Our Logic & Rhetoric Courses

List of Courses:

  • Informal Logic I - 7th grade recommended

  • Informal Logic II - 8th grade recommended

  • Honors Formal Logic & Critical Thinking I - 9th grade recommended

  • *Honors Rhetoric I (10 credits) - 10th-12th grade recommended | *out-of-pocket

  • *Honors Rhetoric II (10 credits) - 10th-12th grade recommended | *out-of-pocket

  • *Senior Thesis (10 credits) - 12th grade recommended | *out-of-pocket

Informal Logic I - 7th grade recommended

Logic is a "paradigm" discipline by which we evaluate, assess, and learn other subjects. Training in logic is a tool, a set of skills and mental habits that should serve both truth and others. There are two types of logic that the student studies: formal and informal.

First semester focuses on informal logic as students learn how to recognize bad reasoning and spot errors in others' logic, and their own. Students will learn to practically spot fallacies in everyday life.

Second semester focuses on strengthening students’ reasoning skills. Students are provided with tools for thinking, tools for opposing viewpoints, and tools for science. Lessons cover when not to argue, finding the premises and conclusion, determining primary or secondary sources, circumstantial evidence, keen observation, brainstorming, analyzing data, and much more.

Materials for Informal Logic 1:

Informal Logic II - 8th grade recommended

Students will argue (and sometimes quarrel), but they won’t argue well without good training. By the completion of the year, students will know how to reason with clarity, relevance, and purpose . . . and have fun along the way! They will study and master 28 logical fallacies, which will provide an essential lifetime framework for filtering good and bad reasoning as well as writing and speaking effectively. This mastery of informal logic is a foundational subject by which other subjects are evaluated, assessed, and learned. The fallacies become relevant with practical applications through an analysis of current social, commercial, and political issues.

“My chief objection to a quarrel,” G.K. Chesterton wrote, “is that it ends a good argument.” Socrates is the "go to" person when it comes to fallacies (occurrence of bad or incorrect reasoning) and his perspective on the three basic categories - fallacies of irrelevance (points that don't relate to the issue), of presumption (assumptions that are not justified or necessary), and of clarity (language that confuses and muddies) - is sought via time-travel. This class emphasizes a practical application to the students’ lives through advertisements, political speeches, and various moral/ethical debates.

Materials for Informal Logic 2:

Honors Formal Logic & Critical Thinking I (10 credits) - 9th grade recommended

Logic aims to develop skills which are necessary for thorough and creative thinking and for effective and winsome communication. This class trains students in the skills and principles of formal and informal logic, which trains their minds in rigorous and careful argumentation. It also provides them with the tools to implement these skills in written and oral analysis and communication. Students will learn the language of formal logic, analyze arguments for their validity, and recognize how logical argumentation is implemented in everything from advertisements to poetry and literature. This class will give students the foundational skills and aptitudes which will allow them to be excellent discussion participants and writers.

Students will develop skills in critical thinking and clear communication. They will:

  • Recognize arguments in English and other natural languages

  • Distinguish between premises and conclusion in an argument

  • Recognize ambiguous language and be able to express statements without ambiguity

  • Translate propositions from English into logic symbols, and translate propositions from symbols back to English

  • Construct truth tables and use them to demonstrate validity or invalidity of propositional arguments

  • Apply the rules of Natural Deduction to demonstrate the validity of propositional arguments

  • Construct a counterexample to demonstrate the invalidity of an argument

  • Analyze arguments expressed informally and prove these arguments as valid or invalid

  • Recognize informal fallacies in their own arguments and in arguments from books, movies, speeches, and other sources

Class objectives will be realized through dynamic lectures, regular quizzes, assignments, logic games, and quarterly exams. They will practice formal and informal analysis of argumentation in literature and poetry by authors such as Plato and Shakespeare. The assignments will serve as the evaluative tools that assess the student’s progress toward the set objectives and will serve as a catalog of the student’s progress.

No materials or curriculum will need to be purchased for this class.

*Honors Rhetoric I (10 credits) - 10th-12th grade recommended

The culminating discipline of the Trivium, rhetoric builds upon the skills learned in logic and teaches the student to speak and write in a cohesive, persuasive, and winsome manner. This course develops students' communication abilities through the ancient art of rhetoric. Students learn what rhetoric is, why it is an essential tool in several situations, how to analyze those situations and their audiences, and how to craft several types of messages using the diverse resources of the classical rhetorical canon. In Rhetoric I students learn much about rhetoric (80% of the course) and practice developing their rhetorical skills (20%). Student’s will wrestle with questions like: How ought Christ’s followers to try to persuade others? How should their rhetorical efforts look different from those of the world around them? How can they seek to persuade with empathy, understanding, compassion? How can they both speak to others and listen to them?

