writing

I just bought lost tools of writing and finished listening to the teaching sessions. I love it. although it does come from a classical background, it does a great job teaching the elements of a persuasive paper/speech. More importantly it teaches critical thinking skills. You can definitely adapt it to be cm friendly.

On a side note, I teach public speaking in a college setting and I expect my students to deliver a persuasive speech. Most of them could have really benefitted from a course like this. I find that most students have no idea what they believe (about politics or world issues) except that they agree with their parents. Worse, they don’t know how to do the difficult work of analyzing ideas and deciding what to think. Lost tools of writing teaches them to do all of this well!

Ok, great!  My favorite writing resources for students who can do written narrations well:

Jump In, by Apologia (variety of writing styles, very fun for reluctant writers, probably junior high or remedial high school)

Teaching the Essay and Teaching the Research Paper by Analytical Grammar for the student ready to jump in and write essays.

There are lots of people who like IEW.  I myself find it too formulaic to meet our needs so I’ve never used the history writing.  One thing to note is that it is important to be able to write a wide variety of essays, and not just in one subject.  My teens write essays in English, history, politics/economics/current events, science, etc. 

One problem I’ve never had is teens with no opinions.    I must have ordered the specially-opinionated variety.  We’ve been having extremely spirited debates with great frequency since they were 11 or so.  LOL  Of course Dad is an attorney and Mom a political scientist so maybe it’s hardwired in.  I do recommend a variety of thinking skills–Charlotte thought not too highly of logic as a discipline, but in our current day I’m afraid it’s critically important because we’ve LOST what we used to know.  We do logic/thinking skills as a subject from about 11 on. 

Also this all assumes that your student has had enough grammar to be fluent in writing.  I do also recommend picking up a style book to use in working through and correcting papers.

The Fallacy Detective:  Thirty-eight Lessons in How to Recognize Bad Reasoning.  Hans and Nathaniel Bluedorn.  Trivium Pursuit:  2003. 

The Thinking Toolbox:  Thirty-five Lessons That Will Build Your Reasoning Skills.    Hans and Nathaniel Bluedorn.  Trivium Pursuit.  2005. 

Argumentation:  The Study of Effective Reasoning.  Video lecture series, The Thinking Company.  Professor David Zarefsky. 

Thinking Like an Economist:  A Guide to Rational Decisionmaking. Video lecture series, The Thinking Company.  Professor Randall Bartlett. 

The Art of Argument, The Discovery of Deduction, and the Argument Builder, by Classical Academic Press

This year we are doing:

The Art of Critical Decision-Making by The Teaching Company, and Analysis and Critique:  How to Engage and  Write About Anything, The Teaching Company

Warning:  Your kids may be able to out-argue you if you use these.  Some adults are touchy about this.  We think it’s great.  🙂

We are trying Bravewriter’s Help for High School this year.  It’s written to the student, and it really places the emphasis on writing well and developing your “voice”.  The form (essay, research paper) will follow.