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Friday, November 14, 2014

The Lost Tools of Thinking


Last year, our homeschool community, Classical Conversations, introduced the Lost Tools of Writing program as parts of the 7th and 8th grade curricula. This was a good, good thing. I am no expert in the Lost Tools curriculum or in the application of all it has to offer, but what I have seen has been fantastic. I offer you one thought in particular to express my excitement.

Classical Conversations students study grammar and composition through our Essentials program from around 9-years-old through age 12 (plus or minus a few months.) Here they learn how to recognize and use the parts of speech, how to classify a sentence from one of the 112 possible choices, how to make a key word outline, how to diagram a sentence, how to write an essay, how to write from a source, as well as from image prompts, how to present their essay in front of an audience, etc. They also do much, much more than this, but being a dad, I'm not in class with them every week, so my list is shorter than it could be.



I have watched my Essentials students, Calvin and Rose, progress in their knowledge and skills over the last year-and-a-half. I am thrilled to think that they have another year-and-a-half to go in this highly profitable program. I do not have a large enough vocabulary to adequately express my love of Essentials.

With the advent of the Lost Tools of Writing (LTW) into the Jr. High years, Classical Conversations has taken a HUGE leap forward in preparing our children for the classical arts of dialectic and rhetoric. The main benefit I am seeing right now is that the program could just as appropriately have been named “The Lost Tools of Thinking.”

“Thinking” is the missing link between learning your parts of speech and writing a good academic essay. The Lost Tools of Writing program fills that gap, incrementally and progressively, until students are thoroughly prepared to enter high-school rhetoric.

Often tutors, parents, and students are struck with a sense of overwhelming disillusionment upon seeing the first few lessons of LTW. It seems silly to write such a “rudimentary” essay, but the rudiments are exactly what we need at this point. The students have learned the rudiments of English grammar and composition through the Essentials program, but now they (students, parents, and tutors) need to learn the rudiments of thinking, and LTW has the plan in place to do that very thing.

We are finite creatures. These bodies were conceived, born and will one day wither and perish. One does not have to consider the human condition very long to recognize our physical limitations. We can’t fly. We can’t breathe water. We have to eat and drink or we’ll die. The list goes on forever. That’s just how limited we are.

But we are limited in more ways than just physically. We are limited mentally as well. We cannot think about everything all at once. No one is actually a “global thinker.” In order to overcome this limitation, we have to compartmentalize and categorize. We have to sift and sort reality into bite-size packets in order to allow our feeble little brains to “metabolize” it. We have to chew on thoughts for a while, and like our mouths, we can only fit so much in at one time.

One of the beauties of LTW is that this inherent human limitation is recognized and a solution is offered. In fact, the entire curriculum is a solution to this limitation. The art of thinking is introduced in the very first lesson and this art is taught until the very end. This seems facile at first, especially after seeing 5th and 6th graders write such fantastic essays in Essentials, but 5th and 6th grade essays are only appropriate for 5th and 6th graders. They need to mature in their ability to think as the brain God gave them develops in its capacity to think.

The first lessons of LTW dispense with the complexities of eloquent writing in order to begin lessons in the “forms” of thought. This return to “square one” of the art of thinking is exactly where we all need to go. We need to be taught how to categorize the world around us in our minds, so that we overcome our inherent mental limitations. Once the students master the process of well-formed thinking, then they will return to the study of eloquence in order to present their thoughts beautifully in their writing.

In my years as a homeschool, high-school tutor, I have seen many children who have acquired the basic abilities of composition through the Essentials program and are writing essays in ninth-grade that most college professors would love to see come across their desks. But I have also watched these same students hit a brick wall when it comes to digging anywhere below the surface of most topics. This is where the Lost Tools of Writing comes in, for in between the rudiments of elementary grammar and the rudiments of high-school rhetoric must come the rudiments of thinking well.

