Progymnasmata Examples

Cindy Marsch at writingassessment.com has posted updates to her samples of Progymnasmata. Free downloads at the link below include a Progymnasmata Overview, and chapters on Narrative and Fable. Examples are wonderful, and her approach straightforward:

1. Warm-Up 5 W's and an H (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How)
2. "Aerobic" (Expand)
3. "Anaerobic" (Change)
4. "Cool-Down" (Imitate the style of one great sentence)

If you have a reluctant writer, you might considering trying an online Progym tutorial over the summer when there won't be pressure from other assignments. If you're homeschooling, it can be a lot less stressful having someone else critique your student's papers.

It's easy to see Marsch's simple template can help overwhelmed students. It should also help focus listening and improve note-taking efficiency.

When your student listens to a Teaching Company lecture, or reads a chapter in a book, see if he or she can remember to cover the main points in the 5W/H framework. If your student is already practicing taking notes, you can critique their note-taking to see whether they are taking down only the most relevant information, or getting mired in the "junk words" not essential to meaning. One helpful template for taking notes is the Cornell method.

Expanding text may be difficult for students, and some may need to use a thesaurus (electronic or otherwise). In some cases, it may be important to highlight key words that are the best candidate for expansion (e.g. what does this really mean, what is an example).

The change step is particularly valuable for giving students more command of the structure of sentences (syntax, grammar). This may sound dull, but it may make all the difference between a charismatic writer and someone who everyone wants to tune out. Marsch's examples of expansion: slant, direct and indirect declarative, interrogative, comparative.

Finally, style imitation step can be great fun as well as training students on the skills that make up the art of great writers. One humorous example of this is Henry Beard's delightfulPoetry for Cats.

Example from "Samuel Taylor Coleridge's cat":

In Xanadu did Kubla Kat
A splendid sofa-bed decree
With silken cushions soft and fat
A perfect feline habitat
Set on a gilt settee.

With imitation, a writer tries to capture emotional feeling, the word choice and structure of phrases, the imagery, and the music of what is said.

I've also added more links to more Progym sites and examples on the Internet.

Marsch's Progymnasmata Examples Downloads page
Rick Librarian Poetry for Cats Excerpts
Bert Dill's Progymnasmata Samples
Short Progym Example from Jonathan Swift
Sonnet Analysis - Not Exactly Progym, but Finding Rhetorical Devices in Sonnets
Short Progymnasmata Examples with Rhetorical Device Prompts
More Progym Examples, U Texas
One Progymnasmata Example: Proverb