Our approach to rhetoric values much of what Greeks and Romans said about the subject. We still sit at their feet to hear great insights. We still aim to put their best ideas into practice. Greeks and Romans taught us how to come up with something to say. They taught us how to order our thoughts and order our words. They taught us, too, how to shape a message to an audience. They didn’t teach us much about using rhetoric to love and serve others, though. Our approach to rhetoric does. It turns to the Bible and the Christian tradition for guidance. It seeks to follow and teach the powerful example of Jesus’s words and deeds, showing our students a better way to persuade.

How ought Christ’s followers to try to persuade others? How should their rhetorical efforts look different from those of the world around them? How can they seek to persuade with empathy, understanding, compassion? How can they both speak to others and listen to them?

Jesus called us all to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This class’ approach to rhetoric asks how we can do that in our speaking and writing and living. Our rhetoric equips students to adorn truthful words with beauty, to have something worthwhile to say, and to say it well. Every classically educated student should take this class!

*out-of-pocket

Materials for Honors Rhetoric I:

*Honors Rhetoric II (10 credits) - 10th-12th grade recommended

Greeks and Romans taught us how to come up with something to say. They taught us how to order our thoughts and order our words. They taught us, too, how to shape a message to an audience. They didn’t, however, teach us much about using rhetoric to love and serve others--this approach to rhetoric does.

Rhetoric II turns to the Bible and the Christian tradition for guidance in rhetoric. Developing students into sound, talented rhetoricians is both difficult and time-consuming. This course intends to work carefully and thoroughly with students, giving them much opportunity for practice and application of the skills developed in Rhetoric I. Class size is small to allow more extensive presentation time and individual attention. Rhetoric II is a course in the strategy and application of rhetoric. In this course students will learn to (1) observe rhetorical situations and assess which persuasive strategy is best for a given situation, (2) orient themselves to that situation given their rhetorical goals, (3) decide which course of action is wisest, (4) and act most effectively. This course will focus on the development of wisdom and skill over theory, and assumes a solid grounding in the rhetorical theory presented in Rhetoric I. Special attention will be paid to the rhetorical strategies of Jesus Christ during His ministry, as well as political developments in the United States over the past decade.

Rhetoric is the art of effective, persuasive, winsome communication. It often gets a bad rap, though. Listen to today’s social, cultural, or political commentary. You’ll soon hear claims that someone’s spouting “empty rhetoric.”

Many see rhetoric as showy words without substance. A speaker sounds great. Her facts don’t hold up, though, and her reasoning is flawed. Her ideas are great, but they don’t seem to square with reality. She seems sincere, but we’re not sure she’s sure of what she’s saying.

Worse, some view rhetoric as a tool of manipulation. The speaker seems to be keeping something from us. Is he telling us the whole truth? What does he hope to get out of persuading us? Will he gain something valuable at our expense? Does he have our best interest in mind?

People’s concerns about much of today’s rhetoric are legitimate. Rhetoric has suffered much abuse and neglect. Some speak and write with great form, but their message has little substance. Some will say or do whatever they need to get our “like,” our dollar, or our vote.

Classical educators value rhetoric and want to see it restored. As the third phase of the Trivium, it provides a key, even capstone role for a K–12 education. Rhetoric doesn’t have to be a tool to simply get what we want. It needn’t be showy or manipulative. It needn’t be empty, either.

Instead, rhetoric can be skillful, straightforward communication. It can be informative and even inspiring. It can be honest and kind, genuine, and empathetic.

This is what the art of persuasion should be - equipping students to have something worthwhile to say and to say it well.

Our approach to rhetoric values much of what Greeks and Romans said about the subject. We still sit at their feet to hear great insights. We still aim to put their best ideas into practice.

Jesus called us all to love our neighbor as ourself. Our approach to rhetoric asks how we can do that in our speaking and writing and living - equipping students to adorn truthful words with beauty.

*out-of-pocket

Materials for Honors Rhetoric II:

*Senior Thesis (10 credits) - 12th grade recommended

The senior thesis is a capstone project, the crowning achievement in a student’s academic journey. In completing the thesis, students bring all that they’ve learned—reading, writing, and arguing—to bear on one issue. They learn the background of the topic, analyze other people’s arguments, and synthesize their findings and discoveries, putting it all together to form a true, good, and beautiful whole.

Through the use of workshops, assignments, and presentation practices, students walk step-by-step through the process of writing and then delivering a thesis. Students will gradually draft the six parts of the thesis—introduction (exordium), statement of facts (narratio), thesis statement (partitio), argument (confirmatio), counterargument (refutatio), and conclusion (peroratio)—as they are taken through the thesis process from start to finish, from choosing a topic to crafting a snappy title, and everything in between.

To learn more about the value of the senior thesis, read Dr. Alyssan Barnes's blog post, "From Sophomore to Senior: Why Students Need the Senior Thesis"

*out-of-pocket

Materials for Senior Thesis:

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