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    The Progym Plan: Fable Stage

    August 16, 2012 by Brandy Vencel

    I mentioned awhile back that I planned to begin using the progym with my Year Five student. {Please note that he is advanced in writing and has done written narrations for a couple years now–I am not suggesting that a child who has never done written narrations attempt this sort of thing!} I did a lot of research; I read articles and blog posts and random online Aphthonius translations. I tried to get a sense of it all so that I could do it on my own, but I finally decided to break down and buy a copy of the teacher guide for the fable stage of Classical Composition by James Selby. I’m so glad I did because it gave me a chance to see what it might look like to actually teach the progymnasmata to an actual student.

    Teaching is 2/3 imagination, right? If we can’t visualize it, we can’t do it.

    At least, I can’t.

    Now, you have to understand that it was quite hard for me to make a purchase like this because I knew I wouldn’t want to follow the book exactly, and it was expensive. I can’t remember the last time I spent $30 on a single item for lessons. But I didn’t think I’d be able to teach this without some sort of guide that explained the day-to-day aspect, and I’m glad I did it.

    What I want to share here, though, is my plan for teaching, because it is quite different from Selby’s. This is my basic outline, and I’m holding all of this with an open hand because I know that I might find that things go other than wonderful when I put this into action.

    First, let’s talk about the progym.

    Disclaimer One: I am no expert.

    I’m going to tell you a bit of what I have learned so far, and it’s up to you to check my work. I’m just saying.

    So the entire progymnasmata is a progressive series of writing exercises, some of which correspond to the formal stages of classical rhetoric. This year, I intend to try my hand at the fable stage, and if we fly through that, then we’ll head to narrative. This post will only discuss the fable stage; I didn’t even purchase anything for narrative yet.

    Disclaimer Two: I am trying to make this as CM-styled as possible.

    That doesn’t mean I succeeded. Feel free to throw tomatoes.

    So now I’ll explain my plans.

    Ps. If you have suggestions on how to make it even more CM-friendly, I’m all ears.

    Day One

    On the first day, we will read a fable from Aesop. We will do only a single reading, and immediately afterwards, my student will give a narration. Also, I will make an attempt at Grand Conversation by having my student guess the moral of the tale, or by asking questions, especially, “Does this remind you of anything else.” As you can see, the first day is explicitly Charlotte Mason-style.

    Day Two

    On the second day, we’re going to write an outline of the story. If you are looking at Selby’s teacher guide, then you know that I’ve already departed from his sequence. I feel free to do that because {1} Selby is not my boss, and {2} I’m the teacher. Frankly, because I’m so unfamiliar with this, I feel I need to do it in a way that makes sense to me, and outlining before rewriting makes a lot of sense to me.
    On the first day, Selby has the teacher give lessons on elements of style such as Recognition, Reversal, and Suffering, and has the students identify these. But later he says that they should note it in their outline. I like to teach as organically as possible, so I’m not going to give a lesson on these things, or press my student to identify them. Instead, I’m going to tell him the official word for the thing when it pops up in his outline. {“Do you know what that’s called? That’s Reversal, where the high are brought low!”} As he learns to outline well, whatever of these elements that appear in the fable should definitely appear in his outline.
    Of course, I may come back and publicly repent of changing Selby’s order. Consider yourself warned.

    Day Three

    On the third day, then, I’m going to have my student write it shorter. I don’t notice that Selby focuses on this, but everything else I’ve read says that learning to retell in a concise manner is essential in the fable stage. My student is very wordy, so I think this might offer him the greatest assistance in his writing, at least in the short term, so I want to make sure that we touch on this each time.
    Using his outline, I think it should be fairly simple {once he gets the hang of it} to write a short, “just the facts” version of the story. The key is that he has to write it shorter than the fable itself, even if the fable is already quite short {and many of them are}.

    Day Four

    On the fourth day, he will write a variation, choosing from these options {and he can’t choose the same one two lessons in a row}:
    1. Write it longer. He will need to be creative and imagine more to the story than is there, but not in such a way that he changes the essence of the plot. He can describe a character’s body {Selby calls this Effictio}. He can describe the landscape {Geographia}. I am making the rash assumption that my student can figure this out. If not, Selby has lots of helpful description exercises to help him get started.
    2. Write it from the perspective of one of the characters in the story {sermocinatio}. Using the first person, he’ll rewrite this {and every other variation} from his outline, not the original text. This could possibly be styled as a monologue.
    3. Invert the sequence of events. This might be the hardest one, and I’ll be thankful if he saves it for last. Selby offers some handy transition sentences in order to make this happen, but I’m personally not good at telling a story out of sequence, so it could get interesting.
    4. Write the same plot, but with different characters and setting. So if there’s a grasshopper and some ants out in a field, the new version might have two very different animals, or even some humans, in a desert or at the beach or in a garden. This one sounds like fun to me.
    I might think of–or discover–more variations as time goes on, but this is the list I’m starting from.

    Day Five

    This is the last day, and we’ll edit and revise, ending with a final draft. For editing, I usually have my student read his work aloud to me. When he does this, he catches missed words, bad spelling–all sorts of errors. After that, I plan to pick a sentence or two and help him refine it by asking him some questions. Finally, he’ll rewrite it all in his best cursive.

    The Very First Week

    I’ve always thought that modeling was a superior sort of teaching, so my plan is that, for week one, I will work through this process, and he will watch. I will try to do all of my thinking aloud so that he can understand what I’m doing. By the end of the week, he should have an idea of the process and be ready to try it himself.

    Am I Glad I Purchased Selby, Since I’m Changing so Much?

    I’m adding this because it seems like an obvious question. My answer is: most definitely yes. First of all, I’m not going to pick the fables; I’m going to use Selby’s selections. At least, I am for the time being. {I’ve toyed with adding in some parables of Jesus as well.} In addition to this, I would never have been able to write up a plan like this without the guide. I was having trouble moving from theory to practice. And perhaps most importantly, I feel like I have a safety net in this book. If my student gets stuck and has trouble moving forward anywhere in the process, Selby has exercises and ideas to help him get over the hump and continue writing. There are example outlines. Also, not every fable contains every element of style that the entire body of fables can teach us. So I noticed by looking through all of the lessons that as we go along we’ll also be able to pick up more of the language of classical writing, which will hone our ability to think about writing in the first place.

    And That’s That

    Anyone else attempting the progym this year?

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