Writing III: Logic & Persuasion

Please note: Through the 2024-25 school year, this course was the old Writing II course.

OFFERED 2025-2026

* Writing III is pre-requisite for the writing tutorial portion of all high school-level Scriptorium courses *

  • Time & Tuition:
  • Location: Signal Mountain, Tennessee
  • Grades: 7th grade strong readers and up; Summer: Rising 7th grade strong readers and up
  • Prerequisites: Writing I: Grammar/Writing II: Progymnasmata, or equivalent writing skills
  • Description: This course provides an introduction to expository and persuasive writing along with instruction in logic, poetry, and basic research techniques. These skills form the basis of writing assignments for most other Scriptorium courses. Persuasive writing – based on classical rhetorical models – requires the student to know and be able to explain both why his own position is strong and why his opponent’s position is weaker. Students will gain skill in identifying and organizing evidence, doing research, crafting warrant statements, using concessions, and refuting counterarguments. These skills are essential not merely for effective academic writing but for thinking through complex issues in all areas of everyday life.
  • Assessment: Students complete readings and daily-work/commonplacing. They also make weekly progress on various essays throughout the year; roughly eight essays are completed. In December and May, students present their best essays at Defense Day.
  • FINAL BOOK LIST for 2025-2026:
    • The Art of Argument (Student Edition) – From Classical Academic Press
    • Gwynne’s Grammar – ISBN: 9781984897961 – Re-use from Writing I/II if you have taken either of those courses <= Please have available as you write throughout the year
    • Shakespeare, As You Like It – Any Folger edition <= Needed for first week of class
    • Shakespeare, Coriolanus – Any Folger edition, recommended ISBN: 978-0743477109
    • Chretien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances – Penguin Classics, ISBN: 978-0140445213 <= Note that “romance” in the medieval sense means, “story of a knightly quest”
    • Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1 – Any Folger edition, recommended ISBN: 978-0743482752
    • Scott, Ivanhoe, Penguin Classics, ISBN: 978-0140436587
    • Twain, Huckleberry Finn, Recommended: Ignatius Press/Ignatius Critical Editions (ASIN: B01K0RHV4U), or Oxford World’s Classics (ISBN: 978-0199536559)
    • Book Choice: EITHER Margery Allingham’s Look to the Lady (a mystery involving a medieval heirloom and art thieves in 1930s Britain; ISBN: 978-1504092104) OR P.G. Wodehouse’s Psmith, Journalist (a comedy involving journalism and gangs in early 20th-century New York; Warbler Classics, ISBN: 978-1965684047)
    • Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet – Scribner, ISBN: 978-0743234900
    • Lewis, Perelandra – Scribner, ISBN: 978-0743234917