Accelerated Lost Tools of Writing 1: with Beowulf, Sir Gawain & Shakespeare

Prerequisite: One full year of Lost Tools Level 1

Students in this course will have the opportunity to review all the skills taught in LTW Level 1 during the fall semester. Students will mature in their understanding and mastery of these foundational concepts in the art of rhetoric. During the spring semester, students will grow in their ability to perceive truth as they seek to understand ideas through the topic of comparison. With LTW Comparison Essay, students will deepen their thinking skills, learn a new essay form, and grow in analogical thinking. Our literature discussions will lead us to greater virtue as we encounter prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice in Beowulf, Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet.

Course Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Gather facts about an Issue using the Five Common Topics.
• Consider an Issue from both the Affirmative and Negative positions.
• Perceive the truth about an Issue.
• Develop and outline a persuasive essay with Exordium, Narratio, Division, Thesis, Proofs, Refutation, and Amplification.
• Express ideas with beauty and clarity using parallelism, antithesis, alliteration, assonance, simile, and metaphor.
• Internalize the thinking skill of comparison.
• Develop and outline two different forms of a comparison essay.
• Compose advanced and extended metaphors.
• Delight in literature through annotation and discussion.

Required Texts

• Lost Tools of Writing Level 1 Student Book
• Lost Tools of Writing Comparison Essay
• Beowulf, translated by Burton Raffel ISBN ‎978-0451530967
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Burton Raffel ISBN 978-0451531193
• Hamlet, Folger Shakespeare Library Edition ISBN 1451669410
• Twelfth Night, Folger Shakespeare Library Edition ISBN 1982122498