The First Day
First days back are always so full of possibilities, aren't they! The kids are excited and ready to learn. The teachers are organized and ready to change the world. If only we can bottle that first day feeling and bring it out in mid-February when things get dicey...
This semester I've added a few English courses which have required me to use my brain a bit more. I've actually really enjoyed the process of working through the lesson plans and getting a feel for what these first few weeks will look like.
Since I am frequently asked, "What IS classical education?" I thought it would be fun to create this blog as a means to answer that. I by no means know fully what classical education is, but I have experienced it from many different perspectives over the years. I'm continually learning more and will share as I go. Hopefully, if you're out there trying to decide how to educate your children, this will help in some way. Classical education can be done at home as well! I just happen to be doing it at a school.
For those who don't know, classical education is broken up into three stages: The Grammar stage, The Dialectic stage, and the Rhetoric stage.
At our school, the grammar stage is from kindergarten through sixth grade. In this stage, our kids learn a TON of facts. In the dialectic stage (7th-9th grade) they take those facts and begin building logical reasoning and critical thinking. In the rhetoric stage, those students then learn to ARTICULATE what they've learned through their logic and reasoning courses. (Hence the word Rhetoric)
Today, in 8th grade English, I reviewed with the students the idea of plot and theme. We discussed the definitions of the words and how they are different from each other. My 8th-grade students fall into the dialectic stage. Most of these students have experienced the grammar stage and this is not the first time they've been introduced to the ideas of plot and theme. For many, these ideas are not new concepts. What is new, is that now we want them to go a little deeper with the ideas.
Since our school is a classical Christian school, Biblical Integration is something we strive for in every course. Today I asked the students the following questions:
"What would you say the plot of the Bible is?"
"What would you say the theme of the Bible is?
I gave them five minutes and an index card. In today's world students rarely have the opportunity to be silent and THINK. And let's be honest! Sometimes it's easier to just TELL them what the answer is right? But easier is not always better. So I gave them five minutes. After five minutes, I invited some of them to share their thoughts. Below are a few of their responses.
We spent the rest of the class period reading a short story aloud and discussing the plot in that story. They also worked on vocab words, plot lines and are staying up on their reading in the current novel we are reading. All of that is good and necessary, but this little activity was my favorite because it displays so well the big picture of classical education (and biblical integration).
These kids saw these words for the first time years ago in the grammar school when they learned the definition. Today they saw them again, but they had to think a little more about it. In a few years, they'll come back around to these ideas yet again but will go deeper still.
So that's what classical education looked like in 8th grade today.
Until next time!
This semester I've added a few English courses which have required me to use my brain a bit more. I've actually really enjoyed the process of working through the lesson plans and getting a feel for what these first few weeks will look like.
Since I am frequently asked, "What IS classical education?" I thought it would be fun to create this blog as a means to answer that. I by no means know fully what classical education is, but I have experienced it from many different perspectives over the years. I'm continually learning more and will share as I go. Hopefully, if you're out there trying to decide how to educate your children, this will help in some way. Classical education can be done at home as well! I just happen to be doing it at a school.
For those who don't know, classical education is broken up into three stages: The Grammar stage, The Dialectic stage, and the Rhetoric stage.
At our school, the grammar stage is from kindergarten through sixth grade. In this stage, our kids learn a TON of facts. In the dialectic stage (7th-9th grade) they take those facts and begin building logical reasoning and critical thinking. In the rhetoric stage, those students then learn to ARTICULATE what they've learned through their logic and reasoning courses. (Hence the word Rhetoric)
Today, in 8th grade English, I reviewed with the students the idea of plot and theme. We discussed the definitions of the words and how they are different from each other. My 8th-grade students fall into the dialectic stage. Most of these students have experienced the grammar stage and this is not the first time they've been introduced to the ideas of plot and theme. For many, these ideas are not new concepts. What is new, is that now we want them to go a little deeper with the ideas.
Since our school is a classical Christian school, Biblical Integration is something we strive for in every course. Today I asked the students the following questions:
"What would you say the plot of the Bible is?"
"What would you say the theme of the Bible is?
I gave them five minutes and an index card. In today's world students rarely have the opportunity to be silent and THINK. And let's be honest! Sometimes it's easier to just TELL them what the answer is right? But easier is not always better. So I gave them five minutes. After five minutes, I invited some of them to share their thoughts. Below are a few of their responses.
We spent the rest of the class period reading a short story aloud and discussing the plot in that story. They also worked on vocab words, plot lines and are staying up on their reading in the current novel we are reading. All of that is good and necessary, but this little activity was my favorite because it displays so well the big picture of classical education (and biblical integration).
These kids saw these words for the first time years ago in the grammar school when they learned the definition. Today they saw them again, but they had to think a little more about it. In a few years, they'll come back around to these ideas yet again but will go deeper still.
So that's what classical education looked like in 8th grade today.
Until next time!
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