Plans for the Course

This course will have four parts:

1. Literature and Reading
2. Composition
3. Grammar
4. Vocabulary

You don't have to follow any of these links -- this part is just for future reference.

Literature will be related to history. There will also be questions and readings connected with learning how to read and analyze different materials on a high school level. We will read: Aristotle's Poetics, Homer's Iliad, Homer's Odyssey, Sophocles' Theban Trilogy as well as some other Greek drama, and parts of two background books: How to Read a Book, and Tenets for Readers and Reviewers.




For composition, there will be regular assignments -- some short (one paragraph) and some longer (several paragraphs). A study of Logic will be connected with this. References: Elements of Style and the Progymnasmata. More detail: English Studies Part I and Part II


For grammar, this Daily Grammar site is useful for review and to fill in any gaps you might have in understanding. We'll probably also do some diagramming. Grammar will be three times a week.



For vocabulary, we have a workbook series that is fairly simple to use. Here's also Free Rice and ThatQuiz. and Quizlet. Vocabulary will be twice a week. Vocabulary will often be related to words that are important to know in the subject areas, and will include ways to analyze words from knowledge of their roots. For this part of it, there are Greek and Latin words of the month, and Wheelock's Latin quizzes.

Some notes about basic principles:

This list is in reverse order -- in understanding a language, there are four levels starting from smallest and moving upwards:

1. Word (words can be broken down into letters and syllables, but a word is the smallest unit of meaning).
   
2. Sentence (words put together so at to form a complete thought)
   
3. Paragraph (sentences put together in meaningful and coherent form).
   
4. Whole Work (anything from a short anecdote to a full length novel or biography)

There are two basic approaches to language or knowledge which we do in many ways in normal life:

• Analysis (breaking up something into its parts)
• Synthesis (putting things together to make something new). This means something similar to composition (action of or method of putting something together)
  

Something related to synthesis or composition is Mimesis or intelligent imitation-- trying to reflect something that is true and good, whether a thing from nature or from technique.