I thought it was a great introduction to Augustine at a college student's level. For $10 you are stealing it from them! Highly recommended. BTW, I think you can still get it today for $10 as i just bought something for the prices that I thought ended yesterday. ajk

There are a lot of really good points made in this thread that I am going to try to remember. In particular, the importance narrative and the point that it isn't about getting it right but about supporting answers from the text. Reading is not math. In math, seven plus two is nine and only a brat would argue (after having memorized or seen it). In Shakespeare, whether Benedick and Beatrice should have ended up together can be argued forever - and if two people did argue it forever, using the play itself to support their points and doing it humbly, they would grow in judgment. That humble ability to make judgments in an uncertain world is what literature teaches better than anything else. For that reason, I would make this one suggestion to help students discuss a story of any length no matter how old they are. Ask, "Should he have done that?" This is the question that precedes and prepares for literary analysis because it is the question that the story was written to raise, if not to answer. For example, Should the ants have shared with the grasshopper? Should Huck Finn have helped Jim? Should Peter have believed Lucy? Get them to take a position and defend it and you have laid the foundation of thought where it belongs. All you ask of your children is to keep deepening their understanding of the position by continually returning to the story to defend or challenge it. This works for every single story ever written (including history) and makes teaching both more interesting and more effective. Do you think you should do this?

Hi Melora, I'm glad you asked that question because it shows we probably used the wrong word on the appendix. We did not mean to imply that it is essential to teach LTW, only that it is among the really great modern resources to draw on. We'll have to note and change that. As TG1 said, you don't need it (or anything else) to teach LTW. Blessings on your teaching, ajk

If you don't mind my jumping in I'll add two or three cents worth to this discussion, which is truly one of the most important discussions you can have about education. I agree with the recommendation of Adler's how to read a book with the qualification that it overwhelms some students and parents because it is so detailed. I would like to make a note about context and then about specific things to do, if I may. First, on context. The concept of "reading comprehension" is the result of the loss of the classical curriculum and teaching approach. When they taught the art of rhetoric classically, they taught how to read and remember and contemplate as part of the art of rhetoric. They understood that we comprehend what we are reading not when we engage in controlled, analytical activities, but when we go to the text with certain very powerful questions. Things changed early in the 20th century and late in the 19th with the obsession with analytical approaches to everything, where everything had to be proven with statistics and everything was taught like it was a scientific experiment. One symptom of the change is the constant addition of new terms and tricks to try to recapture the old accomplishments that didn't need them. "Reading comprehension strategies" is an example. Notice how it presumes that there are techniques that can be used and, even better, taught on a universal pattern in a classroom, to read effectively. Notice also that it isolates reading into its own separate activity, while classical rhetoric weaves it into the student's soul and thus life, not to mention the whole curriculum. The classical approach was very, very different and much more effective. It is more personal, more free-flowing, more disciplined, more interesting, more relational, and more better. :bigear: For example, in a classical reading of a text, the student would approach the text with questions like, "what kind of person is the protagonist?" or "what kind of thing is that (it could be anything in the text)"? Or they might compare one character with another or one action with another, asking, "how is Scout like Boo Radley? How are they different?" Or they might compare this story with another story. Or they might discuss the circumstances or context of the story. Or they might ask what causes things to happen or what are the effects of something that did happen. Or they might ask what witnesses or authorities have to say about the given story. There was also a tendency to direct reading toward decision making, speaking, or writing. They thought "normatively" not analytical, which means they wanted to train their students to think virtuously, not just skillfully. So they would ask whether so and so should have done such and such and they would engage in a discussion over the issue. For example, if you are reading a history text with your children, you might ask whether Lee should have taken charge of the Army of the Potomac or whether Caesar should have crossed the rubicon. If you are reading, say, Much Ado About Nothing, you might ask whether Claudio should have "exposed" Hero's infidelity. And so on. It's amazing how those questions make you a better reader. And here's why: Good reading is not a matter of skimming information off the surface of a text or of engaging in a text following a process some teacher taught you. It is forcing the text to give up its heart by asking it questions. Most good reading is not spent looking at the page, but by thinking about what is on the page. Reading, in other words, is not done with the eyes, but with the mind. If you approach reading with these questions, the analytical, comprehension will follow. But if you lead with "reading comprehension" exercises, there is no reason to be confident that the insight and wisdom and decision making skills will grow. Classical education really is a different way of thinking, not just an additional class or a minor adjustment to the curriculum. The great thing about it is that it works and that it is (not easy but) simple. I sincerely hope this is encouraging and not discouraging. You have what it takes to teach your child to comprehend what he/she reads without needing scientists to improve your mothering!

