Students will learn to write by imitating a well-told story, in this case, a narrative (folk tale). In fact, all of the Progymnasmata exercises are based on imitation, a method suitable for learning just about anything. Students will build skills in diction (word choice) and syntax (word order) by practicing variation. Variation means changing a word or arrangement of words in a sentence. Variation is a form of paraphrase. Further, by paraphrasing the whole story, students will build skills in organization (arrangement). By paraphrasing the narratives (folk tales) in different ways (amplification: adding to; summarization: shortening; inversion: retelling the story from a mid or end starting point), students will gain a solid understanding of structure.
In addition, students will learn how to use figures of description to make their writing come alive, and figures of speech to make their writing precise. By learning how to use figures of description to describe a place (topographia), or the stars (astrothesia), or a person from head to foot (effictio), students will engage their readers’ imaginations. By learning how to use figures of speech to add precision to their writing, students will engage their readers’ sense of style and form. By the end of the Narrative Stage, students should be able to appreciate the individual words and sentences used in a story (elocution), the overall structure of a story (including recognition, reversal, and suffering), and the communicative power of a story (including the appeal to imagination and to the moral and aesthetic sense).
Course Objectives:
- Develop in the student an appreciation for sound writing.
- Inculcate in the student the habits of good writers through imitation of their structure and style.
- Provide techniques the student writer can employ to reason his way to the best approach to take and solution to implement for future writing tasks.
- Prepare the student writer to generate ideas, organize those ideas, and express those ideas well by providing him with structured practice in invention, arrangement, and decoration (discovery, organization, and elocution).
- Develop a shared vocabulary and practice in classical writing between the teacher and student.