Lost Tools of Writing 1 with Fairytales
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About the course
What is rhetoric? Rhetoric is the art of making decisions in community. In this course, students will experience the art of rhetoric as they consider the actions of the characters they encounter in 16 fairytales.
With each essay, students will learn new skills as they gather ideas, order ideas, and express ideas in pursuit of the truth. In the Canon of Invention, students will learn how to think with the Five Common Topics of Comparison, Definition, Circumstance, Relation, and Testimony. In the Canon of Arrangement, students will learn how to develop a persuasive essay with an Exordium, Division, Thesis, Proofs, Refutation, and Amplification. In the Canon of Elocution, students will practice using a variety of schemes and tropes to emphasize particular ideas in their essay.
The literature selection for this course make it a good fit for students who already have significant reading assignments for other classes. The shorter length of fairytales offers students the opportunity to read each story more than once, allowing them to notice new details and make new connections. The symbolic nature of fairytales also offers students the opportunity to practice reading symbols, to see the connections that exist between the physical world and spiritual realm. As we read and compare these stories, students will begin to perceive the truths they tell.
Course Objectives
Students will learn to:
- Ask good questions using the 5 Common Topics
- Arrange gathered ideas into a persuasive argument
- Compose sentences using parallelism, antithesis, assonance, and alliteration
- Compose similes and metaphors
- Read attentively, analogically, and anagogically"
Texts
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