Accelerating CC for 7th/8th grader

[Molly in SC]

My son is currently in 7th grade. He has never done CC, but we have been working through IEW ancient writing lessons. He really does not enjoy writing stories, but happily writes on any scientific topic. We are using Tiner biology and he writes a paragraph or page a week on a related topic. He is a logical, scientific thinker, not the creative. I really want to get him to Chreia/Maxim next year. Obviously I don't want to skip what is necessary in Fable and Narrative, but I'd like to keep it moving. I will purchase next year's materials (including F, N, and C/M) in time for us to probably get a good 4-5 weeks use out of fable this year. How long (barring any struggles) do you think I need to stay in the first two levels? Thanks so much! I love the encouragement of this forum.

[tanya]

Hello.

If you can get several Fable lessons completed this year and you feel your student has a good grasp on them, you can move forward to Narrative next year. There isn't a lot of difference between the two stages. Fable will introduce CC with shorter stories (fables) and only 3 Narrative Components. Narrative continues to be the same set-up as Fable, but the stories are longer and we introduce the other 6 Narrative Components. So you aren't making a huge leap from Fable to Narrative. Then, if your son is doing well with Narrative after the first semester, you will be able to move forward to Chreia Maxim the second semester of his 8th grade year. But for that semester, make sure to break your semester up so that you are covering both Chreias and Maxims.

If you find Fable really challenging and don't think your student is ready to move forward as quickly as you had hoped, don't worry about doing a semester of Fable and a semester of Narrative in 8th grade. That leaves the four years of high school for Chreia Maxim, Refutation Confirmation, and Common Topic. If you get through all of these stages, you will have a good writer and rhetorician.

Tanya

[Molly in SC]

Thank you Tanya! That's what we will do.