Doing TWTM with a high school student who isn't ready for Rhetoric level ...

[Luanne]

This has probably been asked before (for all I know I may have even asked it myself LOL), but is it even possible to do TWTM with a student who is in high school (starting 9th grade) who isn't ready for Rhetoric level work? If so, how? I love this book, but I also know my daughter isn't ready to do Rhetoric level work, but still want her to be able to start high school anyway.

[Kimm in WA]

Maybe Omnibus series by Veritas Press? They are geared for 7th & up through high school. We've really enjoyed them.

 

Kimm

[Nicole M]

This is a great question. I am eager to hear what folks say. I have not found the categories of grammar, logic and rhetoric to really resonant with me. My children's development has not been that tidy. So I have struggled with this, wondered about it....

[Renee in NC]

I would just start with where she is and go forward. Even if she only gets through Logic stage, she will have had a good education!

[LoriM]

No matter what age a student is, or how "developed" a student is in maturity, *all* the levels of grammar, logic and rhetoric are appropriate for all courses of study.

 

So, I don't think there is any such thing as a 14yo 9th grader who "isn't ready" for rhetoric. Certainly, in order to have anything to say, the student will have to be led through the grammar of the material she's studying, and guided through the relationships, cause and effect, and consensus of the experts on whatever she's studying...but at age 14, she will then also want to be able to communicate what *she* thinks about the subject (once she has gained enough prior knowledge to form an informed opinion).

 

I teach 6th grade (as well as 7th and 8th). My "logic stage" students have many opportunities to practice their rhetoric. I want them to begin forming opinions, and defending those opinions. Right now, their arguments are pretty weak. And of course the focus of our study is to make sure they learn not only the facts they may have missed in the grammar stage, but to really figure out the relationships between body systems or animal adaptations or triangle shapes and angles. (I'm teaching math and science.) But once they have the facts, and the relationships, and can tell me what the causes are...or what experts say about the food groups...then I ask them, "What foods do you believe help your body to function best? Why? How can you tell?" and I expect them to be able to write a nice answer, with good arguments based on facts and experts, plus their own experiences. That's rhetoric for a 6th grader.

 

Now, is your 14yo ready to work as a clerk in a government office? Maybe not. But can she form opinions, and base those opinions on fact, and draw logical conclusions? Absolutely. Giving her the tools of how to do that is the basis of rhetoric. Giving her a platform to write, edit, rewrite, and express herself--that's the power of the rhetoric study in high school.

[Peela]

Actually, what I would do is work on the Logic Stage skills and get them going strong before worrying about the Rhetoric stage work.

 

The reason I say this is because I was asking on the Curriculum Board about special needs kids- kids with learning difficulties- and the chapter in the new WTM that talks about this. I haven't seen it myself but apparently SWB says that some kids might not get past the Logic Stage but that's still pretty good. I realised my dyslexic kid might not get through all the rhetoric stage work, or even my other kid for that matter- but it is very advanced and to get the Logic Stage work down well is more important than finishing the Rhetoric stage work. In other words, the foundation is more important than trying to move on beyond where they can comfortably go.

Two years of solidly working on Logic Stage skills- lots of outlining, rewriting from outlining, writing assignments, the study of Logic etc- and then two years on Rhetoric skills- may be better than jumping straight into Rhetoric skills- depending on how long she takes to "catch up". I am the queen of rushing ahead, and am really learning that you cant jump over things, although it is easier to pick things up when they are older.

I haven't really started Rhetoric yet with my older and she is 15 next month. I am not in a rush because I am only now seeing the logic stage blossom in her.

[Lori D.]

Similar to Peela -- we work at the level our boys are at, and slowly move forward. Older DS is finishing 10th grade right now (just turned 17) and has been moving into more rhetoric level skills just in the last few months. Younger DS with some learning issues is finishing 9th grade (age 15); he is very bright and is great with disccussions and analyzing, but is still at a Logic level for anything else.

 

So we've used a number of the programs suggested for middle school in high school -- and it is giving our boys a very solid foundation. We do the majority of the textbooks aloud together and discuss. For science, it allows me to snap quiz them as a quick review each time we open the book to cement terms and processes. For history, it allows us to discuss aloud and make connections and analyze worldviews. Next year I'll begin training them how to take notes or outline to study from a textbook and so that they will be able to read, think, and analyze on their own -- because that's when THEY will be ready for those skills.

