TOG rhetoric level for 8th grader?

[dani3boys]

Would 8th grade be too soon to start in the rhetoric level with TOG? He has done one year in the dialectic level of year 2. He is a good reader and is advanced in other subject areas. Has anyone else done this and had success/failure? If you have any experience or insight please share!

[momofkhm]

Would 8th grade be too soon to start in the rhetoric level with TOG? He has done one year in the dialectic level of year 2. He is a good reader and is advanced in other subject areas. Has anyone else done this and had success/failure? If you have any experience or insight please share!

 

My 9th grade dd says it's not a good idea. There's a lot of reading (from a child who loves to read) and the literature discussions don't make sense (funny we're almost finished with the school year and this is the first I've heard about it).

 

If you do it all - history, lit, church history, art, philosophy, government - there is a lot to do. It's a big jump from D to R. If you think he's ready for R, I'd try with just one subject next year.

 

It sounds like he's already done yr 2 at D level so you want to move him to R. Unless you graduate him early, then he'll have 2 passes of yr 2 at R level. Do you want to do that?

 

Or are you saying that you just started TOG and he only has one yr at D level and it was yr 2? So then you'd start yr 3 at the R level? I'd wait.

[choirfarm]

Hi!

 

How did he find the dialectic this past year?? I have a boy that will be in 8th grade that I will be doing rhetoric with next year along with my boy who will be in 10th. He has done 3 years of dialectic and is definitely ready for the history rhetoric level. (He did the Civil War unit 3 rhetoric history this year with NO trouble.) The literature is a different animal, however. I DO plan to have him read a lot of the rhetoric literature, but I will modify the analysis heavily for him. He has already read a lot of the dialectic literature and he is actually a better analyzer than my older boy. Is he capable of read Les Miserables, Great Expectation etc. and doing HEAVY analyzation?? You would know best. My 9th grader did rhetoric level history, literature, church history and geography and that was it. We didn't do fine arts, government, or philosophy as I thought that was just too much. My inclination would be to move him up to rhetoric level history if you wished, but keep him on dialectic level literature. The analysis was MUCH better in the dialectic level, particularly for the 3rd and 4th units. Year 2 just didn't have enough analysis for the dialectic level in my opinion, but this year has been much better. I plan to have my children do a year of Government/ Economics, so having an extra year for history is no problem for me. The literature is a HUGE step up from the dialectic level...HUGE. History, not so much.

 

Christine

[dani3boys]

Thank you both for your honest thoughts. One reason I wanted to bump him up to rhetoric for 8th grade is he plans to start taking college classes as an 11th grader. I would like him to get as much out of TOG before that happens. He did extremely well with the D level this year. The discussions we had went very well. He was able to make many connections about all of the material he was reading. He read all of the core & in depth books easily.

I might just bump him up a level in one area. I'll stay away from the literature at first and see how the rest goes.

Thanks again!

[Karenciavo]

My oldest did Rhetoric TOG in 8th grade, he did great. I will agree that it's not the right choice for many 8th graders.

[ChemMommy]

 

If you do it all - history, lit, church history, art, philosophy, government - there is a lot to do. It's a big jump from D to R. If you think he's ready for R, I'd try with just one subject next year.

 

 

IF your son is a very advanced thinker (not just reader), then R might be okay. TOG at the R level is a lot--more reading, reading at a more sophisticated level, thinking questions at a high level, more involved writing. Are you thinking about graduating him early? If not, consider using 8th grade to add fun electives. Your son is about to enter the "Puberty Fog" so "fun" might be more useful than "more".

[jananc]

Another thing to consider, IMHO, is that the rhetoric students read many adult-level books, which means not only adult level reading but also some adult topics. They don't go into detail, and the TOG "Glance into Next Week" usually points out and warns about them, but there have been a few references to extramarital s*x, homos*xuality, or other topics I wouldn't want to have to discuss or explain to my 13yo. This is especially true in the literature selections (ancient egyptian poetry comes to mind...)

[Cinder]

Ds1 did Yr1 R as an 8th grader. We were in a co-op that just covered history and lit. And for lit, the leaders cut down the selections so they could spend more time on each one. We didn't do any of the other TOG subjects at home. The history and lit were enough. I wasn't counting it as a high school credit for him. There were other reasons he was in the R group. He had a choice to be in D or R, and he chose R.

 

It was a tough year for ds. He has great reading comprehension and is one of those deep-thinker types, so that part was ok. I don't think he was quite prepared for the volume of reading that had to be done. And not being a history lover, he found a lot of the reading to be boring. But he pulled through just fine and it prepared him well for the workload in high school. (He's at a private school now.)

 

As to the sensitive topics mentioned above, dh and I weren't concerned because those are subjects we already talk about at home in the context of our worldview.

 

Cinder

[Leanna Tomlinson]

My ds did Rhetoric history in 8th, but I didn't move him up in Lit until 9th. I waited to add government in 10th. I think many 8th graders can handle Rhetoric level in both, but (if I'm reading this right and your moving on to year 3) I would substitute some of the Lit suggestions. Look at the themes etc. to make your decision, but the selections I would avoid for an 8th grader include Les Mis., Crime & Punishment, and Heart of Darkness.

 

Also, I think Tocqueville (government thread) was heavy for most of my 10th graders at co-op. I would think you could skip the government thread for 8th grade, or at least pick and choose.

 

Leanna