This is the second post in a series defining the terms of classical education. Last time, I wrote about the grammar stage. As a recap, the grammar stage is almost entirely about building strong foundations for later years of school. While I may not have understood the how or why behind everything while I was in elementary school, I was memorizing information that would make my middle and high school years a LOT easier. Now, let’s turn to the logic stage, which is generally in 7th-9th grade.
The logic stage, which starts in the middle school years, begins to focus more on how and why things work. In seventh grade, I started Classical Conversations’ Challenge A program. In Challenge A, we began to go beyond memorizing and dive more in-depth into six subjects: Latin, Writing, Geography, Math, Science, and Logic. As an example of what exactly that means, in science I no longer just memorized a list of names that make up the respiratory system; instead, I used my knowledge of what parts of the body were involved to learn how the system functions and even draw the system. I also used the Latin declensions and conjugations I had previously memorized to help me as I began to study the full grammar behind Latin. And in geography (or cartography), we practiced drawing the world from memory, including major features like country capitals and certain bodies of water, using the geography memory work from the grammar stage to help us.
Another major part of the logic stage is learning how to argue well and without fallacies. When I was in seventh and eighth grade, I built on the essay and grammar foundations I had learned in 4th-6th grade through CC’s Essentials program and began to craft persuasive essays. I also took specific logic courses that were designed to teach me how to think through arguments and avoid errors in logic. In seventh grade, I used Analogies for All of Us and The Fallacy Detective. In eighth grade, I used Canon Press’ Introductory and Intermediate Logic books. All these books are great introductions to sound thinking, and I enjoyed all of them. In ninth grade, usually the final year of logic and the transition to rhetoric, I took a speech and debate class, which focused not only on building strong arguments, but being able to present them to others.
In eighth and ninth grade, I also began to focus more on my study of the Great Books. In eighth grade, I used Veritas Press’ Omnibus II Secondary self-paced course, which studied works like The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Shakespeare’s Richard III, Henry V, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In ninth grade, I started Wilson Hill’s The Great Conversation 3, which studied books about modern history such as The Great Gatsby, A Tale of Two Cities, and All Quiet on the Western Front. The study of Great Books is one of the foundational aspects of classical education. For grammar-stage children, this really means developing strong reading and comprehension skills. Reading aloud harder but beneficial books is a must as well. I remember my parents reading my sister and me books like Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder almost every night before bed when we were younger. Now, my mom will read my younger brother his “school” books (the literature that goes along with his history curriculum), while he will spend time every day reading books that interest him. These are not necessarily the “Great Books” of classical education, but they are still beneficial to his reading development. As children get older and more into the Logic stage, their study of great books becomes more and more independent.
One final note: as I said in my last post, math doesn’t really have a classical curriculum. In seventh grade, I did pre-algebra through High School Math Live. In eighth and ninth grade, I used Art of Problem Solving Algebra 1 and Jacobs’ Geometry, respectively, through Scio Academy. Coming out of Singapore Math, these were all very different experiences, but I think that using a variety of curricula in my middle-school years helped me to figure out which style of learning works best for me.
Hopefully this short description of my logic stage years was helpful in explaining what the logic years may look like!
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