 

When it comes to selecting "The Great Books" to use for literature, I gear it for what they're ready for, and include 1-2 books that are above them to challenge them. For example, last year when we did ancient history we also read some of the classic ancient literature -- so we did full translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but we did abridged prose retellings of the Epic of Gilgamesh and The Aeneid so we weren't overwhelmed with too much reading. We weren't ready for some of the heavyweights in TWTM's high school list, so we set Plato and Plutarch aside for a future year, or for them to discover in their adulthood, and focused on the themes found in the ancient epic stories. We got the full flavor from the full length works, while the abridgments gave us familiarity with the basic stories and themes and kept it enjoyable. We also read aloud and discuss The Great Books *together* -- a wonderful and enjoyable way to model eventual development into the rhetoric level. And finally, many of the books they read for their solo reading are often at a middle school level.

 

 

The point is not to compare yourself to what others are doing; nor is not to follow TWTM verbatim. The goal of every homeschooler is to use the resources available to us (such as TWTM) to help us to help each of our students develop a solid educational foundation to become the best people THEY can be; because every student has different strengths and weaknesses, different skills and interests, the educational process will look different for each and every student. Logic and Rhetoric stages kick in at different times for different students -- and the end results of those stages look different for different students, as well.

 

So I encourage you: use TWTM (and any homeschooling resource) where and how it is helpful for your family -- but make it work for *you*. You're doing a terrific job now Luanne -- you will with high school, too! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited May 18, 2009 by Lori D.
fixed typo

[Nan in Mass]

I did. Somewhere, floating around on TWTM site, is a post I wrote about how exactly we did it. I used TWEM questions. I had a younger middleschooler who was also doing it with us. TWEM questions are good for helping you to figure out what is/was happened, and then gaining some insight into the meaning of the book. They are general enough that each child applies them at whatever level they happen to be. It was smashingly successful and we read some things that I never thought we'd be able to read. I really, really encourage you to try this. I picked the books we read very carefully from the list of greats. I chose ones that went fairly fast, weren't terribly complicated, and would be fun. And I didn't expect that we would get through very many each year.

 

There are some things suggested in TWEM that help you to understand great books. You can do some historical background work. It doesn't have to be very elaborate - you could find the appropriate pages in something like Spielvogel's Human Odyssey (a high school world history book with tons of illustrations) and read them. It just has to be enough that you know where and when the book was written, and where and when it is supposed to be taking place. I found it helpful to have a map and put the book on the map. We put the book on a timeline, also. Again, it doesn't have to be very elaborate - you can just draw a line on a piece of drawing paper and begin to stick things onto it with dates. It won't be in scale, but it will be easy to do and much better than nothing. I found it helpful to look up the book on Wikipaedia. You don't have to read the whole article, but the first few paragraphs tell you why this book is considered important, which I found very, very helpful for figuring out the point of the book. Then you can read the book aloud together, or get it on tape. As you go along, you can keep a list of characters with notes about who each person is, something like "Bilbo Baggins - a hobbit, lives in Hobbiton, likes his routine and his home" or "Meg - oldest of 4 March sisters". You can also summerize each chapter. Again, it doesn't have to be a big summary. Just a few sentences is fine. TWEM explains how to do this and has examples. It can look like "Bilbo has lots of dwarves show up unexpectedly for supper and they plan an adventure and he gets scared." It just helps you keep track of what is going on. I tried to encourage mine to make notes about how they felt about things in the margins of their books. Again, it doesn't have to be elaborate. "Yuk" or "That was a stupid thing to do" or "I wish I could do that" are fine. If the book is really dense, you can write a summary of each paragraph and then go back at the end and reread your summaries to try to understand the book. For one speech, my son rewrote every sentence! And it worked! At the end, he understood the speech. We did some works in a just-for-fun way, too. He listened to Gilgamesh and The Aeneid on tape, and just enjoyed the story. After we read the book, we did the questions orally and then they picked some sort of project or paper to do. A bio of the author is pretty easy and useful. Or for Gilgamesh, my son made a model reed boat. Every year we did a few poems and a Shakespeare play or two, also, even though it was out of the timeline. I wouldn't get too hung up on doing the books in order. You could start with something that might be easier, like a Dickens novel on tape. Remember that these books have endured because they speak for themselves and aren't impossibly hard to read. Many of them work fine if you just pick them up and read them, with no historical background or discussion questions or whatever. You could start with The Odyssey and then read The Republic, and then ask around to find an easy Greek play. If you are Christian, you might want to look at some of the bible. Don't worry if you don't understand every word, either. These books are meant to be read multiple times over a lifetime. Each time you read them, you get more out of them. My children tended to look at everything in terms of Star Trek and gymnastics and our family life sailing and living on a lake. That was fine. They still got a lot out of the books. Their reading skills improved greatly, and they learned to think about what they read and see more deeply on their own. They also learned a lot about life and people and history. You don't have to be at the rhetoric stage to do this.

