Book VII:  Demosthenes
Progymnasma Thesis ~ 11th & 12th grade

Demosthenes is planned to be available by 2009

This book teaches the progymnasma Thesis. It will cover two school years, 11th and 12th grade. 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 mascot is Demosthenes, tbe famous Greek orator of the third century BC.  Demosthenes’ greatest oration is entitled On the Crown.

As with all our books we feature two goals for each book. A goal in ancient rhetoric and a goal in modern writing skills. Our ancient goal in this book is to master the progymnasma Thesis which  is a careful examination of a particular subject of dispute. It may pertain to politics, theology, morality, or philosophy.  This progymnasma argues boths sides of a question in the same essay, in a point-counter point fashion. Thesis, like Commonplace, argues generally for a concept, not for or against a specific individual or public issue. Our modern goal is to teach the modern research paper, building on the skills learned in the progymnasma Thesis, but also adding on modern distinctions such as scope (limiting the discussion to a manageable size), review of thesis statement formulation, modern research strategies, modern outlining, drafting, revisions, as well as a thorough review of proofreading skills.

Our key ancient source text will be Aristotle’s Rhetoric, and our key modern text (among others) will be Corbett’s Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Students will study Corbett’s text over two years concurrently with Demosthenes.