{"id":329,"date":"2004-12-12T00:05:00","date_gmt":"2004-12-12T00:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=329"},"modified":"2004-12-12T00:05:00","modified_gmt":"2004-12-12T00:05:00","slug":"329","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=329","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Secret Thrills of Teaching Rhetoric<\/strong><\/p>\n

I teach a class each semester on advanced composition and rhetoric, using this book<\/a> as one of the texts. The students are mostly education majors who must take the course as their last exposure to a writing class before they are turned loose on the job market.<\/p>\n

This semester’s final exam included a creampuff essay question that brought this response in the first paper that I graded. “Students should know who Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, and Quintilian<\/a> were.” Quintilian! Take that, constructivists!<\/p>\n

Of course, who knows what she will actually do once she has a classroom of her own. I just like the fact that I’m able to pass on a little bit of the Classical Pagan tradition here at a minor state university.<\/p>\n

Over the break, I plan to snuggle up with Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric<\/a> to design some new in-class writing exercises. <\/p>\n

UPDATE: In all fairness, I should point out that there is a “Classical” wing<\/a> in the Christian homeschooling movement. But they run up against opposition from their own co-religionists, as in this excerpt from the “Classical Christian Homeschooling: Frequently Asked Questions”<\/a> page:
\n<\/p>\n

Classical education seems like the best model to produce truly educated children. But as Christians, how can we use the model established by the pagan Greeks and Romans? Does Christian classical education have a Biblical foundation?<\/p>\n

Answer coming soon<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ll be watching for that answer. See also my earlier po<\/a>st about the possible dangers of “addiction to Greek mythology.”<\/p>\n

As I try to point out gently to my own students, rhetoric cannot really stretch its wings when there is a Holy Book With All The Answers limiting what can and cannot be discussed or even asked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Secret Thrills of Teaching Rhetoric I teach a class each semester on advanced composition and rhetoric, using this book as one of the texts. The students are mostly education majors who must take the course as their last exposure to a writing class before they are turned loose on the job market. This semester’s final […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-329","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":116,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=116","url_meta":{"origin":329,"position":0},"title":"\"Hello, Pagan\" Despite the best\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 14, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Hello, Pagan\" Despite the best efforts of those of us at The Pomegranate and such writers as Michael York, author of Pagan Theology (and a member of The Pom's editorial board), some people continue to use \"Pagan\" as a synonym for \"irreligious.\" Consider the \"Pagans Only\" page at the fundamentalist\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2938,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2938","url_meta":{"origin":329,"position":1},"title":"How to Talk with the Non-Pagan Press","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Lots of Pagan sites are talking about a magickal showdown with some Christian spiritual warriors over the District of Columbia. Jason Pitzl-Waters has the thoroughly hyperlinked details. Here Hecate, who helped start this particular rolling, says some valuable things about framing the issue when talking with non-Pagans. When talking to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"journalism\"","block_context":{"text":"journalism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=journalism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4220,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4220","url_meta":{"origin":329,"position":2},"title":"The Potential Strength of a Liberal Arts Degree","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I have written here before about the Higher Education Bubble. Related to that perception, you hear a lot of people devaluing education in the humanities and arts. High-profile news stories about graduates with degrees in, for example, film studies and a big debt load did not help. But here is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"education\"","block_context":{"text":"education","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=education"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2574,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2574","url_meta":{"origin":329,"position":3},"title":"The 4C’s: Still Lost in Theory-Land","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 22, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"When I started teaching college writing classes (here meaning mainly rhetoric and composition) in the early 1990s,\u00a0 I attended the national Conference on College Composition and Communication at least three times at university (i.e. taxpayer) expense. One of them produced an early Letter from Hardscrabble Creek piece back when it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":257,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=257","url_meta":{"origin":329,"position":4},"title":"Pagans invented the wheel Well,\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 7, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Pagans invented the wheel Well, yes, of course, if you think about it--presuming that you equate pre-Big Name Religion (Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, etc.) with \"Pagan.\" But first, let me acknowledge publication of Pagan Pride, a book of short readings (in unusual square format) \"honoring the Craft and Culture of Earth\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":927,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=927","url_meta":{"origin":329,"position":5},"title":"The Further Adventures of Lucius Vorenus & Titus Pullo","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Netflix has at last delivered the first disk of Rome's second season. I will admit it: I go into happy fanboy mode at the receipt of new episodes.It's like The Sopranos for Pagans. There are no really sympathetic characters, but you can't take your eyes off them.Especially Lindsay Duncan's Servilia--perhaps\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}