Schools of Logic & Rhetoric
God made adolescents and young adults to form opinions and share those opinions. During this stage, The Oaks trains young men and women to love well, think well, and speak well.
"According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it... For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."
–1 Corinthians 3:10-11
The Logic Stage
The Oaks teaches formal logic, logical fallacies, and reasoning skills through tools like the Socratic Method and Aristotelian logic. For example, a teacher might ask, "What is the relationship between the Reformation and the colonization of America?" Or "What is the relationship between gravity and elliptical orbits?"
As students move through this stage of the Trivium they learn the science of accurate thinking. Logic stage students insist on debating (competitively and for fun) whether something is or is-not logical. We teach them to recognize and separate true argumentation from false. We require them to offer factual evidence and sound reasons for their bold claims about reality.
Training in written composition based on the Progymnasmata of the Christian educational tradition becomes their bridge to the expressiveness of the rhetoric stage.
The Rhetoric Stage
Who today does not regret the frequent descent of political and cultural rhetoric into mere propaganda? For two millennia, rhetorical training was a prerequisite for graduation from the trivium. So it is again at The Oaks.
Spanning all subjects, students learn to articulate their ideas using concise verbal and written communication, and to relate those ideas to an audience with clarity and persuasion. Students are inspired to investigate, contemplate, debate, and persuade with the ultimate goal that knowledge leads to understanding and wisdom, and that students become life-long learners.
Rhetoric, in a biblical context, recognizes that speaking clearly and effectively flows from the foundation of thinking clearly and effectively. We train students to place the arts of invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery into the service of biblical truth across a wide range of secondary studies.
The Rhetoric course work flows naturally from the Logic studies that the students receive. Rhetoric students are required to complete a thesis project where they must research and write about a controversial topic of their choosing, and then present and defend their position before a panel of adult experts in that particular field of study. Students are evaluated according to ethos (their personal character), pathos (their appeal to the audience), and logos (the quality of their knowledge and its written and verbal expression).
Logic and Rhetoric Reading List
7th Grade
The Magician's Nephew, by C. S. Lewis
Bulfinch's Greek and Roman Mythology: The Age of Fable, by Thomas Bulfinch
Aesop's Fable, by Aesop
The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Odyssey, by Homer
Livy: The Early History of Rome, Books I-V, by Titus Livy
Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare
8th Grade
The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Prince Caspian, by C. S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C. S. Lewis
The Silver Chair, by C. S. Lewis
The Horse and His Boy, by C. S. Lewis
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by Simon Armitage
Macbeth, by William Shakespeare
Inferno (The Divine Comedy), by Dante
The Confessions, by St. Augustine
9th Grade
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
Henry V, by William Shakespeare
The Code of the Woosters, by P.G. Wodehouse
The Law, by Frederic Bastiat
The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx
The Chosen, by Chaim Potok
The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis
The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan
Plato: Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo, by Plato, and John M. Cooper
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Up From Slavery, by Booker T. Washington ,and Ishmael Reed
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
10th Grade
Bulfinch’s Mythology, by Thomas Bulfinch
The Iliad, by Homer
The Odyssey, by Homer
On Rhetoric, by Aristotle
The Oresteia, by Aeschylus
The Aeneid, by Virgil
Till We Have Faces, by C. S. Lewis
The Three Theban Plays, by Sophocles
Cicero: Rhetorica ad Herennium (English and Latin Edition), by Cicero
11th Grade
Paradise Lost, by John Milton
Inferno (The Divine Comedy), by Dante
Confessions (Ch. 1-9), by St. Augustine
Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
The Rule of St. Benedict, by Timothy Fry
Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius
Paradise (The Divine Comedy), by Dante
The Freedom of a Christian, 1520: The Annotated Luther Study Edition, by Timothy J. Wenger
Purgatory (The Divine Comedy), by Dante
Cicero: Rhetorica ad Herennium, by Cicero
12th Grade
The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Total Truth, by Nancy Pearcey
The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton
Delighting in the Trinity, by Michaell Reeves
Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, by N.D. Wilson
The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
Four Quartet, by T. S. Eliot
Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis
The Prince, Machiavelli
Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
Second Discourse on Civil Authority, John Locke
Richard II, by William Shakespeare
A Shot of Faith (to the Head), by Mitch Stokes
Solomon Among the Postmoderns, by Peter J. Leithart
Rhetorica ad Herennium, by Cicero