Why Learn Classical Writing?

I have been researching a curriculum called The Lost Tools of Writing (LTW) by Circe Institute. Ever since I have been mentoring writing, I have been feeling a greater need to fully understand how to help the student think on their own about Inventing and arranging their ideas and feeling good about their elocution of these ideas.

I think IEW does a good job teaching the use of vivid words and sentence structure, while Bravewriter uses many thinking exercises and writing activities, but neither has given me a simple foundational understanding of the bones of an essay like LTW does.

While researching LTW, I have compiled some thoughts, including some links below for additional information:

What is the Method?: LTW teaches three canons of writing: Invention, Arrangement, and Elocution. Invention (inventory) means thinking about all possible ideas, angles, and attitudes. Arrangement means to structure these in order or pattern and Elocution means the style in which to present these things.

Each week the lessons rotate between these canons. For the first essay, students will first learn to ask the question. Why should this character have done or not done this? They will then turn this into the issue at hand, and then produce a thesis from the issue, which is the Cannon of Invention. Next, the student will learn to use the Arrangement Canon to write an outline. Finally, the Elocution Canon teaches the student to move from the Outline to concise, but persuasive sentences and paragraphs. The curriculum takes the student through 9 lessons, spending 3 weeks per lesson.

For those who have taken previous writing classes, the first essay may seem rudimentary and simplistic. However, it is necessary that every student scale back to the very foundation of writing to build upon these canons and eventually create excellent essays.

Just as a building requires both a sound foundation and precise measurements of the subsequent levels, writing also requires a basic foundation and precise components of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Often, the writer may pale at the constant pruning, critiquing, and editing of their paper and wonder if they will ever write a perfect paper without these necessary disciplines.

I love to refer to an essay by one of C.S. Lewis's good friends, Dorothy Sayers. In her Lost Tools of Learning, she wrote, “Our Reading will proceed from narrative and lyric to essays, argument and criticism, and the pupil will learn to try his own hand at writing this kind of thing…Wherever the matter for Dialectic is found, it is, of course, highly important that attention should be focused upon the beauty and economy of a fine demonstration or a well-turned argument, lest veneration should wholly die. Criticism must not be merely destructive; though at the same time both teacher and pupils must be ready to detect fallacy, slipshod reasoning, ambiguity, irrelevance, and redundancy, and to pounce upon them like rats. This is the moment when precise-writing may be usefully undertaken; together with such exercises as the writing of an essay, and the reduction of it, when written, by 25 or 50 percent.”

The last few lines emphasize the idea of precise, reduced writing, or pruning, one might say. According to Sayers, the Dialectic is a pruning stage, and pruning is rarely beautiful, but just as pruning produces a healthy, beautiful, and fruitful tree, pruning produces the best writing.

The first persuasive essays your student will learn to write in The Lost Tools of Writing will not be untidy, nor will they be eloquent, nor flowery masterpieces, but they will be precise, reduced writing with the right structure allowing for beautiful, high-quality, productive growth in the years to come.

LTW teaches the student to play with ideas instead of words. Students learn the art of gathering and processing words through a moral journey of acquiring wisdom through inquiry and discovery. They select a character from a classic book they are reading (Lucy or Edmund Pevensie, Beowulf, Caesar, Bilbo Baggins, Jean Valjean, etc.) and they ask a “should” question about the character or an event surrounding the character. Should Edmund have followed the White Witch? Should Beowulf have listened to Hrothgar’s advice? Should Caesar have crossed the Rubicon? Should Bilbo Baggins have given up the One Ring? Should Jean Valjean have not testified in court to save the other man?

These questions matter because they are pivotal to understanding our relationship with the Good, the True and the Beautiful. These questions help students understand what is right or wrong, true or false, and good or bad. They focus on the virtuous attributes that all humans ought to develop within.

David Hicks writes in the preface of Norms and Nobility:

“Although in my curriculum proposal I use history as the paradigm for contextual learning, the ethical question ‘What should one do?’ might provide an even richer context for acquiring general knowledge. This question elicits not only knowledge, but wisdom, and it draws the interest of the student into any subject, no matter how obscure or far removed from his day-to-day concerns. It challenges the imagination and makes life the laboratory it ought to be for testing the hypotheses and lessons of the classroom. As this implies, the end of education is not thinking; it is acting.”

Have we thought enough in regards to the ends of education? Is the goal to use elaborate language? Or is the goal to learn, understand, and express wisdom? Knowledge, vivid words, and eloquent syntax are essential in our education, but they cannot compare to the excellent use of wisdom in creating a good and beautiful mind and heart. The end of education, then, is not merely gaining knowledge about people, places, and things, nor is it simply to learn and use elaborate language, but the ultimate goal of education is to learn right thinking and right action.

