Does Anyone Still Use Classical Writing?

[Cynful]

I don't see it talked about much anymore and wondered if there are still those using it?  Especially here in the high school years with the upper levels of the books.  How has it gone for you?  Did you finish the series?  Are you happy with the outcome?  

 

Thanks alot,

Cynthia

 

[TerriMI]

Our family has finished homeschooling, but we used Classical Writing up to just about half of their Plutarch level with the last two of my four children.  We were VERY happy with it, both with the fabulously rich content and with the results.  The series integrates the Language Arts so that words, sentences, paragraphs and whole essays are read, analyzed, and imitated. Classical ideas about the topics of invention are included which help students to think more deeply about the topic.  Models progressively increase in difficulty in order to lead students to both better comprehension and better writing.  That is really how it worked in our family.  We made Reading, Rhetoric, Latin and Math the center of our homeschool, doing some work with each every day so that my kids wrote several times a week.  These two of my children are now in college and can write well.

 

My other two, older children who are now both graduated from college, only used the first couple of levels and the poetry books.  The rest had yet to be written in time for them to use them. We finished the progym with Composition in the Classical Tradition.  Both of these also wrote several times a week during most of their homeschool experience. Both of them are excellent writers also.

 

Please note that we also really focused hard on grammar, going through Shurley 5 and Mary Daly's Diagramming in one year to nail down definitions and beginning syntax and then went on to finish Harvey's Grammar to learn the rest of beginning grammar and to get good at parsing.  My last two children started CW Aesop concurrently at that time. We also did in later years three years of logic.

[Cynful]

Thanks, I appreciate the reply.  Glad to hear it went so well.  That seems to be the consensus but I never hear about it anymore.  

[Cleopatra]

I just noticed this post and thought I'd chime in late.............. I used Classical Writing from grade 5 to present (grade 11) with my dd.  Terri described very well all the benefits of the curriculum.  I'd add that my dd also followed their literature recommendations and that was another HUGE benefit.  She took a Survey of Greek Literature course online in the first semester of this year and did exceptionally in it because she'd already been exposed to the texts through Classical Writing.  We used to look at their literature selection and think, "Whoa!" but I just got her to read them without any other expectations and soon she found that they weren't too hard and very much enjoyed them.  My dd is going through Plutarch now but she's just started one English course at university.  She is so confident and comfortable with her writing, and the professor is so impressed, that it emphasizes just how wonderful this program is.  She does have to think outside the box with modern writing (although CW does cover it), but Classical Writing has taught her how to write, and any modifications are only structural and easy to do.  

 

I would highly recommend this program and in fact, if there was a fire, these books would be one of the things I'd grab before fleeing.   :D