For Such A Time As This

Classical Education:

But is it? www.forsuchatimeasthis.com

jpstobaugh@post.harvard.edu

Master Books Booth

✓ Married to Karen 36 years. Home school

Dad of 4 adult children.

✓ SAT/ACT Coach since 1977

✓ Pastor

✓ Author SAT COLLEGE PREP COURSE

(1995, 1998, 2005, 2011). ACT COLLEGE

PREP COURSE (2012)

✓ SAT Essay Grader (2006, 2010, 2012)

✓ Certified Teacher (Doctorate Level)

✓ BA Vanderbilt, MA Rutgers, M. Div.

Princeton, D. Min. Gordon Conwell, Merrill

Fellow Harvard University.

✓ No question is unimportant

✓ My twitter address is

www.twitter.com/jamespstobaugh

✓ My facebook address is

www.facebook.com/jpstobaugh

✓ My product page with Video –

www.nlpg.com/sat

✓ http://whatisthebesttest.com

SAT/ACT ESSAY Download

Middle School History

Fall, 2013

Skills for Lit & Skills for Rhet

May 20, 2013

Handbook for Lit Analysis

The underlying question behind

classical education is: What is the

form (Plato) or truth (Augustine)?

✥Language Focused: learning is accomplished through words,

written and spoken, rather than through images (pictures, videos,

and television).

✥ Language requires the mind to work harder; in reading, the brain

is forced to translate a symbol (words on the page) into a concept.

Reclamation of the Metaphor!

✥And it follows a specific three-part pattern: the mind must be first

supplied with facts and images, then given the logical tools for

organization of facts, and finally equipped to express conclusions.

✥Grammar Stage consists of

language skills such as reading and

the mechanics of writing. An

important goal of grammar is to

acquire as many words and manage

as many concepts as possible so as to

be able to express and understand

clearly concepts of varying degrees of

complexity.

✥Logic Stage: Logic (dialectic) is the

art of correct reasoning. The

traditional text for teaching logic was

Aristotle's Logic.

✥The age for debate!

✥Rhetoric Stage: Using rhetorical

skills developed in the Grammar

Stage and, especially, in the

Dialectic Stage, the student is

ready to tackle the most difficult

of academic disciplines.

Classical Education Distinctives

Summary

✥Student Centered

✥Skill Based

✥Cognitive Developmental (Blooms Taxonomy)

✥Ubiquituous culture

✥Moral Universe

✥Inquiry Preference

✥Interdisciplinary

Mind,Body, and Spirit

✥Affective

✥Cognitive

✥Behvioral

What it is not

✥Outcome based

✥Knowledge Acquisition Based

✥Value Neutral

Format Writing Antithesis of Classical Education

✥Format writing is a writing strategy

that purports to teach students how

to write without the burden of a

classical content, of a literary

audience, or of a sagacious

educational theory. This is in conflict

with a more orthodox writing program

that teaches writing in the context of

purpose and audience.

✥At the heart of

classical education is

audience and

educational theory.

Classical Education

Distinctives

What is truth?

Reclamation of Ubiquitous Culture

Inextricably Tied to Ethics & Morality

To talk about classical

education is to debate the

efficacy of world view and the

viability of culture.

Components of Classical Education

☞World View: Theism, Deism, Romanticism,

Naturalism, Realism, Existentialism, Absurdism

☞Plausibility Structure: Does it work?

☞Credibility: Is narration believable?

☞Propagandistic

From the beginning there was a general debate (!)

over the advisability, even morality of educating

without honoring Truth and the gods (God!).

Classical Education understands that there are those

who have come before may have something important

to say!

The form or media has become the message and

presupposes that the truth is ipso facto the message.

To say that the form has a reason to exist without any

moral/ethical/spiritual connection is to argue that

knowledge is separate from ethics.

An Example

When asked why an immoral act is committed:

I enjoy doing it and it harms no one.

Classical education

understands that the

messenger cannot be

separated from the message.

In a society that does

not value the classics

replaces weighty

discourse with

entertainment.

In a world that enjoys being

entertained, time becomes

the most sought after

component of life.

Reclamation and

Maintenance of a viable

culture

The Metaphor

Reading the Classics

Classical Education demands that we

reclaim the use of metaphor. Our mindless

search for relevance and literalness in our

media has damaged us. We no longer

participate in metaphor creation. Metaphor or

comparison between two ostensibly dissimilar

phenomena is absolutely critical to creative

problem solving.

The Need for Metaphor

Summary

✥ If there is no Truth, can there be any sense of

authority?

✥ And can a society survive if there is no

authority?

✥ If there is not Truth can there be freedom?

✥Without a legitimate, honest, well considered

public discourse, will history be reduced to the

"pleasure principle?"

A Key to classical education is teaching

the classics. The key to teaching the

classics is teaching Literary Analysis

Define a classic

▪ Have timeless application.

▪ Survive multiple readings.

▪ Concern world view issues.

▪ Are the first of a theme or genre.

What is literary analysis?

Literary analysis or criticism is a

way to talk about literature,

which, to a classicist, is a way

to talk about life!

Literary Terms

Plot

Theme

Tone

Setting

Narration

Omniscient

Limited Omniscient

Third Person Objective

Handout on Literary Terms

Part II: Selected Works

The Iliad, by Homer, Oedipus Rex, Sophocles, Confessions, Augustine, Divine

Comedy, Dante, Faust, Goethe, The Doll House, Ibsen, Crime and Punishment,

Dostoevsky, War and Peace, Tolstoi, The Unvanquished, William Faulkner, The

Stranger, Camus, The Aeneid, Virgil, Beowulf, Unknown, Ecclesiastical History of the

English People, Bede, Macbeth, Shakespeare, The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne,

Huckleberry Finn, Twain, Red Badge of Courage, Crane, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,

Stevenson, A Farewell To Arms, Hemingway, Cry the Beloved Country, Paton.

