This session desires to look critically at the unity of the Trivium. Rhetoric in the Grammar Stage does not only mean oral presentations. It will challenge this notion and ask the question, how can we give rhetoric a proper seat in each classroom? This session focuses on the Rhetoric of Fiction, laid out by Wayne C. Booth in his book The Rhetoric of Fiction. It takes the principles found in that book, as well as from other scholars in the field of rhetoric, and applies them to K—6 classrooms. This session will discuss the rhetorical lens that can be applied to lessons surrounding fiction and will give intentional questions to ask and discussions to employ in order to prime the pump for future rhetorical analyses. The focus of the seminar will be on the narrator and the impact on a story because of the specific narrator chosen by the author. The instructor will also give two examples of how to employ these principles and tactics in the classroom in order to create a rich environment around reading. It will give an example through a short story and a picture book.
Colleen Dong
Colleen Dong has been with The Cambridge School for five years. She is passionate about classical Christian education and is constantly delighted to get to spend her days with the kindergartners shaping their a ections and preparing them for their classical journey. Colleen was born and raised in San Diego. She received a BA in English from Azusa Paci c University. She also studied for a semester at the University of Oxford, where she found a renewed appetite for education. After graduating, Colleen desired to be a part of a classical school and quickly found a home with Cambridge. She is now pursuing her master’s degree in Rhetoric from San Diego State University and is particularly interested in integrating rhetorical practices at an age-appropriate level in the Grammar stage.