Here what I would recommend for reading to your children: The Children's Homer Biographies written before about 1970, such as Meet Abraham Lincoln, Meet George Washington, etc. etc. Old Fairy Tales Much Ado About Nothing I would try to avoid anything written for children since around 1895 that you haven't screened, and I would be careful to avoid the moralism of the Victorians and books like Elsie Dinsmore, though taken in smaller doses they might help you show your children things you want them to see. Good luck!

I'm jumping to the end here without having read the five pages so forgive me if this was already addressed, but isn't the core teaching of the Christian faith the Christ took on human nature (became man)? If that is the case, how can it be human to be sinful by nature? It seems to me that to be sinful is to be sub-human. The state of our nature, as we experience it, is messed up; but human nature itself can't be sinful if it has been assumed by the second Person of the Holy Trinity. Have I confused the issue?

Hi Stacy Thanks for purchasing the program. I'm very, very sorry that the introduction gave you a headache. If you can help us understand where it was confusing or frustrating in any way, it will be a big help to us and all users of the program. I know that 's kind of an unfair question because it is our job to make it clear, not yours, but we are eager to get all the help we can get, especially areas that need to be improved. Thank you for taking the trouble to look at it. AJK

Let me add that you have to give them time to marinade in the poems. Read them as closely as time allows and don't get caught up in having to read a lot of things in order to "expose" them to many works. Exposing is what you do to inoculate.

If the child is mature enough, the Wife of Bath is considered a work of genius because of the character development Chaucer accomplishes. But she is a bit risque. Also, the tale that Chaucer has himself tell is hysterical because it is so incomprehensibly bad. Only a master poet could deliberately write so badly. It's a good test for your child to see if he/she can identify what makes it so awful. It's called the Tale of Sir Topaz. I wouldn't worry about not being able to read all of them. Nobody can. But if you can read 4 to 6 of them and have your children compare them it's fantastically educational. That's how CS Lewis advises learning literature in The Abolition of Man.

Hi Plansrme, No, you aren't stupid. Don't even let that thought trouble your mind. Did you get the 4th edition? It sounds like you might have the third, which, we admit, was very confusing (thus the upgrade to the fourth). I'm very grateful to you for asking your questions rather than giving up out of frustration. Let me see if I can help any. You ask a good question about the technical terminology and it's something we've spent a lot of time thinking about ourselves (see, I told you, you need not worry about being stupid!). Let me try to explain our reasoning: We believe education went seriously off track in the late 19th century when it abandoned the classical tradition and the magnificent tools it had developed. One of the great accomplishments of modern schooling is that it prevents us from accessing the classical tradition by keeping us from learning its vocabulary. As a result, there is a wall between our children and the wisdom of the ancients. So we try to teach them these terms, one at a time, first teaching them the tools themselves so that the words are meaningful names for the tools. That helps remove the barrier between them and the best writing and rhetoric materials ever produced. It also helps them talk about things that people nowadays can't talk about as easily just because they don't have names for them. In short, the modern names for things tend to be based on post-classical theories rooted in what we regard as defective practices, or else they tend not to give names at all for things that deserve them. I hope that at least begins to answer your concern about names. I also hope that you find the program less confusing than it might seem right now. Have you listened to the CD's? Most of all, please make sure you have the 4th edition. And visit the LTW Mentor yahoo group where you'll find hundreds of people using the program, asking questions, and providing all sorts of ideas, adaptations, and suggestions that you might find helpful. Thanks again for the confidence you have shown in the program by purchasing it and by asking about it here! AJK

Don't they have two different purposes?

