nature' is meant the unspoiled outdoors that man hasn’t messed with (too much... or at all?).

Another use of the word 'nature' aims at telling people what their roles are in life. It is the 'nature' of woman (some, perhaps most, say) to be nurturing and take care of her children. It is how she was 'made' and therefore she must ______ (insert different roles that different societies find non-negotiables as to what women may or may not do). In any case, for a woman to be called an 'unnatural mother' is not a compliment.

This argument from 'nature' was used to keep black men in slavery... and before that, it was used by members of the nobility (argument from birth) to keep their rule while keeping their peasants peasants.

With Classical Liberalism, Thomas Jefferson claimed that 'nature' and 'nature's' God were the originator of the classical liberal rights of Life, Liberty, and Property; THIS at the same time that others claimed that the 'nature' of the black African was to be in servitude.

Appeal to 'nature' seems to be able to justify everything from altruism to fascism as to what our 'nature' as humans dictates in terms of where we all fit into 'nature's' order.

Even within science, the use of the word 'nature' is obscured. In physics, f. ex. when we smash two atoms together for fission and look at the products, we claim we are studying 'nature' and its laws. Within environmental science, others claim that this is 'unnatural' and dangerous and perhaps with an appeal to 'natural law' even wrong.

So is our place in 'nature' or outside 'nature'??

Within our value-laden theologies and philosophies we cannot decide whether 'nature'... our own human 'nature'--or even the 'outdoorsy nature'--is desirable or not. Do we need to tame, deny, or conform to our 'nature' or to God's 'nature' (meaning the physical world around us)? In many respect, we have not come to terms with each other on the meaning of the word 'nature', neither in terms of human 'nature, nor in terms of the 'out of doors'.

If we do not understand the sense in which others (today and through history) use the word nature? [including its use in Holy Scripture], how can we be sure we're not infusing their writings about 'nature' with our own preferred understanding of the word?

A famous conservative a while back said "Words mean something", and indeed they do. A thorough study of language is the best foundation we can lay for our children's higher education and spiritual and intellectual preparation for responsible adulthood.

Lene

How we write Classical Writing

2008-10-09T10:13:00.001-06:00

A lot of people have asked us how we 'think up' our lessons and writing projects for Classical Writing. To say we follow the ancient Greek progymnasmata doesn't ring a bell with most of you. And why should it? Progym... eh... what??

When Tracy and I originally got the idea to create a writing curriculum for homeschoolers we had already spent several years immersing ourselves in grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Yes, believe it or not, Tracy and I have the sort of nerdy friendship where we can spend hours writing back and forth discussing on the 'loss of invective in modern discourse' or what the difference is between the ancient and the modern understanding of 'remembering' and how that ties in with religious/philosophical ways of remembering Christ in the Lord's Supper.

Well, anyways, we love reading ancient texts (in translation... just for the record, we're neither of us well enough versed in Latin or Greek to tackle the originals).

And what we found was that the ancient writers mentioned a set of exercises, the progymnasmata, that go from having kids retell short simple stories to arguing for and against current issues in fourteen steps. The steps made sense to us. They added one little step at a time, letting the kids master each step of the way before adding on new writing techniques. We were sold.

The ancients operated on a very simple four step outline for teaching writing:

read good writing
learn what is so good about it
imitate it
write your own.

And that is how we write each book for Classical Writing, also.

We read the ancient texts.
We figure out what is so great about them.
We imitate them (that is we rephrase their exercises so they are useful for modern students).
And then we add on modern writing exercises, relevant to our students today.

The interesting thing we found as we studied was that the subject of rhetoric was taught inside the exercises of the progymnasmata, that these exercises actually WERE rhetoric, one step at a time and that when the kids were done with all fourteen they would be well versed in the techniques of rhetoric.

When we wrote the first book, we read a lot of Quintilian and Aphthonius (Roman teachers from the early centuries AD) . We studied their approach to working with seven year olds on grammar, on basic copy book, and on retelling fables. We found that they worked primarily with the texts of Aesop and also with snippets from Homer for the early years, hence our two books Aesop (retelling fables) and Homer (retelling longer narratives). As much as posisble we tried to apply what they taught and how they taught it to how we teach students grammar and writing in modern American English. Our goal was to retain their rigor and approach while still remaining as we are, in the twenty-first century, so that students of Classical Writing are able to write in ways and on subjects that are relevant to the needs and issues of current times.

