Short Courses

These summer courses offer highlights from standard Scriptorium courses or a quick look at various topics related to the humane letters or to classical education.

All courses include a break for afternoon tea.

Please contact the tutor if you are interested in registering for any of these courses.

For the 2022 session, short courses include:

Western Civilization Survey

  • TUITION: $100 per student for the course
  • LENGTH: one afternoon per week for three weeks
  • OPEN TO: Any homeschool students, homeschool parents, homeschool graduates, and Scriptorium alumni in the Chattanooga area
  • TOPIC: How has our culture come to be the way it is today? How important are the ancient Greeks and Romans, really? Were the Middle Ages only dark centuries of killing? Was the Enlightenment truly the time when humans became reasonable? Why was the twentieth century so full of wars? This course will seek to answer these and other questions. If you need a super-sonic overview of 2500 years of history, join us!
  • OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENTS: Readings from primary source documents related to the week’s topic will be emailed to participants, along with a guide for getting the most out of your reading.

United States History Survey

  • TUITION: $100
  • LENGTH: one afternoon per week for three weeks
  • OPEN TO: Any homeschool students, homeschool parents, homeschool graduates, and Scriptorium alumni in the Chattanooga area
  • TOPIC: This course is designed to follow the Western Civilization Survey, but it can be taken as a stand-alone. Was Columbus really a monster? Is the United States irredeemably evil because slavery existed here? Which presidents have done the best job of keeping their oaths to uphold the Constitution? Is the United States currently following the Constitution as the Founders intended? This course will seek to answer these and other questions. If you need a super-sonic overview of 500 years of American history, join us!
  • OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENTS: Readings from primary source documents related to the week’s topic will be emailed to participants, along with a guide for getting the most out of your reading.

Curriculum for Dragon-Slaying

  • TUITION: $30
  • LENGTH: one afternoon in June
  • OPEN TO: This course is particularly for people interested in education, from parents concerned about their children’s education to high school students or graduates considering becoming teachers. Any homeschool students, homeschool parents, homeschool graduates, and Scriptorium alumni in the Chattanooga area are welcome to attend.
  • TOPIC: In the words of the Monk theme song, “It’s a jungle out there, disorder and confusion everywhere” – and it’s not the disorder of your closets or cabinets. The disorder of our culture is fundamentally a spiritual and philosophical disorder, brought about by rejection of spiritual truths and hatred of wisdom. The false, the ugly, and the wicked fill billboards, magazines in the checkout aisle, previews before movies. They enter our homes with internet, television, and radio. They even make their way into ostensibly-scholarly history textbooks, college classrooms, and museums. Falsehood, ugliness, and wickedness poison the soul. And yet, we are surrounded by them and our students have to be able to make their way through what C.S. Lewis would call a supremely bent culture. Often it seems like we and our students are hardly able to hold on to what is good – let alone combat evil. But Christ is victorious over evil, so we know evil can be defeated. How do we prepare students not only to survive but even to flourish in a culture saturated with the false, the ugly, and the wicked? How do we prepare students to destroy every argument and lofty opinion that raises itself against the knowledge of God (II Corinthians 10:5)? How do we prepare students to slay intellectual dragons – invisible as they are and all the more dangerous because they pretend to be good? This course makes no pretense to have all the answers, but it will be a serious attempt to shed light on one of the most serious issues facing anyone graced with the task of preparing young people for heroic action after the diplomas have been awarded and the tassels have been turned.

A Jovial Education

  • TUITION: $30
  • LENGTH: one afternoon in July
  • OPEN TO: This course is particularly for people interested in education, from parents concerned about their children’s education to high school students or graduates considering becoming teachers. Any homeschool students, homeschool parents, homeschool graduates, and Scriptorium alumni in the Chattanooga area are welcome to attend.
  • TOPIC: This course is designed to follow Curriculum for Dragon-Slaying, but it can be taken as a stand-alone. To the ancient pagans, Jove was the king of the gods who presided over an endless feast accompanied by ceaseless storytelling and song – the setting that gave rise to our word jovial. When most people think of education, however, they think of anything but joviality. Yet education is not primarily about math corrections, high school credits, and containing chaos: education, in its original meaning, is about leading the souls of our students toward the good. What good things ought students to love? What good things will last beyond a student’s high school or college days? How can we encourage students to love what is good? This course is based on the premise that joviality might be key to restoring education to its original purpose precisely because God is both the ultimate Leader of souls and the greatest example of joviality. He came to earth in person to fellowship with and to die for us; He founded, became, and will preside over the most important Feasts; He is the Author and Finisher of the greatest Story; He created the originals on which are based all the finest works of human art; He rejoices over His people with loud singing and calls His people to rejoice always (I Thessalonians 5:16). This course will consider how the vanishing arts and practices of leisurely face-to-face fellowship – taking pleasure in dining together, telling awe-inspiring stories, designing uplifting art, bursting with genuine laughter and song, and treasuring real joy – can strengthen our efforts to truly educate our students.