Lost Tools of Writing 1 with a King, a Knight and a Hobbit

Students in this course will adventure through the first level of The Lost Tools of Writing conquering the formidable tasks of generating ideas, organizing ideas, and expressing ideas through the art of rhetoric. With each new lesson, we will gain a new tool to help us along in our journey toward truthful and persuasive communication. These powerful tools will help us bring harmony to our communities as we strive to make decisions together. Students will also join Beowulf, Sir Gawain, and Bilbo Baggins as they journey into danger, bravely battling monsters and gaining great renown.

Course Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Gather facts about an Issue by asking questions from the Five Common Topics.
• Consider an Issue from both the Affirmative and Negative positions.
• Perceive the truth about an Issue.
• Organize ideas into a persuasive essay with Exordium, Division, Thesis, Proofs, Refutation, and Amplification.
• Express ideas with beauty and clarity using parallelism, antithesis, alliteration, assonance, similes, and metaphors.
• Delight in literature through annotation and discussion.

Required Texts

• Lost Tools of Writing Level 1 Student Book
• Beowulf, translated by Burton Raffel ISBN ‎978-0451530967
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Burton Raffel ISBN 978-045153119
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien ISBN 978-0547928227