As we have progressed through our series, our junior high books Diogenes: Maxim and Chreia (arguing for the wisdom of a proverb or anecdote) required us to study in addition the progymnasmata handbooks of Theon, Nicolaus, as well as numerous rhetorical 'gurus' such as Aristotle's Rhetoric, and the famous Roman orator Cicero's treatises on oratory and rhetorical invention. Other names such as Hermogenes, Diogenes, Libanius, and Isocrates are not familiar to most, and they weren't to us either, but our aim for every writing exercise has been to dig as deep and seek as broadly as we could to find the most exhaustive (and comprehensive) treatment of each skill we teach.

I have just finished writing our 9th grade book Herodotus (the books is named after the Greek father of history). It is about argumentative writing, generating proof for or against a position. It is in beta testing. Most of its rhetorical foundation was drawn from Cicero and even more so from Aristotle, both in terms of logic (his Organon) and rhetoric.

Our next book is Plutarch (Plutarch is a Roman historian, our chief source on many of ancient Rome's personalities), which deals with praising and blaming persons, places, and events. It is a more descriptive book, which teaches students to write both essays, letters, and speeches in honor of people, or against certain political persons or ideas. It draws heavily on Hermogenes' On Style as well as on Aristotle's Rhetoric.

We always tie our books in with the needs of modern writing. As such, our junior high books (Diogenes: Maxim and Chreia) and our high school books (Herodotus [9th], Plutarch [10th], and Demosthenes [11th-12th]) while they start by teaching the ancient disciplines, always tie everything learned in with application to modern essay techniques and needs. Our aim is that your student be well prepared to write for every and any occasion. Our aim is to give your student a thorough foundation for college writing.

Is it worth it?

Once your student has mastered reading, there is nothing more important to teach in school than writing. If your student cannot communicate adequately, he cannot succeed. Do your student the favor of teaching him to write well for every occasion, it will bless him not just in his college and future job, it will help him learn to think, to ponder different viewpoints carefully, to know what he believes and why. Writing is not just to persuade others of our important points of view, it is also our own therapeutic way of processing the things we meditate on. We cannot fully own a point of view until we can articulate it, and writing instruction is an essential part of your student's path to owning and refining his convictions.

And that is enough ramblings from the Front Range for one morning,

Lene Jaqua

About Logic and Rhetoric

2008-10-04T10:02:00.002-06:00

This is not to scare younger homeschool moms away from Classical Writing or this blog spot, but for the philosophical blog post for the week, I thought I would share the thoughts behind our approach to logic and rhetoric in our high school books.

If you have already thought about the connections between formal logic and rhetoric and found yourself coming up puzzled as to how they tie together, this post is for you. If these pressing issues in the world of writing never even crossed your mind, don't sweat it, just relax and read what I have to say and see if it rings a bell. Ultimately if it does not, have no worries, start at the beginning of our curriculum, and as you move your way up, surely this subject will resonate with you later on. Remember, writing classically is a huge subject with many nooks and crannies, and you're not required to understand them all at the same time.

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Logic as it Relates to Language

Language
Sounds combine to form words (substantives) which by convention of language become terms that signify real and abstract ‘things’ in our world. For example, in English, we have established the word ‘chair’ and the sounds it makes when we pronounce it, to signify an object which is meant for humans to sit on.
We combine those words (those substantives) with their modifiers (adjectives that describe them or verbs that tell what they are doing) and with connectives (prepositions and conjunctions) to create sentences (declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative).
Declarative sentences are propositions that state something.

Logic
In Aristotle’s Organon (his treatise on logic) Aristotle featured his ten categories, which addressed the basic grammar of a sentence. His ten categories explain subjects and predicates and the different ways in which subjects and predicates can be combined to form rational sentences stating known truths.
With the use of logic, we can connect one proposition with another, and by combining those two propositions, we can create another declarative sentence (proposition) using the terms and the connections in the two original propositions. That is formal syllogistic logic.

