Writing and Rhetoric Book 1: Fable – Teacher’s Edition
Writing and Rhetoric Book 1: Fable – Teacher’s Edition offers a creative, step-by-step apprenticeship in the art of writing and rhetoric. What is an apprentice? An apprentice is a young person who learns a skill from a master teacher. In this curriculum, students serve as apprentices to the great writers and great stories of history.
Too often, we expect students to write with no clear model before them. Modern composition scolds traditional writing instruction as rote and unimaginative. It takes imitation to task for a lack of freedom and personal expression. And yet, effective communication from writer to reader always requires some sort of form and structure.
Many of history’s greatest writers learned by imitation. In other words, writing takes the same kind of determined study as ballet or diving. Creativity uses conventional form as a stage or a springboard from which to launch grand somersaults. Too often students we expect students to tackle complex writing assignments without learning the necessary intermediate steps.
The assumption is that because most everyone can speak English well enough to be understood, and form letters with a pencil, that everyone should be able to write well. Yet how many of us would expect a child to sit at a piano, without piano lessons, and play a concerto? Writing is never automatic.
The Writing and Rhetoric Method
The Writing and Rhetoric method employs fluent reading, careful listening, models for imitation, and progressive steps. It assumes that students learn best by reading excellent, whole-story examples of literature and by growing their skills through imitation.
Each exercise imparts a skill (or tool) that students can employ in all kinds of writing and speaking. This program arranges exercises from simple to more complex. What’s more, the exercises are cumulative, meaning that later exercises incorporate the skills acquired in preceding exercises. This series is a step-by-step apprenticeship in the art of writing and rhetoric.
Fable teaches students the practice of close reading and comprehension, summarizing a story aloud and in writing, and amplification of a story through description and dialogue. Students learn how to identify different kinds of stories. They determine the beginning, middle, and end of stories. Additionally, they recognize point of view. Moreover, they see analogous situations, among other essential tools.
This method recovers a proven method of teaching writing, using fables to teach beginning writers the craft of writing well.
Writing and Rhetoric Book 1: Fable – Teacher’s Edition includes the complete student text, as well as answer keys, teacher’s notes, and explanations. For every writing assignment, this edition also supplies descriptions and examples of what excellent student writing should look like, providing the teacher with meaningful and concrete guidance.
Classical Academic Press
- Classical Academic Press includes four important attributes. Each product is classical, creative, relevant, and easy to use. As our company name implies, you will find that we publish classical books and media, seeking to acquaint students with the best that has been thought and said.
- We also design and present our products with creativity and zest, from beautiful illustrations to engaging storytelling, ensuring that the classical subjects being taught are anything but boring.
