Teacher's Notes
The heart of our week-plan are your “cheat sheets” where we supply detailed information by subject. You learn in summary what your children read about in detail. Because you are “in the know,” you truly can teach every week with minimum preparation time.
We pull
background information together for you in the form of articles from World Book encyclopedia (indicated by cream-colored backgrounds behind the text) and also add our own commentary. Each discipline has its own section each week. This is one place that you can find answers to the Accountability Questions listed for dialectic and rhetoric students.
Often, sidebars contain
scripture references that help parents bring biblical perspective to historical topics.
Weekly Socratic
discussion outlines are offered so that you can help your dialectic and rhetoric students make crucial connections and/or analyses of the history, church history, literature, government, and philosophy readings that they may have done. There is a helpful overview of Socratic discussion methods on the Loom.
The
Glance Ahead (at the end of each Teacher’s Notes section) offers helpful information for preparing for the week ahead and warnings if there is questionable content in upcoming assignments.
What’s the difference between Accountability Questions (AQs) and Thinking Questions (TQs)?
Answering AQs in written form can keep students focused on the lesson and train them to find the main ideas so that students are not at a loss when discussion time comes. Some AQ sections include instructions for filling in provided charts and other study aids.
The TQs help the student prepare to discuss the pith of the week’s lesson, offering a chance to “limber up” for mental wrestling with profound issues during upcoming Socratic discussions.
Unlike AQs, TQs do not focus on factual information or the main ideas. Rather, these questions ask the student to begin on his own a process of either connecting facts (dialectic) or analyzing them (rhetoric) before class. As a result, many of the TQs won’t be fully answered independently. Instruct your student to do his best at preparing to discuss them and anticipate that, during the Socratic discussion process, his comprehension of the material will increase.
AQs and TQs work towards the Socratic discussion. Rather than a more traditional Q&A parroting session, or a dull game of educational ping-pong, our discussion outlines attempt to enable your individual experiences to infuse your discussion with vitality, producing memorable learning. As a result, you will not find a quick “answer key” to the AQs and TQs in our discussion outlines, and your goal is not to “check your student’s answers.” Our Teacher’s Notes taken as a whole constitute each week’s “answer key.” The goal of each week’s discussion is to help your student to reach that “Ohhhh!” moment, which indicates that the student has worked his way through worldview issues and come to a satisfying conclusion.