Grammar
It is by the aid of grammar that we can combine words and terms to state a known truth in a rational manner. Therefore grammar is the starting point for all intellectual discourse. Unless a proposition conforms to certain grammatical rules (i.e. a sentence must contained both a subject and a predicate) a rational person could neither judge the truth value of the sentence nor combine it logically with other propositions to move towards new conclusions.
Propositions must be grammatically correct in order to communicate well for social as well as for logical and scientific reasons. Grammatically incorrect assertions are illogical (though they may be comprehensible to some). Therefore, mastering grammar is the first step in learning how to carry out rational discourse and intellectual inquiry.

Logic as a Science
Logic is the science of combining reasonable (grammatically correct) propositions of known truths into patterns that would yield new conclusions. What kinds of truths are we talking about?

Deduction
Truths can be perceived directly and intuitively; in this case, true propositions are intuitively obvious, (not rationally disputable), and they can be logically combined to yield other propositions that are equally indisputable.
The axioms of Euclid’s Elements are not subject to dispute because they are intuitively obvious; when the propositions of geometry are combined in correctly logical sequences, therefore, the proofs of geometry are indisputably true. Thus geometry is governed by deductive logic.
For example,
All triangles are three-sided shapes.
This shape is three sided.
Therefore this shape is a triangle.
Yet, not all Euclidian proofs, though they be deductive and indisputable, are immediately obvious.

Dialectic

Another way of discovering truth, is where truth emerges only through dialectic, that is through argumentation in dialogue. This is an area where truth certainly exists but where even properly stated propositions are subject to dispute or doubt and must be demonstrated and proven. This is the domain of the dialectical sciences, the area where reason must work discursively because even the most basic propositions are not intuitively obvious and may seem doubtful or disputable to a reasonable mind.

In theology, aesthetics, politics, literature, and ethics, any field in which we discover truth through dialectic, even the most basic premises require demonstration and proof before they can be accepted as true. Unlike the proposition that all triangles are three-sided figures, they are not intuitive.

Yet truth discovered through dialectic still has exactly the same character as it does in deductive logic, and thus the rules of logic are not essentially different from what they are in strict deductive logic. The main difference is that in these fields the rules of logic must be applied in more complex ways because human beings have such difficulty in perceiving the truth. Yes, logic is still logic, but logical thought in a field such as politics or ethics must be approached differently. Its tone and emphasis differ because it is working in a domain where logic must not merely state the truth but also dispute those who doubt or disagree with said truth, as well as demonstrate its proofs against all possible objections (relating to all three appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos).

In dialectic, logic must work as a dialogue between the truth and the objections to that truth. The logical inquiry must demonstrate the proof of each proposition by meeting and overcoming whatever objections exist.

Within dialectical logic reason must work discursively; logic becomes largely an art of disputation and arguments, advancing and demonstrating arguments rather than simply stating the intuitively obvious.

Rhetoric
In light of this rhetoric is not essentially different from dialectical logic because both are arts of disputation, of advancing and proving arguments through logical discourse.
The crucial differences between dialectics and rhetoric have to do with form and situation, not with substance. Rhetoric and dialectical logic are essentially the same, but they differ in their appearance or form and their situational use or occasion.
Dialectics deals with questions having an abstract and general scope, rhetoric deals with issues which have limited and immediate interest, i.e., with concrete questions involving the problems of specific times, places, and people.

Dialectic was usually carried out between two people debating a philosophical question. The dialectical philosopher would ask whether kings generally should marry at all and, if so, whether a king should prefer to marry a virtuous woman or an aristocratic woman.

Rhetoric would address, more specifically whether King Edward VI should marry one of his own subjects or a foreign princess.
The general question is whether and whom kings should marry, but while a philosopher would seek broad and general answers, a rhetorician would use his art in the context of very specific situations and occasions and would come up with a very specific proposed course of action.

Rhetoric also differs from dialectic in its stylistic presentation of its discourse; dialectical philosophy presents its verbal processes with minimal ornamentation, refusing to develop arguments in ways that will merely ‘delight’ an audience without making a strictly logical contribution to the discourse. Dialectics does not try to please indifferent or inexpert auditors.