Students build character when they ask why the character did what he did or whether or not the character should have done something differently. Andrew Kern wrote, “If I want to see into the meaning of this event, learning the content is necessary. But it is not enough. You have to ask why he did it, what were the outcomes, what he overcame, whether he was wise to do so, what his courage purchased for us, and other big-picture questions.”*

The “why” matters. Writing about the “why” causes it to go deep down into the soul of the writer.


* The Holy Grail of Classical Education by Andrew Kern, CiRCE Institute.

Don't Judge an Unread Book

My daughter attended a youth discussion with a mentor and she told me she had a good time. I wanted to know more, but it appeared she had nothing consequential to share with me and as a result, we changed our discussion to other matters such as Christmas plans, etc. However, the next day, as I was working on some studies, she came to me with a funny smile, “Mom, do you believe in what Plato said?” I said yes, but in my mind, I was thinking that my real answer would be loaded and deep. I kept my head turned toward my studies but began to think of what I really wanted to say to her. I turned and asked her about her query and she opened up her heart and mind to me in a genuine investigation. She recounted her experience the day before and apparently, the mentor had said that Plato’s works were bad, but that Aristotle’s were good. My daughter had read both Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in a class I taught and over the course of two months, we gleaned many great things from both of the authors. Notwithstanding, we did discuss some of Plato’s strange ideas about educating children and the family unit, which is pretty much non-existent according to Plato. I would venture to say that those ideas and maybe one other would not be congruent with the Proclamation of the Family or the commandments of God. However, Plato’s discussion on Justice, his treatise on educating the philosopher king, his scolding of Glaucon’s promiscuity, his allegory of the Cave, and his ending testimonial lead the reader to believe in his goodness. Why would a mentor undertake to turn youth away from one of the greatest sages of all time? I think this is the case where one throws out the baby with the bath water.

I listened to my daughter try to figure out what to do with herself in a future situation like the one she experienced. She kept asking me what she could do when she knows that what the mentor is saying is not all truth and is using rhetoric that persuades youth to not even touch a certain author that my daughter has learned to love. I listened and listened and listened. As she spoke, I remembered Ralph Waldo Emerson in The American Scholar who talked of the idiocy of being a “parrot of other men’s thinking.” Many of us are caught up in the pretense of scholarship and feel so good about ourselves when we repeat the “knowledge” we get from hearing others. Unfortunately, I am not exempt from being a parrot at times. Ugh. It is one of my goals to improve.

My mind started wandering to Plato. At the end of the Republic, Socrates presents a choice for the individual to decide if he will be Just or Unjust. A person “will then look at the nature of the soul, and from the consideration of all these qualities he will be able to determine which is the better and which is the worse; and so he will choose, giving the name of evil to the life which will make his soul more unjust, and good to the life which will make his soul more just; all else he will disregard.” In other words, after examining each quality or vice, we need to discern whether they will lead us to a just life or an unjust life. For me, this is an excellent discussion to have with youth. Again, why would I want to discount Plato to youth?

Socrates’ final counsel in the Republic might be one of the greatest discussions, “Wherefore, my counsel is that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing.”

Ah! What beautiful things Socrates had to say (Plato wrote them down and now he gets the credit). My advice to my daughter was to keep reading, annotating, writing and speaking up. My advice to you, dear reader, is to do the same, but to never discount an author unless you have read him and learned what he was really saying.

Who Says Science isn't part of the study of Humanities?

In recent days, I have been learning about the Universal Model, a new millennial science that inspires the questioning of current theories. Presently, the theories of the Big Bang, the origin of species (the idea that humans came from apes), the earthly Magna core, and many other theories which have existed over a hundred years and which are taught as fact in educational institutions have been unproven. UM presents a new way of thinking. Rather than trying to make the natural world fit within the limits of the accepted theories as does modern science, UM expends their energy researching, experimenting and looking for natural laws with an open and inquisitive mind. For instance, instead of assuming that the earth’s core is made of Magna, they are finding oceans of water below the earth’s crust; enough water to have covered the earth at the time of the flood during Noah’s time. This and many more discoveries have they made that make sense for the Creationist’s view.

My daughter and I will be attending a presentation tomorrow night to learn more. If any of this interests you, research their website or listen to a podcast (not a great recording, but very informative).

Now, about the title of this blog post: Why would I blog about science, you ask? Well, if we lived in the time of the ancient Greek sages, you wouldn’t dare ask that question because you would know that questions about the natural world were “naturally” integrated into philosophical conversations (pun intended). Like Aristotle, I too believe that the natural world should be part of the Great Conversation.