Application

Compare Huckleberry Finn to the young Samuel (1 Sam.1-3).

Literary Criticism

A. As this book progresses we learn to love Jim. Loyal to a fault, trusting, and hardworking, the

reader is drawn to this pillar of fecundity. Describe in detail the way that Twain develops this

character.

B. Huck is not a static character. As the novel progresses, he matures. What additional

knowledge about the problems of life has Huck acquired by the time he gets to the Phelps'

farm? In an essay, explain how Huck changes to this point.

C. At the end of the novel Huck abdicates leadership to Tom. However, Huck's more mature

grasp of the realities of this situation is still quite evident. How? Contrast Huck in the beginning

of the novel with the Huck who emerges at the end.

Critical Thinking

A. Jim and Huck are ironically trying to escape from slavery by floating down the Mississippi

River. Why is this escape ironical?

Critical Questions. . .

A. Some critics find the end of the novel to be very disappointing. They feel that after Huck

arrives at the Phelps' house the plot deteriorates rapidly. On the other hand, many critics find

the end of the book to be entirely consistent with the tone of the book. What do you think?

Defend your answer with specific details from the book.

B. Twain's handling of Christianity wavers between outright scorn and mockery [Chapter I] to

veiled superstition. Describe Twain's attitudes toward Christianity in Huckleberry Finn. Defend

your answer with specific passages from the book.

C. Give at least one example of Twain's cynicism.

D. Every journey must have a goal. What is the goal of Huck's journey?

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson,

Theism vs. Naturalism.

Powerful characters.

Compelling plot.

Transitional novel cf. Lord Jim, Conrad.

The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane

Not a Civil War novel.

Naturalism.

Biblical Application

Naturalism stresses the discoverable, deterministic laws of nature. If God exists in the Naturalistic word, He

is, like nature, cold and indifferent. As the fleeing Henry trips over his dead friend, he notices that a squirrel is

playing innocuously around his dead friend's body. The birds sing beautiful songs impervious to the death

occurring all around them. Naturalism posits that nature is both ubiquitous and impersonal. What Scripture

verses can you find that contradicts this view? Write an essay that argues your perspective.

Literary Criticism

Answer all questions in essay form

A. Describe the way Crane develops his plot.

B. The plot, to some critics, has major flaws. For instance, after running farther and faster than anyone else,

Henry Fleming proves to be one of the bravest soldiers in the regiment. Some critics feel that this is

unbelievable. Do you agree? If you feel that the transformation is believable, explain with reasons from the

book why you do.

C. Describe Crane's tone and writing style.

Critical Thinking

A. "Let a thing become a tradition and it becomes half a lie," Crane said. He never created a Hester Prynne

who gave her life to absolute truth or to a Huck Finn who had affectionate tolerance toward differing opinions.

Crane's world was cynical and very dangerous. His world was full of opportunistic "demons" who sought to

do him in. He was "A man adrift on a slim spar/A horizon smaller than the rim of a bottle/Tented waves

rearing lashy dark points/The near whine of froth in circles./God is cold." [from the poem "Adrift on a Spar"] In

a short story entitled "The Open Boat" Crane hauntingly described the frustration of being in an open boat

near enough to see the shore but unable to reach the shore and safety:

If I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the

B. Crane had never seen a battle when he wrote this book. Can you tell?

C. Define maturity. How was Henry more mature at the end of the novel than he was

at the beginning?

D. Pretend that Henry was court marshaled for desertion. Should he be convicted?

Why or why not?

E. To Crane, nature has lost all contact with humanity. "It was surprising that Nature

had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment."

Contrast this view with some of the earlier Romantic writers [e.g., Hawthorne].

Challenge Question

King Ahab in 1 Kings 16 is an example of a modern man. He is everything to

everyone. What bothers Ahab is that Elijah is so parochial. That is, Elijah believes

in God--as Ahab does--but Elijah claims there is one and only one God. We

Christians rarely get into trouble for standing up for Christ until we suggest that Christ

is the one and the only Christ. Then the modern world punishes us.

The Unvanquished, William Faulkner

Not the best Faulkner, but, along with Intruder in the

Dust, a high school novel.

Memorable character, Bayard.

Faulkner may be the greatest writer of prose of all

time.

Southern literature.

A Farewell To Arms, Hemingway

Naturalism and Realism

Thoroughly modern in style and theme.

The Stranger, Camus

One of the most dangerous novels written.

Existentialism

Hopelessness and despair of modernism

Template for serious modern novels.

Cry the Beloved Country, Alan Paton

Theistic novel written in the 20th century

Themes of racial reconciliation, love, and forgiveness.

Honorable Mention

Intruder in the Dust, William Faulkner vs. To Kill a Mockingbird,

Harper Lee

Histories, Herodotus

Poetics, Aristotle

The Republic, Plato

Lives, Plutarch

Fairie Queen, Edmund Spenser

Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe

The Rivals, Richard Sheridan

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Emma, Jane Austen

Summary ☞Teaching the classics implies that there is

something better out there than my own desires.

☞Teaching the classics implies there is a corpus of

absolute truth.

☞Teaching the classics implies that our society must

move beyond entertainment to objective standards.

☞Teaching the classics implies that form and truth are

equally important and that there is no legitimate form

separate from appropriate truth.