Rhetoric, on the other hand, brings in ‘eloquence’ to make dialectics more appealing and more comprehensible; rhetoric presents its argument with language that uses consciously ‘artificial’ ornamentation and conscientiously developed amplifications (which are not strictly required by the logic of the argument) in order to attract the interest and to persuade the reasonable faculties of an inexpert or an initially uninterested audience. Rhetoric deals with one speaker addressing a larger audience of people not specifically trained in the art of argument.

Logic and Rhetoric
Logic is the art of reasoning correctly. We study logic to understand the nature of language and thinking; to define terms, to make distinctions, to judge correctly, and to validate truth. Logic study encourages systematic and disciplined thinking.
As phonics is to reading, as grammar is to writing, so is logic to argumentation.

In the case of phonics and grammar, we learned the rules, and we can read and write, though not in every instance of reading and writing do we formally refer to the rules of phonics or grammar. Still, even in the absence of formally consulting those rules, the rules of phonics and grammar undergird the processes.
Likewise, in logic, there are formal rules for argumentation that make an argument valid. In logic, we learn to extract the premises behind the argument as well as the terms in each premise. We learn to evaluate whether an argument is sound.

Formal logic is a means of acquiring certainty about the validity and soundness of an argument, and it works well for math and certain aspects of science, but not with the same air-tight certainty and clarity in the case of historical, religious, or philosophical questions.
When Martin Cothran in Traditional Logic II ‘proves’, for example that Mary is the Mother of God, a complex theological issue has been simplified and reduced to the level of two premises and a conclusion.

Jesus is God (Premise 1)
Mary is the mother of Jesus (Premise 2)
Therefore Mary is the Mother of God (Conclusion)

The argument makes sense. So why do some believers still struggle with the concept?

Well, it is not that those who disagree with the conclusion do not understand the validity of the logic, but that they argue with the premises or the way the premises are used: Trinitarian Christians all believe that Jesus is God. And likewise all believe in Jesus’ birth from Mary. But what does it mean that Mary is the mother of Jesus? Does that mean that she is likewise the mother of all of the Trinity? If we call Mary the Mother of God, are we saying she is the mother of all the Trinity, that she was existing before all things, even before God the Father Himself? (This question was settled in the Early Church. Look up the Nestorian Heresy to find the full implications of this difficult question.)

It is not my aim with this post to shed light on this question, neither from a Protestant, nor from a Catholic perspective. We merely want to point out that even in such seemingly iron-clad cases, there is no agreement in many circles because we need to qualify or “complexify” what we mean by each premise and by the terms in each premise.

The Trinity in and of itself is an ‘ambiguity’ of three-in-one, and one-in three, so how can one ‘simplify’ and give a straight-forward answer as to the motherhood of ONE of the three-in-one as to whether that makes her the mother of all three? The premises need qualification before all can agree on the conclusion or even on what the conclusion means. Such is the case for much of Christianity. Careful definition of terms and elaboration of premises are required before we can even begin to operate with logic to any avail. (Yes, there is a right answer, but an answer that requires careful study of language and its use.)

Most political, philosophical, and historical questions are not simple to start with. Definitions of the basic terms are often complex and not agreed on. Any stated premise that is clearly defined is usually under a great deal of dispute, but worse than that, the answers to historical and political questions are usually not binary (meaning, they are not an either-or case).

In most human arguments there are a multiplicity of answers interwoven with each other, tangled and attached in funny ways that make formal logic impractical as a vehicle for argumentation. In most cases where we can indeed write a simple essay and use a formulary syllogistic approach, the argument is so simple that the premises or the conclusion are not really subject to dispute to start with. For example in the classic syllogism:

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.

This syllogism states the obvious and undisputed in its two premises, and it proceeds to conclude the obvious in its conclusion. There is no new startling information here. It is merely a rearrangement of the terms yielding an answer we were all too familiar with. In fact, most of us, without the syllogism would have reached that conclusion on our own. This would make a most uninteresting essay.

In matters of persuasion we are not dealing with the obvious. We are trying to reason about that which is disputed amongst men, and that alone implies that the answers are not obvious, the premises are not agreed on, and often the terms or the use of the terms used are under dispute as well.

What is an essay, but a written answer to a complex question that requires PERSUASION precisely because the answer is not agreed on, simple, or obvious? If the answer were obvious and certain, there would be no need for argumentation; everyone would be able to SEE it logically.

