In this course, students will practice an advanced review of LTW Level I in the fall semester and will work through the new LTW Comparison essay program in the spring semester. Students will explore gripping short stories, exciting novels, and lovely poems that capture our nation’s history. All will be covered at a restful pace while learning the art of writing beautifully and thinking well.

During the 1st semester, students will work through an advanced review of Level One. During the 2nd semester we will explore the newly developed LTW Comparison Essay.

By writing comparison essays after persuasive essays, students will be able to compare the two kinds of writing to each other. They will find that all writing requires coming up with something to say (invention), organizing the material (arrangement), and expressing ideas in a fitting way (elocution). Further, they will see that the common topics and elocution tools they learned in Level I have prepared them to complete any kind of writing. In the comparison essay, students will refine their skills of outline, exordium, amplification, narration, and metaphor.

The Lost Tools of Writing step-by-step instruction makes writing manageable even for students who lack experience or confidence in writing. Students will complete 8+ essays over the course of the year. Students will meditate on poems by Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Paul Dunbar, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Robert Frost.

Optional Resources: 30 Poems To Memorize (Before It’s Too Late) edited by David Kern