CiRCE is launching just such an Online Academy this summer: how to read Shakespeare How to read Short-Stories. Both are taught by Dr. James Taylor, former head of the Ed Dept at Hillsdale College and author of Poetic Knowledge. It will be so Socratic that we are recreating assessment tools, since the modern industrial mode of grading interferes with people's learning. If you want to test us out before you go to a full program in the fall, this is a good way to do it as each class lasts only five weeks. For information, go to http://circeinstitute.com/online-academy/ God bless you as you seek the best option for your child! ajk

For what it's worth, have to agree with MIMS that LTW was too disorganized for a situation like yours. Happily, we've been able to completely restructure it, going lesson by lesson in a sensible orderly sequence. you can see a demo at http://www.losttoolsofwriting.com. I would urge you to make sure he spends some time studying classical composition before heading off to college, and this might be a tool to do so. Because it is geared to younger students, he could probably breeze through it in a few months (5 or 6) and with the new format he might well be able to teach himself. Camille Goldston is teaching it on-line as well if he is interested in that. If he's ambitious he might prefer using Corbett's college text book: Classical Rhetoric for the Contemporary Student or Scott Crider's handbook: The Office of Assertion. Martin Cothran also wrote a fine text book on Aristotle's Rhetoric, published by Memoria Press. LTW or another sound classical writing program (that teaches the three canons) will help with a great deal more than just writing! Thanks. I hope this isn't out of place. I'm happy to answer any questions through the private messages as well. ajk

The essential question is whether you want to cultivate her human faculties or whether you want to teach her how to use soon to be obsolete technologies. Heck, the keyboard might be gone in five years. She'll still need to be human. And the better she is at that, the better she is at what she does.

For me, this is the most important point: You must give yourself permission to take your time and to do what you can when you can. A classical education is one of the greatest gifts you can receive, so don't feel cheated for what you don't have, feel thankful for everything you get. For me, none of it is deserved. This might be the second most important: It's not about checking off lists and noting what you've read. It's about gaining wisdom and discipline. I'd rather see a person read one book five times closely and interactively than five books quickly. It's about going deep. That's why SWB's post on journaling is so right. Try to do one exercise in Henle's or Wheelock's Latin every day or every other day. Try to review math drills and concepts for a few minutes every day or every couple days. Get Harvey's Grammar and learn English grammar - a few minutes every few days. There's no hurry. Learn one thing and use it. Then learn the next. etc. Get Martin Cothran's traditional Logic, when you are ready for it. If it's not out of line to say so, get The Lost Tools of Writing. In a few years, look into the CiRCE apprenticeship. Read great books slowly. Yes, the Iliad, the Odyssey, Aeneid, Greek plays, Shakespeare, Fairy tales, fables, mythology, biographies, history, etc. But not all at once and not so you can be done with them. The books are the bottles, the ideas they embody are the wine. Drink the wine! Do what you can, when you can. But your children are your first priority. It's an ocean and if you take your time it's an ocean of endless pleasure. If you hurry, you'll lose the pleasure and want out. You can get out and sit in the boat whenever you want. But you have to swim yourself. If you like one spot, stay there and keep swimming. Don't hurry. You don't have to drink the whole ocean. Just swim where you are. Did I say, don't hurry? Do it reflectively and attentively. Seek wisdom and intellectual discipline. Whatever it takes to get them, that's classical education. One last thing. Take your time. There's no hurry. It's a feast. Don't dribble.;) Enjoy the meal. Magnum Opus et arduum, sed Deus noster adiutor est. St. Augustine