The many questions we ask in history, philosophy, and literature are questions that require persuasion precisely because they are not obvious. Therefore, the direct vehicle of employing formal syllogistic logic is often not a good way to answer those questions persuasively.

Formal logic and its vehicle, the syllogism, mostly seem to be useful in questions that are of the nature of ‘is or isn’t X’ of this or that nature. ‘This or that’ could be ‘clear, good, beneficial, possible, plausible’. Syllogisms are good at asking yes/no questions because you can formulate a syllogism that says:

All things that are clear are Y.
X is Y.
Therefore X is clear.

So the thesis of the essay is X is Y... and you spend the body paragraphs of your essay showing that X is Y (by definition, by example, by analogy, by testimony, by cause and effect etc... whatever invention topic fits your case.)

But in most essay questions we are asking more complex questions, like

Why did the League of Nations fail?
or
Was slavery the cause of the Civil War?

In those cases, YES, we use reasoning to dig up arguments and to support our answers, but to dig down to extract a syllogism as a framework for the thesis proposition we are trying to support seems unnecessarily cumbersome, and in some cases, not at all helpful.

If we take the time to construct a syllogism with each premise in standard logical form that looks like this:

All human institutions that fail are human institutions that do not have the power to enforce what they stand for.
The League of Nations is a human institution that does not have the power to enforce what it stands for.
Therefore the League of Nations is an institution that failed.

... how helpful is that? I already knew that, and so did the prospective readers of my essay. What I need to show is that the League of Nations did not have the muscle to enforce what it stood for, so my essay is actually more or less enthymemic in that it suppresses the obvious and jumps straight to the interesting point.
Nowhere in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Quintillian’s Institutes, or Cicero’s De Oratore do we see a classical model for constructing syllogisms to come up with all available means of persuasion in a speech or an essay. We are more likely to dig into Cicero’s topics of invention and define, differentiate, compare, exemplify, and so forth, to generate persuasive support for our work.

A SYLLOGISM is really meant as a slam dunk proof of certainty, and that we cannot generate in the context of disputable issues. The best we can do on issues that mankind in general disagrees on is to lean one way or another and try to persuade.
So, the issue is one of certainty, such as in mathematics where we clearly define our terms and deductively come to irrefutable conclusions. Formal logic can provide that certainty in those cases.
In contrast, rhetoric is meant to be persuasive in cases where certainty is not possible. Rhetoric is ‘second best’ in terms of certainty, but so many issues in life, in fact, most of the issues that matter most to us are issues that people and cultures differ on and therefore matters of persuasion. (This of course does not mean that YOU cannot personally be certain about something. It is merely asserting that mankind as a whole does not agree on many of the issues that matter.) The areas where we would love to be most certain are the ones that are the hardest to be certain about.
So to conclude, syllogisms can be useful. They are simple devices but so simple that while their structure is inherent in the work we do, they are so simple we hardly need to call attention to their existence.

To use a syllogism, the argument as in most judicial rhetoric cases, should be simple and clear. It has to be easy for a jury to see the issues and render a verdict. Furthermore, the matter of sentencing also should be clear so that justice has been served. We do not, in judicial rhetoric, want to render a nebulous judgment or pronounce an unfair sentence.

Lene

CW projects in the works, October 2008

2008-10-04T10:01:00.001-06:00

Currently we have more than a few projects going at the same time.

I just completed CW Herodotus Core book for beta testing. It is a book that focuses on Judicial rhetoric (the rhetoric of the court room). It teaches kids to argue for and against issues. It is a 'fun' book, I think because it stretches a high schooler to really look at issues, to really look and see that many things have two sides and that while there is truth, there are times when two person's different perceptions of the same even can make it difficult to discern what really happened.

