Course Title: Composition
Grade: 8
Credits: 1
A. Course Description:
Composition 8 is a study and exercise of writing and speaking within the Progymnasmata that further utilizes skills for the Dialectic stage in writing and speaking topics. Greater emphasis is placed on oral and written argumentation, poetry writing and recitation. Students will also write and present a bill.
B. Course Objectives/Methods:
This course is designed to train students in the Dialectic stage to think carefully, to write persuasively, and to speak well. Building on what the students have learned in grades K through 7, 8th grade Composition students will review those writing skills, as well as learn the writing and presentation of a Controversia. Specific review emphasis will be placed on the writing of Refutation, Confirmation, Encomium, Invective, Description, and Characterization, Proposal of Law, Commonplace, and Thesis. Students will present Oral Interpretation, Prepared Oratory, and Debate. Original poetry will be written.
C. Course Goals:
Students will be able to do the following:
- Define key writing terms;
- Formulate an outline and utilize it appropriately;
- Develop ideas using examples, incidents, statistics, facts appropriately;
- Critically analyze ideas from Scriptural perspective;
- Independently synthesize authors' ideas into a coherent thesis for discussion and writing;
- Organize oral arguments in a coherent manner;
- Develop individual writing style that exercises variation of sentence patterns and well defined vocabulary;
- Develop thorough understanding of the definition of grammatical terms and the rules for diagramming sentences;
- Utilize argumentation skills appropriately;
D. Teacher Materials:
Class notes, outlines, sample writings of each Progymnasmata topic assigned
E. Student Texts:
(Grammar Book)
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