Poetic Knowledge in the Dialectic Classroom:  Story-Based Progymnasmata

What is poetic knowledge and why does it matter?  In brief, poetic knowledge is a topic which has been explored by such prominent educators as James S. Taylor and John Senior and is often explained as having the following characteristics.  It is a receptive posture toward knowledge rather than an active pursuit of information, which does not negate the need for discursive reason but is the foundation on which such reason builds.  It has as its goal love of the material being studied in addition to intellectual knowledge of the material.  It is a kind of knowing from the inside of a subject rather than analyzing the topic of study from the outside.  And finally, it incorporates a science of relations across areas of study, which tends to integrate rather than divide knowledge.  As C. S. Lewis put it in his essay, Meditations in a Toolshed, it is learning to look along a beam of light rather than at it. 

One way to help our students contemplate the material they are studying is through formal writing, and the progression of the Progymnasmata, especially its early levels, is well suited for an integration with the curriculum that emphasizes poetic knowledge.  Essays such as the chreia/maxim can be used as tools that immerse our students further into the world of the Great Books by focusing on the Great Stories found in those books.  I firmly believe that before our students can appreciate the Great Books for the world-changing ideas they impart, they must first love them as Great Stories.  

Part of developing this love which is also integral to the development of poetic knowledge of these works is helping students to see where their own stories fit in.  They need to know that they too are part of the story, as our own Christian testimonies are part of the story between Hebrews and Revelation, as the medievals brought the ancient texts into their own stories and cultures.  Our students come to us already having a rich storehouse of stories to draw upon–from literature, history, and their own personal experience.  The progymnasmata essays use the science of relations to correlate students’ personal stories with the Great Stories, with the goal of using what they already know, which is substantial, to assess a new piece of literature.  When students are able to see themselves in the story, this is the kind of “knowing from the inside” which facilitates poetic knowledge.

Practically, in my classroom, I use the chreia/maxim format in my Introduction to the Ancient Great Books course to achieve these objectives.  We write two of these essays, one per semester, at the rate of one paragraph per week.  I have chosen a slow progression in order to allow ample time to focus on revision, and a student’s final grade is largely based on how diligent the student is to make the corrections I give them for each paragraph and to follow the suggestions I make for them as well.  This format provides for the student to also receive weekly and specific guidance on their writing.

The first chreia essay that we write is based on an Aesop’s fable, and the first paragraph of this essay simply retells the fable with a clear statement of the moral at the end of it.  The second paragraph gives some background on the author (Aesop), and the third restates the moral in various ways.  Students are given the option to use synonyms for important words in the moral to restate it, to create analogies for the moral based on their everyday activities, and to explain any literal meaning of the moral.  

The second half of the essay is pure story.  Paragraph four gives an example of the moral in the form of a story in which a character follows its wise advice and reap the benefits of doing so.  Paragraph five gives an opposite example, in which a character does not follow the advice in the moral and likewise reap the consequences of his choices.  The final paragraph provides a personal example from the student’s own life, in which they either did or did not follow the advice of the moral and tell how their choices turned out for them.  

We repeat this essay format in the second semester, by following the same progression of paragraphs, but this time, students choose a proverb from Scripture to discuss.  By the time students have completed both essays, they have placed themselves firmly in the world of the fable or moral, and implicitly learned that they too have stories such as these.  Many of my students choose to use stories from the literature studied in class as the basis for their example or opposite paragraphs, thus deepening their connection to the material of our curriculum, and helping them to realize that they are already part of the Great Conversation around these Great Books.