Here is the Herodotus Table of Contents:

Section One: Refutation and Confirmation 3
Pre-lesson - Introduction to Herodotus..................3
Lesson 1.1 - Refutation and Confirmation..................5
Lesson 1.2 - Introduction to Apollo and Daphne..................8
Lesson 1.3 - Ancient Essay on Refutation..................11
Lesson 1.4 - Ancient Essay on Confirmation..................15
Lesson 1.5 - The Ancient Greek Justice System..................19
Lesson 1.6 - Slant Narratives..................23
Lesson 1.7 - Rhetorical Occasion..................27
Lesson 1.8 - Audiences and Refutation..................31
Lesson 1.9 - Writing a Paragraph..................34
Lesson 1.10 - Clarity ..................40
Lesson 1.11 - Writing a Paragraph on Clarity..................45
Lesson 1.12 - Credibility..................47
Lesson 1.13 - Writing a Paragraph on Credibility..................51
Lesson 1.14 - Possibility and Plausibility..................53
Lesson 1.15 - Writing a Possibility and Plausibility Paragraph..................59
Lesson 1.16 - Propriety..................64
Lesson 1.17 - Writing a Paragraph on Propriety..................70
Lesson 1.18 - Expediency..................72
Lesson 1.19 - Writing a Paragraph on Expediency..................82
Lesson 1.20 - More about Narrative Writing..................83
Lesson 1.21 - Refutation Analysis..................87
Section Two: Judicial Rhetoric 91
Pre-lesson Introduction to The Oresteia..................91
Lesson 2.1 - Three Types of Rhetoric..................94
Lesson 2.2 - Judicial Rhetoric: Stasis Theory..................96
Lesson 2.3 - Agamemnon..................101
Lesson 2.4 - Stasis Theory Applied to Agamemnon..................104
Lesson 2.5 - The Libation Bearers..................106
Lesson 2.6 - Stasis Theory Applied to The Libation Bearers..................109
Lesson 2.7 - The Eumenides..................111
Lesson 2.8 - Stasis Theory Applied to Eumenides..................115
Lesson 2.9 - Progymnasma Commonplace..................116
Lesson 2.10 - Hermogenes’ Commonplace..................122
Lesson 2.11 - Demosthenes’ Commonplace..................125
Lesson 2.12 - Writing a Commonplace Essay for a Virtue..................129
Section Three: Canon of Invention 133
Pre-lesson - Introduction to On the Incarnation..................133
Lesson 3.1 - Overview of the Canon of Invention..................134
Lesson 3.2 - Argument from Definition..................139
Lesson 3.3 - Aristotle’s Four Causes..................142
Lesson 3.4 - Division (A Part of Definition)..................148
Lesson 3.5 - More on Definitions..................151
Lesson 3.6 - Essences (Definition)..................157
Lesson 3.7 - Definition in Essay Writing..................161
Lesson 3.8 - Argument from Comparison, Part I..................166
Lesson 3.9 - Argument from Comparison, Part II..................170
Lesson 3.10 - Similarity and Difference..................174
Lesson 3.11 - Argument from Relationship: Cause and Effect..................180
Lesson 3.12 - Argument from Consequent and Circumstance..................186
Lesson 3.13 - Using Argument from Circumstance for Analysis..................194
Lesson 3.14 - Argument from Testimony..................199
Lesson 3.15 - Argument from Notation and Conjugates..................204
Lesson 3.16 - Review of Invention..................211
Section Four: Modern Argumentation 218
Pre-lesson - Introduction to Machiavelli’s The Prince..................218
Lesson 4.1 - Introduction to the Argumentative Essay..................219
Lesson 4.2 - Decoding an Essay Prompt..................224
Lesson 4.3 - The Special Topics and Essay Writing..................230
Lesson 4.4 - Thesis Statement..................232
Lesson 4.5 - Classical Oration..................235
Lesson 4.6 - Stasis Theory in Essay Writing..................240
Lesson 4.7 - Enthymemes and Examples..................243
Lesson 4.8 - Support for Argumentative Essays..................248
Lesson 4.9 - Confirmation..................256
Lesson 4.10 - Refutation..................260
Lesson 4.11 - Paragraphs and Topic Sentences ..................265
Lesson 4.12 - Analysis of Paragraph..................270
Lesson 4.13 - Writing Body Paragraphs..................275
Lesson 4.14 - Introduction..................277
Lesson 4.15 - Writing an IntroductoryParagraph, Part I..................281
Lesson 4.16 - Writing an Introductory Paragraph, Part II..................285
Lesson 4.17 - Towards the Conclusion: Review of Testimony Paragraph..................287
Lesson 4.18 - Towards the Conclusion: Final Topics and Ethics ..................288
Lesson 4.19 - The Conclusion: Its Purpose..................294
Lesson 4.20 - The Conclusion: Structure and Strategy..................296
Lesson 4.21 - Writing a Conclusion ..................301
Section Five: Logic 305
Introduction 305
Pre-lesson - Introduction to Bede’s Ecclesiastical History..................305
Lesson 5.1 - The Structure of Grammar..................306
Lesson 5.2 - Appeal to Logos..................315
Lesson 5.3 - Material Logic: Attribution..................319
Lesson 5.4 - Aristotle’s Ten Categories..................324
Lesson 5.5 - The Five Predicables..................330
Lesson 5.6 - Predication and Grammar..................338
Lesson 5.7 - Logic as it Relates to Language..................340
Lesson 5.8 - The Four Categorical Propositions..................344
Lesson 5.9 - Venn Diagrams..................348
Lesson 5.10 - The Square of Opposition..................352
Lesson 5.11 - Standard Logical Form..................354
Lesson 5.12 - More on Writing Sentences in Standard Logical Form..................358
Lesson 5.13 - The Quantity in Standard Logical Form ..................361
Lessons 5.14 and 5.15 - Eduction..................366
Lesson 5.16 - Eduction with A-Propositions..................372
Lesson 5.17 - Eduction Given an E Proposition..................380
Lesson 5.18 - Eduction Given an I-Proposition..................385
Lesson 5.19 - Eduction Given an O Proposition..................387
Lesson 5.20 - Making Use of Eduction..................389
Lesson 5.21 - Terms in a Syllogism..................391
Lesson 5.22 - The Power and Limitations of Logic..................397
Lesson 5.23 - Appeal to Logos..................403
Lesson 5.24 - Enthymeme..................407
Lesson 5.25 - Enthymemes in Speeches..................412
Essays 418
Essay 1 - The Expository Essay..................418
Essay 2 - Slant Narrative..................425
Essay 3 - Confirmation..................436
Essay 4 - Refutation..................450
Essay 5 - Commonplace..................462
Essay 6 - The Argumentative Essay..................475
Appendix Review of Skills 486
Writing a Paraphrase..................486
Writing a Summary..................487
Writing a précis..................487
Questions for Appeal to Ethos..................488

