Rhetoric is learning to communicate one’s knowledge to others with Truth, Goodness and Beauty.  Truth is that which is correct.  But even a correct idea must be spoken at the right time and in the best way.   Goodness is speaking and writing the truth in ways that are productive and helpful to others.  Beauty involves eloquence.  A student should be trained to be persuasive and witty. 

 

From a young age students learn to speak well in front of a class or a group of parents.  However, rhetorical skills are mastered during high school years. 

 

Most students take seven classes, one course per year from each of the following subject areas.

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1. Music  Students learn using Kodály method to read and analyze music, to write and compose music, and to sing with good intonation and vocal technique. 

 

2.  English / Rhetoric  Students learn to communicate effectively through writing, reading and speaking culminating in junior and senior year thesis projects. 

 

Books used include:  Strunk & White, IEW Writing Lessons Based on the Progymnasmata, IEW Writing Research Papers, Sire's How to Read Slowly, Adler's How to Read a Book and The Rhetoric Companion by Wilson.

 

3.  Foreign Language

 

Latin I – V.  Students learn the fundamentals of Latin as well as language itself using the outstanding Henle series.  (We skip some parts of Henle as we are a Protestant school.)  The series leads them into a translating of Caesar, Cicero and Virgil.  Students also spend a year studying Christian Latin from the Vulgate, Augustine and Collins’ Ecclesiastical Latin.

 

Spanish I – II.  Latin is required but Spanish is offered as an optional class after 3:00.

 

4.  Math  Algebra I, Algebra II (Saxon), Geometry (Jacobs), Trigonometry and Calculus (Larson)

 

5.  Science  Biology (Gordon Wilson’s Riot and the Dance), Chemistry (Bob Jones) Physics (Bob Jones)

 

6.  History  Courses use Veritas Press Omnibus. 

 

Ancient World History I & II

History courses offer a study of history through a required reading each year of 12-15 original works.  Students attending 7th-12th can take two years of each course.  Ancient works include Lucretius, Job, Schaeffer, Plato, Homer, Thucydides and so forth. 

 

Middle Ages World History I & II

Same as above including works such as Eusebius, Augustine, Shakespeare, Marco Polo, Tolkein, Dante, Calvin as well as I and II Corinthians and Ephesians.

 

U.S. History, Government, & Economics I & II

Same as above but including works such as Milton, Deuteronomy, Postmodern Times, Schaeffer, Bastiat, Rothbard, von Mises, The Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, C.S. Lewis, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Dickens, Burke, and Gentz.

 

7.  Art  Students read Schaeffer's Art and the Bible and How Should We Then Live? and learn to analyze and critique works of art.

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PHYSICAL EDUCATION  Optional class offered on Tuesdays

Boys’ PE or Girls’ PE, Cross Country, Volleyball, Basketball, Kickball