“ If we lose the ability to imagine how words are like seeds, we risk presuming that language cannot serve any purpose greater than our own. If we cannot imagine how human words can communicate self-giving life, then we lose the ability to imagine how Christian faith is possible.”

The Lost Seeds of Learning invites readers to consider how our understanding of the learners, the teachers, the content, the forms, and the purposes of the verbal arts becomes transformed in light of Christian faith. Recovering the vision of how grammar, logic, and rhetoric can be like seeds and not merely neutral tools helps us remember why these arts are crucial to Christian formation. These arts have an intrinsic purpose not of human choosing and a particular purpose to communicate new life. Such life communicated is a divine gift and the form of such communication can be self-giving. Such verbal giving and receiving is a living knowledge that relies on the testimony of particular persons over time. By imagining words as seeds, Christian educators can cultivate attention, patience, and responsible action rather than distraction, impatience, and paralysis.

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Examine the tradition of Socratic conversation to preserve its future!

Socratic Conversation reveals the natural connection between great philosophical dialogues and the art of philosophic conversation that is in pursuit of the truth. In distinct yet complementary ways, the three parts of the book build a bridge between the philosophical dialogues of Plato, and others, and the contemporary practice of Socratic conversation as a pedagogical method.

Part 1: To build this bridge, author Jeffrey Lehman examines some of Plato’s best-known and most-loved dialogues. Each chapter in part 1 focuses on those aspects of the dialogues that help one see the connection between the way Plato has crafted his philosophical dialogues and his hope that reading them will engender in his readers a desire to engage in philosophical conversation themselves.

Part 2: Join the author on a journey from Plato’s time to our own. Along the way, the author examines particularly striking examples of philosophical dialogue and shows how they continue the work Plato had started.

Part 3: The focus in the final section turns to Socratic conversation in our own time! Informed by the investigation of the examples of philosophical dialogues in the second section, the reader is in a better position to understand and appreciate the challenges and delights of Socratic conversation as a pedagogical method. Along the way, the author shows how remarkably fitting Socratic conversation is to classical education and considers some of the basic principles of effective Socratic conversation.

The post Socratic Conversation: Bringing the Dialogues of Plato and the Socratic Tradition into Today’s Classroom appeared first on Classical Education Books.

Many parents and teachers asked for a set of example lessons to help them apply the Teaching the Classics model in their classes.

Ready Readers: Children’s Literature fills this need with complete discussion notes for 10 classic picture books.  Each lesson includes a full set of Socratic discussion questions with comprehensive answers keyed to the text.  Questions cover Conflict, Plot, Setting, Characters, Theme, Literary Devices, and Context. In addition, a completed Story Chart graphically outlines the major structural and thematic elements of each story.

This exciting resource is appropriate for use with students of all ages, depending on their needs:

READING COMPREHENSION

Ready Readers helps develop good reading comprehension in the very youngest students.  It encourages them to ponder well-designed questions about structure, style, context, and theme in every story they read.

LITERARY ANALYSIS

Though the books discussed here were written for children, they provide excellent examples of the structural elements common to all stories.  They are therefore useful even in discussions with older students, who read at a higher level but may be new to the techniques of literary analysis.

The first volume in the Ready Readers series provides a discussion of ten children’s picture books. Although the content is primarily useful as a tool for teaching K-3 students the basics of literary structure and style, it is also helpful for introducing older students to literary analysis at a more approachable level.

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Related Products:

Teaching the Classics – DVD and Workbook

The post Teaching the Classics – Workbook appeared first on Classical Education Books.

The complete set includes:

• Eight one-hour DVD presentations by Adam Andrews
• A 120-page syllabus notebook with complete teacher resources
• Full texts of all stories used in the seminar
• Our exclusive Socratic list of 173 discussion questions applicable to any story
• In-depth essays on Conflict, Plot, Setting, Characters, Theme, and Context
• Annotated readings lists for students of all ages
• Reproducible story charts for classroom use
• Scope and sequence models
• Daily lesson plans
• Glossary of literary devices
• Suggestions for writing assignments
• Video FAQ session with Adam Andrews

Running time: 7 hours 38 minutes
Syllabus page count: 120

Click here for extra workbooks.

For lesson plans to get you started using Teaching the Classics, click here.

Related Product:

Teaching the Classics – Workbook

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