It depends entirely on the teacher, but the benefits of Latin are comparable to the benefits of learning how to read. How do you explain to someone who can't read the benefits he'll gain? The general practical benefits people highlight are: improved understanding of English grammar Improved vocabulary Orders your mind I like all those, but there's stuff that happens to you and there's stuff you have access to that are hard to describe. (By the way, if it weren't harder, I'd prefer Greek). Civilization depends on the preservation of the classical languages. How does one prove that? Latin literature covers 2000 years and much of it untranslated. But if you have access to it, you have access to an experience that opens your mind to the gradual pace of history in a way nothing else can. It's not just events; its forms of thought. But as it applies to writing, there's this: The writer is doing something rather simple. He's trying to decide what words to use and where to put them. When you translate Latin into English you do that in slow motion, imitating a master, and noting things you cannot note any other way. Try to get him a good Latin teacher, like Wes Callihan or Martin Cothran or John Van Fossen. It makes all the difference. It will be harder because he doesn't have a pleasant background in languages. But it can be done and it will be worth the work.

Hi Janice, Thank you for replying so gently, but don't worry. If I say something that needs correcting, or calling out, or even a clarification, I'm pretty sure I can take it. Even if I can't, nobody here will see me tear up, so just let 'er rip!;) I don't remember saying that about Shakespeare and if I did I don't know now what I meant when I said it. I have said, and will reiterate, that I think you should start reading Shakespeare to your children on the knee in the nursery. My study of mathematics has been very uneven. It was my best class as a kid, but my teachers went on strike for extended periods of time and I got in a car accident that had me out of school for, I think, five or six weeks. In the Milwaukee Public Schools of the late 1970's there were plenty of concerned teachers but no resources for such a situation. I had no trouble with algebra or geometry, but taking trig without algebra II was the only class I ever cried over. Since then I've studied whatever math I can, though it's been more from a conceptual than a practical perspective. What I've learned I've been able to understand in different ways because I've tried to get at essences rather than utility. But I haven't been able to do much with calculus yet. Still hoping. I appreciate your reference to the quadrivium and the courses on it. I hold to a different perspective from the one many conventional classical educators, following Sayers, take. I believe that the quadrivium, in a certain sense, parallels the trivium. As the trivium is to language the quadrivium is to numbers and shapes. Both prepare for studies beyond them and enable you to perceive things you can't otherwise perceive. Arithmetic goes with music/harmonics. Geometry goes with astronomy. And both sets feed the other. Boethius is very good on the seven liberal arts, having named the divisions. I've also always appreciated the Pythagorean approach as developed in the Platonic schools. I wish Aristotle had emphasized it more. As to the 40 minutes on math, I didn't know that was a common statement by classical educators, but I will defend myself, ever so feebly, by insisting that I included 40 as a minimum. Nor did I mean the 60 to be inspired. I just mean that if your child spends 40-60 minutes of focused attention on math every day, in four years they will make astounding progress. I would not ask my child to work on math for more than about 40 minutes at a time, though. Problem solving requires breaks so the subconscious mind can go to work. The focused attention might be the wildcard in that deck. If I had my way and could disregard the fact that only a mind acting with a will makes any real progress, my child would read a novel every two weeks - at least twice, write a complete expository or persuasive essay every three weeks (including invention arrangement and elocution), study math for two hours every day, study Latin for two hours, study Greek for two hours (using a text written in Latin), pray for two hours, go to church each evening, run a hobby farm and a private business, keep a perfectly clean house, and master science, history, and all of the fine arts. And travel the country for debate tournaments. Oh well. I do my best. It's not particularly good, but I keep at it. Thanks for your feedback and request for clarification. I hope I didn't make it even more confusing. Oh, one last thing: I was being cheeky, but not sarcastic. Sarcasm is a corruption of cheekiness that I fall into too often, but I managed to avoid it in that post. I have an awful lot of respect for my fellow pilgrims on this board, so it's pretty easy to avoid sarcasm here. Blessings!:001_smile:

Susan, How very kind of you to welcome me! What an honor. Thank you for taking the trouble. I just want to be a little helpful when and where I can. Thanks for allowing it. ajk

Get a book called The New Square Foot Gardening. It makes it incredibly easier. Also, don't worry about succeeding. You aren't gardening to grow a crop, you are gardening to learn from it. Try whatever you want to try and see what happens. The first year I had my own garden I successfully grew all of ONE (1) radish. But when I ate that radish, my world turned over.