The prophet Zechariah exhorted Israel not to despise the day of small things. (Zech. 4:10) Lesson 1 of Part 1 of the Lost Tools of Writing curriculum is a little, bitty baby step in the long, long journey toward beautiful thinking and writing. This “small thing” is not to be despised. The Lost Tools of Writing program is a tiny seed, which if nurtured, will grow into a mighty oak of analysis, imagination, and beautiful writing from our children and students.

9 comments:

  1. I cannot begin to express how much this post hits home. On the mark! Thanks for your words of wisdom. I have shared with my CC community.

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    1. You are most certainly welcome, Pam. Thank you for your encouraging words.

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  2. Perfect. I've been debating on moving my 12 and soon to be 14 year old (both are first year CC students with learning disabilities) forward into Challenge A next year. I just looked over my friends LTW last night and decided we were ready. This article is the icing on the cake. Thank you!

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    1. I am glad to hear you are moving forward with LTW. Thank you for taking the time to encourage me. The icing is my favorite part:)

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  3. Sharing this with our Challenge community -- there are so many doubts about this program, but I, too, have seen its benefits now that Anna has been using it for Challenge A and B. It's excellent.

    Thanks for these thoughts, Marc!

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    1. There are many doubts, which, though not unfounded, may be a bit prematurely spoken. The same team that oversaw the design our Essentials curriculum oversaw the design of our Challenge A & B scope and sequence and included LTW in it. It is a wonderful design incorporating two wonderful writing programs.

      Thank you for your comment. It is always so encouraging to hear from you.

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  4. I know there are countless benefits to Challenge. We've been in CC 2 years now & next year my son is supposed to start Challenge. I want him to be a strong thinker, learn to reason and write maturely, but he despises reading. He is great at Essentials, but IEW is laborious. He is so easily distracted & finds it difficult to focus for more than a few minutes at a time. I worry that Challenge will be overwhelming for both of us, especially the Latin. Would love to "talk" to parents who have faced this challenge and still survived Challenge. Thanks for the article! I read all I can on this!

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    1. LouAnn, Thank you for commenting on the post. Here's a couple thoughts on entering Challenge A: First, you don't have to rush into Challenge A. If he is on the young side of the age limit to enter then it is definitely worth revisiting whether or not it should happen this fall. My daughter is now in Challenge 2, so she went through Ch A before there was an age limit. As she is on the young side of her class, we can see the wisdom of not rushing into it. The more opportunities a child has to grow before getting to the upper Challenges, the more they will get out of each assignment in the upper levels. Secondly, on the flip side, if he is of the age where you want to go ahead and enroll him in Ch A, don't fret about how he "might do" in Challenge. He will still be easily distracted and find it difficult to focus for several years to come, but Challenge will help him develop skills to apply when he's needing to gain focus. One of the main goals of Ch A is to help the students become more aware of how "personal investment builds ownership." I remember how my daughter asked if she could schedule her own week's work after only 6 weeks in Challenge A. She had a planner, she filled in what she would accomplish each day, and she showed it to her mom for approval. We were stunned. And elated. Sometimes growth comes in spurts like that one, and sometimes it takes years to overcome bad habits and develop good ones. There are 6 years of Challenge for them to work with; we don't have to rush into, or through, any of them. Oh, and about Latin...you get three years to make it through the first book. I LOVE the way CC prepares the students for high school Latin. Hope some of this helps. Thanks again for commenting. that is very encouraging to a tutor/blogger:)

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    2. You have no idea how incredibly helpful your response is!!! I have 3 sons. Nathan is my youngest and went to public school till 2 years ago. We home schooled my oldest (now 24) all the way through but we did not have CC. When I told him that we were doing this with his little brother, he was genuinely jealous! I know we are doing the right thing. I tend to doubt my ability to teach Nathan. He is quite different than my other 2 boys. My middle son was home schooled till 5th grade and he's graduating public school this year. He did very well and we are very pleased with his education. Common Core was a game changer with our youngest and having CC start right here in Bell Buckle was a God send!! Your comments are very encouraging...especially with regard to the Latin! Whew!!!! :)

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