Words Aptly Spoken: American Documents

Wholly unlike the other study guides in this collection, Words Aptly Spoken: American Documents studies the history of American government through the lens of the documents that shaped her. The book opens with a chronological list of U.S. presidents and vice-presidents, with their portraits.

There are seventeen speeches by famous statesmen such as Patrick Henry, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln; poetry adds to the historical record with the accounts of Pocahontas by William Thackeray, Valley Forge by Thomas Read, the Battle of the Alamo by Joaquin Miller, and Panama by James Roche, to name a few.

Essays include two of the Federalist Papers by founders Alexander Hamilton and James Madison; and finally, the legal documents that evolved the U.S. national government, boundaries, and rights of her citizens are reproduced.

All forty-three selections include questions for review and further thought to aid Challenge I students, as well as illustrations and photographs culled from the U.S. Library of Congress.

The Classical Conversations curriculum was designed to incorporate a classical model of education with a biblical worldview. By harnessing the classical stages of learning – grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric – this innovative curriculum ideally suits children’s natural learning style. In the grammar stage, children devour facts. In the dialectic stage, children ask many questions as they sort and evaluate these facts. In the rhetoric stage, teenagers synthesize their knowledge and apply it.

From beginning to end, Classical Conversations is founded on the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. Students are taught that all subjects are not only interconnected but that God is the author and creator of each subject. Each subject informs us more about the true nature of God, and a better understanding of God informs us about each subject that is taught. Classical education combined with a biblical worldview makes Classical Conversations a wonderful tool to mirror the three learning stages in the Bible: knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.