Students who have completed LTW 1 will spend the first semester reviewing and honing the skills they learned in their previous classes and adding new skills as they consider actions taken by characters in the stories we will read. They will contemplate why a character made a specific decision and discern whether that choice should or should not have been done. This will require them to read closely and think deeply. They will learn to understand what questions to ask, how to organize their thoughts, and how to use rhetorical devices that will delight and persuade their readers toward truth.

In the second semester, students will sharpen their powers of observation and practice a new type of composition through the Comparison Essay. New skills will be introduced each week, and students work toward mastery of those skills by practicing them throughout the course. They will be assigned weekly reading and writing homework. We will read portions of books in class and spend time conversing about these stories together.
Grade Range:9th-10th grade

Learning Objectives:

• Students will increase their ability to read texts closely, comprehending the overall story.
• Students will hone the skill of attending to details in stories and in their writing.
• Students will write eight compositions, beginning with persuasive essays and ending with comparison essays.
• Students will regularly utilize the Five Common Topics of Invention as they consider what to write.
• Students will organize their thoughts well in essay/address outlines during Arrangement.
• Students will master rhetorical schemes and tropes in Elocution.
• Students will leave class with a greater love of American Stories

Literature and Required Texts:
The Lost Tools of Writing Level One Student Workbook
The Lost Tools of Writing: Comparison Essay
Johnny Tremain
The Scarlet Letter
Tom Sawyer
To Kill a Mockingbird
Up From Slavery
The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass
Self-Reliance and Other Essays on the Nature of Man
Walden: Or. Life in the Woods
Starship Troopers