The Upper School consist of students in the logic phase (7-8 graders) and students in the rhetoric phase (9-12).
The Upper School curriculum is designed to emphasize logical thinking and the integration of different subjects. Such skills are honed and expressed in the context of various forms of writing and speaking that include recitation, presentation, persuasion, and debate. Most importantly, our Upper School students are taught to integrate all aspects of knowledge and to think logically and discerningly in such a way that takes captive every thought in obedience to Christ (2 Cor 10:5).
Students develop their ability to draw conclusions from a series of facts. The most common way to recognize this difference is in Math class, where students transition from arithmetic to the application of their knowledge in higher level classes such as Algebra and Geometry. However, Classical schools also teach formal logic, logical fallacies, and reasoning skills through tools like the Socratic Method and Aristotelian logic. These subjects are foreign to most of us unless we learned them in college or became teachers in classical schools. Students in grades 9-12 continue to hone their logic/dialectic skills while focusing on the rhetorical art of persuasive speech and writing. Lab reports, literature papers, exam essays, and oral presentations all make use of rhetorical skill.
