What to Buy
| Foundational Level Books | Advanced Level Books |
| Intermediate Level Books | Enrichment |
Each Classical Writing Level Consists of
• A core book with classical principles, theory, and lessons explained.
• Student Workbooks for the beginning levels and Student Guides for higher levels with weekly models, grammar lessons, review, and detailed writing projects.
• Instructor’s Guides for the Student Workbooks. These Guides have teacher preparation and helps, as well as scheduling ideas, so you can simply pick up the Student Workbook and begin teaching.
Aesop is for beginning writers. Using analysis and imitation of great writers and practice as the backbone, the book utilizes applied grammar and the classical Greek progymnasmata to teach students to write. This first volume of the Classical Writing series is for the beginning writer of any age. 98 pages.
• Aesop Student Workbooks A and B
• Aesop Instructor’s Guides A and B
Homer is for writers who have completed Aesop. Many special lessons are included for older students, making the book appropriate for high schoolers. It covers reading skills, literary analysis, and the writing of narratives, along with intensive grammar analysis and imitation at the word, sentence, and paragraph levels. 383 pages.
• Homer Student Workbooks A and B
• Homer Instructor’s Guides A and B
Diogenes: Maxim teaches beginning thesis formulation, outlining, and essay writing. Lessons include grammar application by analyzing and imitating literary passages from great authors of the past two millennia, including Erasmus, Shakespeare, Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill.
• Diogenes: Maxim Student Guide
Diogenes: Chreia continues with more advanced thesis formulation and expository writing, in particular, detailed paragraph formulation is taught by analysis and imitation of ancient and modern writers. Lessons include grammar application doing analysis and imitation on literary passages from Sophocles, Aeschylus, Seneca, early church fathers, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Alexander Schmemann, and others.
• Diogenes: Chreia Student Guide
Herodotus Argumentative essay writing and analysis is the focus of Herodotus, arguing for and against the likelihood that a certain account is accurately recalled, as well as arguing for and against different issues. The literary models used in this book include selections from Herodotus’ Histories, Greek myths, Athanasius’ On the Incarnation of the Word of God, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and Aeschylus’ trilogy The Oresteia, just to mention a few.
• Herodotus Student Guide
Plutarch Biographical essay writing is the focus of Plutarch, writing about historical figures, researching primary and secondary sources for essay content. The literary models used in this book include selections from Plutarch’s Lives, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, Edmond Malone’s Life of Shakespeare, John William Cousin’s A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, and many others.
• Plutarch Student Guide
Demosthenes will be a two year course for upper-level high school students. We will complete the appeal to logos with final studies in logic, in particular syllogistic logic, and then branch into dialectics, the kissing cousin of logic and the bridge between logic and rhetoric proper. Our key ancient source text will be Aristotle’s Rhetoric, the key modern text being Corbett’s Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student.
• Demosthenes Student Guide
Poetry for Beginners is an introductory course in poetry featuring techniques for analysis and imitation of great poetry. The student learns to analyze by working with narrative and lyrical poems, identifying and marking figures of speech, scanning for rhyme and meter, and determining classical stanza forms. He is taught to imitate the figures, meter, rhyme, grammar, and poetic content of classic poetry. The book includes complete teaching instructions, mini-anthologies of model poems, historical and background information for parents and teachers, and numerous examples and exercises. 323 pages. Suitable for beginners 5th grade and up.
• Poetry Student Workbooks A & B
• Poetry Instructor’s Guides A & B
Intermediate Poetry continues to teach techniques for analysis and imitation of great poetry. The students add to their skills in meter and feet, add figures, and begin to work with great poems from the Romantic and Victorian era. Suitable for 7th grade and up.
• Intermediate Poetry Student Guide
Advanced Poetry is our final course in techniques for analysis and imitation of poetry. Shakespearean, Petrarchan, and Spenserian sonnets are featured, and students write analytical essays of classic poems. Suitable for 9th grade and up.
• Advanced Poetry Student Guide
Shakespeare focuses on the progymnasmata Description (writing descriptive passages) and Speech-in-Character (writing dialogue). Our models will be Shakespeare’s plays, as well as the novels of Austen, Dickens, Eliot, Defoe, Richardson, and other English novelists from the 18th century and up.
• Shakespeare Student Guide