Donelda, Believe me, I do that all the time. It helps to speak out loud sometimes, especially if your mind swirls around as much as mine does. I'm glad it was helpful!:)

I get what she is saying, but, not to be too terse, her challenge is that she is still reading these books like a young child. They want plot and simple analysis. Now it's time to get to the heart and soul of the stories - the part that takes judgment and discretion and demands maturity of insight on her part. Direct her attention to ideas and forms instead of plots. She knows the least important part of each story. Now it's time to discuss the inner working. For example, read the Odyssey and ask her, "do you think Odysseus should have taunted Polyphemus?" Or "should he have gone to the island of the Phaiakians?". Let her form her own opinion and even write an essay on it, but demand that she honestly consider both sides. You could do a whole year on "Should Washington have crossed the Delaware?" What I'm suggesting is that you read stories she has already read but direct her attention to the ideas that make them valuable. Nothing can reveal the life of a story more vividly than a discussion like those above. Every story turns on whether a character should have done what he did. Any character. Any action. Keep it simple. Don't get into abstract things like symbolism until the core should question drives you to it. I hope this has some value.

I agree with Jami. Charlotte Mason's insights into how to teach a young child are world-alteringly insightful. Read her closely every chance you get. And yes, visit Ambleside. They're fabulous and wise and careful and practical all at once. My week for a seven year old would include gardening in square feet, giving the child his/her own foot or two; reading fairy tales, fables, folk tales, mythology, biographies, poems, and Bible Stories; playing make believe all over the house, counting and drill-racing the math tables (I love Ray's Arithmetic); letting your child share your world and your responsibilities, especially around the house, and spending as much time outside as possible (it's easier to clean up); and a little Writing Road to Reading work, bits and pieces of Latin, a foreign language used for conversation if you know one, and lots and lots of reading and housework. And whatever else you enjoy doing (dancing, horse riding, toilet papering houses, chopping down your father's cherry tree, etc. etc.). I wouldn't want to spend one second stressing out over how my child compares to others on reading level and all that other nonsense.

Jami, thank you so much! You are very kind to me.

Shannon - so very, very true. Take a factory from New York to China and you can make it exactly the same unless the government get's involved. Move a farm from New York to China - you get the idea. Education is a family farm, not a factory.

Of course, my real typical week is that I get up Monday morning after a trip where Martin Cothran and Andrew Pudewa wore me out with their brilliant conversation and crawl to my son's bedroom where I tell him to get up now that the sun has reached meridian and he rolls over on his hinges and tells me to go away he doesn't like me so I crawl back to my room and climb in the hot bath where I drown for an hour or two after which I crawl back to his room and threaten him that when his mother gets home he'll be in big trouble so he gets up and pretends to do some math and Latin and makes coffee which we fight over so it spills all over the kitchen floor and I pull fatherly rank and send him to his room and he says fine and stomps up to his room and I remember that I had just yelled at him to get out of his room but am so conflicted within myself that I don't know what to do so I go back to bed and wait for Tuesday to rescue me. Things go a little better on Tuesday, though at my age it takes a lot longer to recover than when I was a youngster. You'd be amazed by how unimpressed my son is by my ideas. But he is pretty independent, so I make sure I have some sense of what he's doing, but I know better than to harass him about getting things done. He does his work every day and I'm content with that. I hope to get him involved in a co-op or something in the fall. My real week abides somewhere between this description and the other one. :001_smile: