A one-semester course for grades 7 or 8 and up

Think of the progymnasmata as a step-by-step apprenticeship in the art of writing and rhetoric. In the award-winning Writing & Rhetoric series, author Paul Kortepeter has recovered this proven method of teaching writing in conjunction with critical thinking and speaking. This is the ninth in a series of 12 books that will train students over 6 years.

In Writing & Rhetoric Book 9: Description & Impersonation (Student Edition), students will be writing well-crafted descriptive and expository compositions. The first part, description, emphasizes the use of vivid language to describe people, nature, and processes. The second part, impersonation, introduces the modes of persuasion as a means of imitating the writing style and outlook of four famous individuals: journalist Nellie Bly, writer Henry Williamson, athlete Jesse Owens, and statesman Winston Churchill. In these compositions, students will be making use of a range of writing skills, including the ability to inform, to describe, to narrate, and to analyze.

In this one-semester book, students will learn to:
- favor vivid words that appeal to the senses in fiction and nonfiction
- use topic sentences for organizing paragraphs and information
- appeal to readers through modes of persuasion: emotion (pathos), credibility (ethos), and logic (logos)
- employ rhetorical devices that show clarity of thought: aetiologia, anthypophora, expeditio, and syllogismus
- incorporate supportive facts and details
- annotate and narrate texts with a variety of strategies: oral narration, summary, outline, and modes of persuasion
- craft an effective plot using conflict and character
- build copiousness through sentence variety and rhetorical devices, including alliteration, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, epistrophe, and anaphora
- work on delivery in public speaking—volume, pacing, and inflection
- engage in a group discussions that foster critical thinking
- improve essays using oration as an aid to revision