Kathy is fast and furiously finishing the Student Guide to Herodotus. if you want to beta test this book with your student, email us: classicalwriting@att.net

In addition, I am writing Plutarch, a book on writing Praises and Blames, both speeches, letters, and essays. It focuses on the classical special topic of Ceremonial Rhetoric. Its modern focus is on letter writing, on the comparison essay, as well as on the continued skills of writing expository and argumentative essays. In Plutarch the student will, among other books, read Uncle Tom's Cabin (as an example of an invective) as well as Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Also, Advanced Poetry has been completed as a second draft for a long time, as well as its student guide. We're waiting to proof that book and its student guide before they go to official beta testing, also.

Carolyn is working on indices for both Aesop (completed) and also Homer (work in progress). Those will be posted here under free files for anyone to use.

Our practical plan is to finish the core series of Aesop, Homer, Diogenes: Maxim & Chreia, Herodotus, and Demosthenes, and their workbooks or student guides as our top priority.

I will work on Shakespeare (creative writing) after that, and we will also continue to develop our curriculum in terms of student guides to present different options for students starting in high school, students who need to get through Diogenes in a short time, and other special cases for students who did not start with Aesop in 3rd grade.

Lene

Blogging about CW

2008-10-04T09:59:00.001-06:00

I have been asked several times about a blog for CW, a place where people can see what we're thinking and where we're going.

This is it...

We will share some 'in the works' posts about what we are currently working on, some philosophical posts that will be understandable, perhaps to nobody but the writer , but also sprinkled inbetween all this and that, will be homey every day posts of our own CW days with our own kids as well as thoughts about how writing applies to our political and religious world to day. Then there will be the why we do what we do posts, both on homeschooling and on teaching writing, and finally we will elaborate on why writing and GRAMMAR!!!!! are so important today.

Stay tuned,

Lene