Classical Composition Techniques for Reluctant Writers - Progymnasmata

One of the aims of a classical education is to provide students with a mastery of thinking skills and persuasion so that they can critique what they've heard or read, reflect on and determine their beliefs, and communicate them persuasively to others.

Classical methods of composition have advantages over some contemporary practices because they encourage learning from good examples, provide incremental challenge, and expose children to examples of excellent writing at younger ages.

Students who are reluctant writers can exasperate themselves, their teachers, and their parents because it seems obvious that they are much brighter than their writing can convey. They may get very little down on paper, but be able say quite a lot with direct questioning or conversation. There are many reasons why children (and adults for that matter) are reluctant writers...but an apprentice model for instruction like the methods of classical composition might be just what is needed to overcome some of the blocks.

Classical composition usually incorporates a variety of activities:

1) writing by imitation
2) word study and variation
3) syntax study and variation, and
4) specific techniques of amplification.

For students overwhelmed by the task of answering open-ended questions, there were also rubrics that could be learned to help one identify issues or questions for discussion.

The exercises for young students in the ancient academy was called The Progymnasmata, or "before - exercises". In its simplest form, students would paraphrase and amplify a simple saying or story. For example, a classic exercise used Isocrate's saying, "The root of education is bitter, it's fruit sweet."

A common template for elaboration is:

1. Praise the speaker.
2. Paraphrase the saying.
3. Provide an example or analogy supporting the saying.
4. Say why the opposite is not true or good.
5. Praise ancient wisdom and wrap-up.

Before writing, students need to make sure they have some background information on the speaker (in order to know best to praise), and find words, phrases, and analogies that can be used in the paraphrase. One online reference that our kids like is Thesaurus.com. It can often provide that elusive word or phrase, on the tip of one's tongue.

Here's one of our kid's:

Isocrates, master of rhetoric and education, once said that the basis of teaching is harsh, but the products are wonderful. A student struggles to organize huge amounts of facts though his brain may revolt and feel like quitting with every additional hour. Once, Albert Einstein toiled at his studies despite nearly failing mathematics. It took years, but eventually he succeeded in school and created the theory of relativity. Nowadays Einstein is often referred to as one of the greatest geniuses of all time. Learning is like a tree. First the ground needs to be prepared to receive the seed. Then, the plant needs to be watered, receive sunlight, and a gardener has to pull out weeds as it grows. Only then will it turn into a massive redwood. A fool without education may love the easiness of his days, but he will never have any great deeds. In the beginning, learning may be painful, but in the end, it is worth the struggle.

How about an example from antiquity?:

It is right to admire Isocrates for his art, for he gave it a most glorious name and proved its greatness by his practice of it; he made the art famous, he did not owe his fame to it. To go through the benefits he conferred on human life by giving laws to kings and advice to individuals would be too long; I will speak only of his wise saying on education.

'The lover of education,' he says, 'labours at first, but those labours end in profit.' That was his wise saying; and we shall show our admiration in what follows.

The lovers of education are enrolled with the leaders of education, whom it is fearful to approach though to desert them is foolish; fear always waits on boys, both when they are present and in anticipation. From teachers the attendants take over, fearful to behold, more fearful when inflicting punishment. Fear precedes the experience and punishment follows on fear. What the boys do wrong they punish; what the boys do well they take as a matter of course. Fathers are harsher than attendants, examining their ways, telling them to make progress, viewing the market-place with suspicion; and if punishment is needed they take no account of human nature. But by these experiences the boy, when he reaches adulthood, is crowned with virtue. But if someone, because he fears these things, flees from his teachers, absconds from his parents, avoids his attendants, he is utterly deprived of eloquence; along with his fear he has set aside eloquence. All these things swayed Isocrates' judgement when he called the root of education bitter.

For just as those who work the land laboriously sow the seed in the earth and gather the crops with greater joy, in the same way those who strive for education by their toil acquire the subsequent renown.

Consider Demosthenes' career, which was more devoted to toil than that of any orator and more glorious than that of any. So great was his commitment that he even deprived his head of its adornment, thinking the best adornment is that from virtue. And he devoted to toil what others devote to enjoyment.

For this reason one must admire Hesiod, who said that the road to virtue is hard but the summit easy [Works and Days 286-92], expressing the same wise judgement as Isocrates. For what Hesiod represented as a road Isocrates called the root; both disclosed the same opinion, though in different words.

Those who consider these points must admire Isocrates for his outstandingly wise saying on education. (Aphthonius)

Another example from ancient Greece can be found here: Libanius on Isocrates.

The beauty of this practice is that it encourages deep reading and reflection as well as practice in choosing and organizing words and sentences. Short quotes can be chosen from the Bible or Quotation pages fom the Internet like The Quotations Page.

Some terrific resources and online classes can be found at: ClassicalComposition.com, WritingAssessment.com, and online schools like ReginaCoeli.org.

We've seen this approach work well with a variety of students who were frustrated and having meltdowns over open-ended writing prompts. Many gifted dysgraphic may be in this boat, and the subject matter, with examples from antiquity - may especially pique their interest.

Classical Writing Pedagogy for Today's Student: Progymnasmata
Progymnasmata at Silvae Rhetoricae
Dysgraphia and Writing Pages at MislabeledChild.com

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