Writing & Rhetoric Book 6 Set: Commonplace Program

Program Overview

The Writing & Rhetoric series employs a creative approach to the classical Progymnasmata — Think of the progymnasmata as a step-by-step apprenticeship in the art of writing and rhetoric. What is an apprentice? It is a young person who is learning a skill from a master teacher. Through Writing & Rhetoric and the Progymnasmata, your students will serve as apprentices to the great writers and great stories of history!

This method emphasizes fluent reading, careful listening, models for imitation, and progressive steps. It assumes that students learn best by reading excellent, whole-story examples of literature and by growing their skills through imitation. Each exercise is intended to impart a skill (or tool) that can be employed in all kinds of writing and speaking. The exercises are arranged from simple to more complex. What’s more, the exercises are cumulative, meaning that later exercises incorporate the skills acquired in preceding exercises. This series is a step-by-step apprenticeship in the art of writing and rhetoric.  The full series is 12 books that will train students over 6 years, starting in grades 3 or 4.

Commonplace, the sixth in the series, is a one-semester course for grades 5 or 6.  This set includes:

• Writing & Rhetoric Book 6: Commonplace (consumable student edition) continues the development of the art of persuasive writing and oration. Students will learn to create six-paragraph essays that are arguments against the common vices of people and arguments in favor of common virtues. For example, cowardice and boasting are criticized while courage and humility are commended. In addition to practicing skills they learned in earlier books, students will learn to:
  • Write six-paragraph essays
  • Support a thesis statement
  • Argue against certain vices
  • Argue for certain virtues
  • Use comparison and contrast
  • Introduce and conclude an essay
  • Use a rhetorical device known as “the contrary”
  • Invent soliloquies to support an argument
  • Deliver writing orally
  • Revise writing
• Writing & Rhetoric Book 6: Commonplace Teacher’s Edition – includes the complete student text, as well as answer keys, teacher’s notes, and explanations. For every writing assignment, this edition also supplies descriptions and examples of what excellent student writing should look like, providing the teacher with meaningful and concrete guidance.
• Writing & Rhetoric Book 6: Commonplace MP3 Audio Files – allow students to engage their sense of hearing and their listening intelligence as Dr. Christopher Perrin, along with the Writing and Rhetoric series editor, Christine Perrin, deliver the fables aloud in a thoughtful manner.
  • NOTE: Instructions for accessing audio files will be emailed separately once your purchase has been processed. For homeschoolers, streaming access lasts for the life of the product.

Placement: In Writing & Rhetoric, placement is based on the student’s current experience in writing. The publisher first suggests looking through the table of contents included in each of the free Writing & Rhetoric samples (found on the individual product pages). Reviewing both the table of contents and the sample lessons will help you determine a good starting level for your student. They encourage parents to download and print the sample chapters of the textbooks (student book) to assist in determining placement. Other suggestions are:

• If you have a student in 4th–7th grade and are considering Writing & Rhetoric, the initial identifier of placement is to evaluate whether your student can acknowledge the 5 W’s (who, what, when, where, why) in an essay or is comfortable writing 6-paragraph essays. If not, we recommend looking at Book 3: Narrative II. Starting here will provide review from the first 2 books in the series, as well as more age-appropriate material with longer stories and more thoughtful questions in the lessons.
• If your student is confidently working through the 2 skills mentioned above, we would then suggest looking through Book 5: Refutation and Confirmation. In this book, students begin to support a cause or refute it. This is the beginning mark of persuasive writing (pre-thesis work) and helps them to begin research for an idea they will support in an essay.