Ramblings about Anselm

Today in my study of Anselm of Canterbury (A.D. 1033-1109), the bishop over all of Christendom in England, I was inspired by his ontological argument that states that “God cannot be conceived not to exist.” He must exist. Stating that God, who exists, cannot exist, such as proclaims the fool in Psalms 14:1, is stating an unreconcilable contradiction. He is a fool, not so much because he is expressing something false, but because he is expressing nonsense. God exists because we exist and because the world exists, the heavens, the universe, the stars, the moon, and the planets exist, we know that God must exist. All of us depend on Him. Therefore, He exists.

Of course, Anselm’s ontological argument makes no sense to the unbeliever, but only to him who lays his foundation of faith in Christ. “I believe, therefore I understand,” says Anselm. He does not believe because he understands, but he understands only because he believes first. Elder Bednar in the most recent General Conference states a similar principle of how belief, obedience, and covenant-making come first before understanding, “Following the Savior also enables us to receive an actual knowledge that the course of life [we are] pursuing is in accordance with God’s will. Such knowledge is not an unknowable mystery and is not focused primarily on our temporal pursuits or ordinary mortal concerns. Rather, steady and sustained progress along the covenant pathway is the course of life that is pleasing to Him.” Elder Bednar.

Anselm explains further that we do not have to give up Reason to be a believer. In this world where so many are throwing away their faith in Christ to be true only to Reason, Anselm’s discourse is a beautiful anecdote that combines Reason with Faith. He says that Reason can do its best work when it sits upon the bedrock of Faith. Reason alone is empty, cold, and heartless. Real understanding must happen in the heart.

Those who wish to cling on to Reason without Faith in Christ have something wrong with their heart because the state of their heart doesn’t want God over them telling them what to do or how to think. If they want to know about the existence of God, they want that knowledge as a cerebral exercise only. That type of knowledge is futile. When their hearts are darkened, their heads are too, says Wes Callihan, my mentor at Roman Roads Media.

Referring to Anselm’s Proslogium, Mr. Callihan says, “Knowledge for its own sake is foolish. Knowledge helps us to glorify God, achieve union with Christ, draw closer to God and love God.” In other words, the best-sought knowledge is that which is sought through and for Christ. That knowledge is the one that is directed by faith in Christ.

My Vision

No mountain is undemanding or painless to the mountaineer. I remember many times while backpacking how often as a child, I would ask if we yet were close to the base camp. The trails were rocky, the terrain rough, and the packs getting heavier with each step—I was exhausted. My father would repeat the same answer he always gave, “Just over the next mountain and we’ll be there.” No matter how many mountains we climbed, the answer was always the same until, in the last dying moment when I could not possibly take another step, he announced that we had at long last arrived at Spider Lake or any of the other breathtaking destinations in the Uintah Mountains. All the effort was worth it–the peaceful and secluded sites with plenty of rocks to climb and streams to play and fish.

As I have grown older, I have correlated life’s experiences to the frequent backpacking trips—beautiful yet strenuous and long. One such experience that of founding a leadership charter school in Idaho, has commenced …but up ahead I see only switchbacks on the forthcoming extensive and arduous journey up and over many rocky, but impressive ridges.

This past September 13th and 14th Brian and I met up with James Ure and Pete Jensen in Boise at the Department of Education. Jana Capps came later in the day. The DOE hosted a 2-day Charter Start-up Workshop and we were going. I was excited to begin and learn, however, having worked for the government before, Brian’s expectations were low. In hindsight, I should have followed suit and lowered my expectations too in order to quell my disappointment and despair.

I was expecting about 10-20% lecture-time, but that the balance of the time would be set aside for working together as a committee in coming up with solutions for our questions and concerns as intimated in the format of a workshop. Unlike the name workshop implies, each hour presented us with lecture after boring lecture about rules and regulations promoting not only equal opportunity but also the mediocre-producing equal outcome. Much of the material targeted the function of a brick-and-mortar charter school such as school lunch programs and building maintenance, etc. The language was only partially English with a dialect of acronyms that only the public institutional elite could understand. I sat there hour after depressing hour feeling like the DOE was making it impossible to write a charter that defies the status quo.

The mountain of concerns began to weigh down on me: How would we hire Idaho Certified teachers who would buy into the leadership model? How do we deal with the “equal-outcome” mentality when working with gifted and special education students? What would we need to do to find the right kind of Administrator who believed as we do about the classics and statesmanship? Where could we possibly find a good financial secretary that could work with the state and the leadership-style charter school? Where would the testing areas be and who would man them and how much time would all this take to create? Would I lessen my duty as a mother and cheat my children out of a good upbringing because of the undue burden of founding a school? How do you get around the regulations that stunt the freedoms to truly educate, rather than “school” the youth of Idaho?