-Nan

[epiphanybella]

No matter what age a student is, or how "developed" a student is in maturity, *all* the levels of grammar, logic and rhetoric are appropriate for all courses of study.

 

So, I don't think there is any such thing as a 14yo 9th grader who "isn't ready" for rhetoric. Certainly, in order to have anything to say, the student will have to be led through the grammar of the material she's studying, and guided through the relationships, cause and effect, and consensus of the experts on whatever she's studying...but at age 14, she will then also want to be able to communicate what *she* thinks about the subject (once she has gained enough prior knowledge to form an informed opinion).

 

I teach 6th grade (as well as 7th and 8th). My "logic stage" students have many opportunities to practice their rhetoric. I want them to begin forming opinions, and defending those opinions. Right now, their arguments are pretty weak. And of course the focus of our study is to make sure they learn not only the facts they may have missed in the grammar stage, but to really figure out the relationships between body systems or animal adaptations or triangle shapes and angles. (I'm teaching math and science.) But once they have the facts, and the relationships, and can tell me what the causes are...or what experts say about the food groups...then I ask them, "What foods do you believe help your body to function best? Why? How can you tell?" and I expect them to be able to write a nice answer, with good arguments based on facts and experts, plus their own experiences. That's rhetoric for a 6th grader.

 

Now, is your 14yo ready to work as a clerk in a government office? Maybe not. But can she form opinions, and base those opinions on fact, and draw logical conclusions? Absolutely. Giving her the tools of how to do that is the basis of rhetoric. Giving her a platform to write, edit, rewrite, and express herself--that's the power of the rhetoric study in high school.

My experience mirrors LoriM! As a matter of fact what she describes isexactly the approach I took with my son who was diagnosed with a moderate expressive/receptive language delay, which placed him on the autistic spectrum, when he was 3-4 years old. He turned 18 earlier this year and is finishing up his senior year this year. I learned to teach him using this very style of teaching you mention, LoriM, when I purchased the Lost Tools of Writing back when he was just entering 9th grade at the age of 14. This allowed him to make exponential gains in logic and rhetoric skills. I sometimes want to cry when I see how much this has opened up the world to him in ways we didn't think were possible when we decided to homeschool him 12 years ago. My experience tells me that taking this approach shines the light on the path for children who is entering those years between 14-16, but it operates where they are and challenges them without frustrating or overwhelming them. My son was very open and loved the challenge, because it gave him the tools to be in control of his learning, to self-evaluate, and to keep growing! I learned there is no need to hold a child back when you have the right tools and right process, a process that respects and honors where the child is, further develops the stage where the child is, and gives him/her the tools to reach the next level, all at the same time. Thanks LoriM for sharing how you use it with your children.

 

Tawnie

[Jane Elliot]

This has probably been asked before (for all I know I may have even asked it myself LOL), but is it even possible to do TWTM with a student who is in high school (starting 9th grade) who isn't ready for Rhetoric level work? If so, how? I love this book, but I also know my daughter isn't ready to do Rhetoric level work, but still want her to be able to start high school anyway.

 

I have a 14yo starting 9th next year who isn't ready for everything on the rhetoric level reading lists or the discussions I'll be doing with the older kids. We'll be on year 3 and he'll use parts of the logic level list and a few items on the rhetoric list. He'll sit in for some of the discussions I have with the older boys, but I don't expect him to contribute much. He'll use CTUSH with my logic stage group and we'll continue outlining and writing from outlines for at least the first part of the year.

 

He's right on target for math and English (R&S) and science (Apologia), but if he wasn't I wouldn't hesitate to use a lower level and give credit on his transcript (i.e. we would use R&S 7 and list it as English I on his transcript.) My twins have Apologia Physical Science as their 9th grade science on their transcripts and they still got into their first choice college as science majors with scholarships. And, they had time to do some of the advanced Apologia courses by doubling up in the upper grades when they were more mature and ready for them.

 

My boys have not been ready for rhetoric type discussions and papers until they've hit their growth spurt (as in shooting up a foot in a month and acquiring a hairy body.) Something seems to develop mentally during that physical shift that makes them suddenly act like they have a brain.

 

Those 7th and 8th grade lists in WTM have many high school appropriate titles on them. And CTUSH can definitely be high school level. Meet your student where she is. You'll be surprised at the leaps she makes in these next few years.

[Sunshine State Sue]

Lori M

Peela

Lori D

Nan

Tawnie

Luann in ID

 

You ladies rock! :party: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

 

What inspirations you are to me. :grouphug: