Presented at the 2024 CiRCE National Conference: A Contemplation of Prudence.

Somewhere between sophomore and senior year, students enter the “rhetoric stage,” wherein they yearn to synthesize all the things they’ve learned into something new, and express themselves elegantly. Accordingly, classical Christian schools teach high school students rhetoric, have them write essays wherein they create and arrange their own original thoughts, and present theses on subjects they are passionate about. The idea of the rhetoric stage is very popular among the sort of people who have to pitch classical education to newcomers, but most actual high school teachers will tell you the idea of a rhetoric stage just doesn’t reflect what they see in the classroom.

In this lecture, Joshua Gibbs explains the myriad problems that emerge from insisting on a rhetoric stage and how to sculpt a scope and sequence that actually reflects the intellectual development of high school students.