This course combines the Lost Tools of Writing Level One with four great works of 19th century British literature at a pace that allows for thoughtful, contemplative reading. The Lost Tools of Writing teaches a classical, rhetorical approach to writing, giving the students an easily transferrable skill set they can use for all types of writing from standard five-paragraph essays to a doctoral thesis. The writing process is divided into three stages: Invention (gathering information), Arrangement (selecting and ordering that information), and Elocution (style and expression). For Invention, students learn to use the Five Common Topics—comparison, definition, relation, circumstance, and testimony—to gather information. For Arrangement, students learn the major parts of an essay: exordium, narratio, division, proof, refutation, conclusion, and amplification. For Elocution, students practice writing schemes and tropes to enhance their writing, including parallelism, antithesis, alliteration, assonance, simile, and metaphor. Students will write two essays on each work of literature, spending three weeks on each essay (one week on each stage of the writing process). Class time will be divided equally between literature discussion and writing instruction.