Brian seemed to think that it would not be impossible; James Ure seemed to think that it would not be impossible; Pete Jensen did not think that it would be impossible. Jana Capps and I sat at the end of the table with doubts. She, doubting anything the DOE said by merely being a public school teacher and experiencing the ugly entangled mess of regulatory ropes and webbing over the years and I, doubting that I could have the stamina to carry my heavy backpack filled with the purpose of “educational leadership” up that rugged mountain of status quo. My father was not there to encourage me and I admit that I lost hope.

I went away after the second day with despair and doubt, but with a tiny glimmer of hope that I wished would not be extinguished, but would not have been surprised if it had been. As I wrote above, I should have set my sights low and maybe I would have felt less of defeat. As it was I would not bring myself to think of the charter for a couple of weeks and even then I felt like I was about to open the door of a dungeon filled with evil villains and dominating leviathans. And even worse, I did not feel like the heroine who courageously unlatches and swings open the dungeonous door, defying all odds with a superpower. No, I was afraid of that door! But then reason began to dawn on me and I imagined that maybe, just maybe angels instead of demons awaited me on the other side of that daunting door and that I need only curb my fears with faith.

James and Pete had given me the name of Valerie Blake from Nevada who was further on up the same mountain trail as I desired to hike. She and her founding group had been working several months on a charter and would be able to help me lift my sights, look forward and avoid some of the rough rock of the trail…if only I could find the courage to call…

Finally, I did. Valerie was helpful and encouraging. She told me how they had been guided to work on the charter in the order that was most efficient and that whenever a roadblock presented itself, there was always a way around it. She said things that made me realize that God in his wisdom and desire to bless His children will always help us reach our goals, even goals that defy all odds. With God, nothing is impossible.

I see the trail. The mountain range is present still with all of its towering peaks, but all the time, I will recognize a Heavenly Father that will continue to repeat, “Just over the next mountain and we’ll be there.”

One Purpose, One Vision

Blaise Pascal inspired me the other day as I devoured his Pensées, “All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor, then to think well, this is the principle of morality.” Thinking well…this is the best advice for me at this time of life as I feel my call to mission.


What is the mission, you ask? Well, as you know I began a liberal arts education four years ago and it has opened the doors wide for re-thinking my life. Just a few changes include recognizing my role as a wife and mother and reaching out to all the truth I can grasp to help me become better as David’s wife and my children’s mother; recognizing the incredible responsibility of educating my own children and helping them to visualize their life’s mission; recognizing the worth of souls in my neighborhood, community and world and my role in serving them, gleaning wisdom from them and discussing the truths of life with them.


Yes, Julie, but what is your mission? Well, my mission, while it includes educating myself through the great books and educating my family and serving my fellow man, in large part it includes helping others educate themselves liberally through the words and art of the Great Masters. In a way, to help others to, as Pascal writes, to “elevate ourselves [and] think well.” For several months now I have been pondering upon how I can bring a liberal arts education to the youth of Idaho and it has occurred to me that by writing a charter and getting it approved by the Idaho State Commission of Charter Schools, I can help our state’s young men and women to learn “the principle of morality” by elevating themselves and learning to think well.


I envision an America, the United States teaming with leaders who know their roles as parents and neighbors, who know the principles that keep and maintain liberties in a free nation. I envision youth who have the gumption to work hard, who respect and venerate their elders, who include all in their circles and who lead with virtuous passion. I envision that their learning will come through their own hard work by studying the great men and women who have contributed the ideas from ancient to modern times.


I envision a nation in which the Great Ideas empower each individual life in each ordinary day. Pascal says that “the strength of a man’s virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life.” The Great Ideas, when infused into the minds and hearts of our youth, have significant power to lead each to do what Aristotle might call virtuous kalon or to do the very things they were created to do and do them beautifully. Adding to the discussion, John Dewey said, “The world in which most of us live is a world in which everyone has a calling and occupation, something to do, Some are managers and others are subordinates. But the great thing for one as for the other is that each shall have had the education which enables him to see within his daily work all there is in it of large and human significance.”


Dewey emphasized that our places of education ought to teach the student habits of learning through everyday experiences. He wrote, “The inclination to learn from life itself and to make the conditions of life such that all will learn in the process of living is the finest product of schooling.” The inclination to learn from life is best learned in a liberal arts curriculum and the key is to help the student acquire an appetite for continual learning.


Learning while in the process of living is the deepest form of freedom and the purpose for which I write this blog and for which I pursue my desire to write a charter. This blog is not limited to the reason and logic of education or starting a charter but will include many spiritual aspects that build the bridge between reason and faith. Without God, I can do nothing, and I refuse to deny his miracles in my life as I go on this and all my journeys toward truth.


I invite you to travel with me as I learn to “think well” by planting and nourishing my educational seeds.