As our children get older and prepare for life beyond our homeschool, we have been gravitating towards classical education resources. One of our favorite publishers of Classic Christian Education is Memoria Press (in case you couldn’t tell by our numerous reviews over the years). They take the subject matter and put it in a way that is easy to teach (or in the case of older students, learn directly from the text), organize into progressive lessons – in other words, they make it easy to bring the centuries-old style of Classical Education into our homeschool.
Language Arts are always hard for me to teach. I read (I love to read) and write reasonably well (or I wouldn’t be here, sharing things with you lovely, patient people). If you have been teaching your children very long, you realize possessing the skills to do something yourself does not always translate into teaching your children. I think also the lack of absolute black/white or wrong/right to many areas and this only adds to my personal struggles here. I am so, so thankful when we find excellent resources that not only teach what my children need to know but in a way that they learn it well (not just fake it for a test or grade). Huge bonus points when the lessons are arranged so as to make the whole process easy. That is what we have here with Classical Composition I: Fable set and Classical Composition II: Narrative set. Three cheers for Memoria Press!
Classical Composition is the 10 level curriculum from Memoria Press that takes the learner through the progymnasmata. Now, don’t be scared by that word like I was. It is the 14 exercises or steps to the way of teaching/learning the art of communication. It has been in use since the time of the Ancient Romans, so I feel pretty confident it is a good model to copy. And that is what Classical Composition does, uses this model. Mr. James Selby has done a magnificent job in breaking things down into steps and lessons that are easy for students to follow – and learn from.
My 8th grade daughter has been working through level I, Fable (there is a prior level, called Introduction) at an accelerated pace. Our goal is to complete both levels I and II in the course of one school year. The lesson plans (available to purchase separately from Memoria Press) cover the material in 34 weeks. Each lesson follows the same rhythm, so we have been able to develop a routine to the work.
Because we don’t do much formally with writing when they are younger, there were some things we needed to go over in a bit more detail. Thanks to the Teacher Guide with answers (or possible answers) filled in we could reverse-engineer things like an outline (I know! How did she not know about outlines?!?!? – again, great curriculum can fill many gaps). The Teacher Guide also has great notes with each lesson – so helpful! The other great help that we have both thoroughly enjoyed is the set of DVDs. It has an instructor teaching each lesson. My daughter tried to just do this on her own at first but quickly realized how much easier things were when she watched the lesson from the DVD first. Both the Teacher Guide and Student Book also contain an Appendix with examples and definitions of Figures of Description. These are the terms used throughout the lessons that look like Greek – or rather, Latin, to me. (<– puns aka homeschool mom jokes). We also have grading rubrics to really make this easier. With these tools to use we have a great way for her to build those great communication skills that will be so important throughout life.
The next set, Level II Narrative is similar to Level I Fable. The student is working with a short piece, and retelling it, learning about the different components, ways to make variations, and appeal to their audience, etc. In the first level, fables were the source material for the lessons. As you might guess, narratives are the source material for this level. The amount/length of writing has increased as well. The same type of rhythm or routine is established for each lesson. While the Classical Composition can be used with students as young as 4th grade, I don’t think we’ll be using it any younger than middle school.
This is only one of the subject areas covered in this review period with Memoria Press. Other Crew families have reviewed penmanship and logic resources. Click the image below to check out all the reviews.
