A Humane Proposal: Grades 7-10

The Middle Cycle for the Logic Stage

Continuing from where I left off in the Grammar stage, below is the scope of a humane letters program that I think brings together aspects from many various methods of classical education. I want to go ahead and note that I have grouped Seventh through Tenth grade together and followed the four-eras structure rather than the more common three-eras structure. This is not because I favor the modern period over the Classical and Medieval, but because I have a different approach to eleventh and twelfth grades. I think this will be clear in my final post.

7th Grade

The Classical World Redux (c. 1250 BC - 476 AD). Starting this grade, I suggest a more formal study of individual books of Bible to go alongside the study of other texts. With the Classical era, this works best in a chronological sense, though subsequent years will benefit from more thematic groupings. While I’m not overly committed to these specific translations, I do think they are the best to both bring the students up to where they ought to be while remaining faithful to the concepts of the originals. Readability is often touted as the best criteria for selecting a translation, a concept I find to be hogwash.

Mythology, Hamilton
Judges & Ruth
Iliad, Homer (trans. Lattimore)
Euthyphro, Plato
Oresteia, Aeschylus (trans. Grene)
Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle
Histories, Herodotus (Landmark)
Esther
Ezra
Nehemiah
Jonah
Nahum
Aeneid, Virgil (trans. Fitzgerald)
Early History of Rome, Livy (trans. Warrior)
Julius Caesar, Shakespeare
Mark
Confessions, Augustine
The Neverending Story, Ende
The Light Princess, MacDonald
The History of the Ancient World, Bauer

8th Grade

The Medieval World Redux (476 - 1450 AD). As with previous entries, I’ve limited the texts to groups of 20, though there are instances of taking two texts as one unit. This should make plain sense in the examples below. This course is also heavily English in it’s influence as I’m imagining the average American student whose heritage is also heavily English. Is there a place for diversity of cultures? Yes. But I don’t believe this is it.

Luke & Acts
Church History, Eusebius
On the Incarnation, Athanasius
King Arthur, Lanier
1 & 2 Samuel
1 & 2 Kings
The Ecclesiastical History of England, Bede
Beowulf, trans. Chickering
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Tolkien¹
History of the Kings of England, Geoffrey of Monmouth
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. Tolkien
Philippians
Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott
The Song of Roland, trans. Robert Harrison
The Magna Carta
Colossians
The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer
Book of the Dun Cow, Wangerin
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare
The History of the Medieval World, Bauer

9th Grade

The Early Modern World Redux (1450 - 1865 AD). I advocate for continuing the division into Early and Late Modernity at this stage as well. Many State Departments of Education require a “Government” and an “Economics” course in high school, though the names may be slightly different. I hold that such requirements could be creatively satisfied in 9th and 10th grade. The proposal below would easily satisfy most “Government” requirements, while sticking closely to the principles I’ve laid out in this and previous posts.

Hamlet, Shakespeare
Exodus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy
The Prince, Machiavelli
Courtship of Miles Standish & Evangeline, Longfellow
The Scarlett Letter, Hawthorne
Ezekiel
The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley, Wheatley
The Federalist Papers
The Anti-Federalist Papers
Paradise Regain’d, Milton
On the Social Contract, Rousseau
Frankenstein, Shelley
Reflections on the Revolution, Burke
A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens
1 & 2 Peter
Romans
The Everlasting Man, Chesterton
Henry V, Shakespeare
Tree and Leaf, Tolkien
History of the Renaissance World, Bauer

10th Grade

The Late Modern World Redux (1865 AD - Present). With the completion of tenth grade, students will have worked through this proposed cycle twice. This repetition is important to the overall project, and it shouldn’t be tampered with (unless a school wants to stick to the more common three-eras cycle). This specific course could satisfy an “Economics” requirement where such items are needed.

Richard III, Shakespeare
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Equiano
Leviticus
The Wealth of Nations, Smith
Proverbs & Ecclesiastes
The Communist Manifesto, Marx
Isaiah
The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Irving
Democracy in America, Tocqueville
Up From Slavery, Washington
Philemon
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain
Pride and Prejudice, Austen
The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy
North of Boston & Mountain Interval, Frost
The Place of the Lion, Williams
Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury
The Man Born to Be King, Sayers
John
Roots of American Order, Kirk²

With the conclusion of 10th grade, I think most students should have sufficiently developed moral imaginations. This is not to say it is a complete education (does such a thing exist?) but rather to say that a carefully structured program could accomplish a general education by the age of 16, which was common in schools until the twentieth century. A return to this approach is needed, I think, if schools hope to produce graduates who don’t have to be educated all over again upon entering college.

1. This is a substantial book in terms of length, so I recommend treating it as a pleasure read, with discussions in class. There is no need to assess the students on this text, but rather encourage them to let it seep into their imaginations.

2. Bauer’s more mature History books cover the Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance worlds. Thus, moving into tenth grade and beyond, a different set of books is needed. Kirk’s Roots is an excellent place to transition away from Bauer’s books.