The Logos School board meets monthly on housekeeping issues, but in addition to this we have an annual board meeting that focuses on long-term vision. The board members also have a day every spring where we visit the classrooms and observe the instruction that is actually occurring on the ground. Speaking as an (admittedly biased) observer, every time I get close to the education that is being provided at Logos, I am really struck by what a fantastic opportunity it is.
Anyhow, about a year ago, a friend asked me about the reading requirements at Logos. We were talking about “great books” approaches, and the annual meeting we had last month gave an opportunity to check. I wanted to see what the Logos secondary students actually go through during their time there. When looking at what we do, it becomes immediately apparent that Logos is not a “purist” great books approach, and it is not a rigorous traditional textbook education either. Rather, it is really a remarkable hybrid, combining the best of both approaches. The one thing that is certain is that the kids take on a boatload of information, and they do it with cheerfulness and what should be called “high morale.” Those parents who might be wondering if they should move for the sake of their kids’ education should consider this.
To illustrate all this, I asked a Logos student (David Foucachon) to take a picture of another Logos student (Morgan Wintz) standing next to the stack of books that a Logos student will work through in the coures of six years (7-12). In addition to the textbooks which are included in the picture below, the students also read through the following books.
Secondary Reading List
The Bible
English 7
Across Five Aprils
, Hunt
The Thirty-Nine Steps
, Buchan
Johnny Tremain
, Forbes
The Story of a Bad Boy
, Aldrich
Treasure Island
, Stevenson
Yankee Doodle Boy
, Martin
English 8
Kidnapped
, Stevenson (optional)
Life on the Mississippi
, Twain
Robinson Crusoe
, Defoe
Sketch Book
, Irving
The Black Arrow
, Stevenson
Julius Caesar
, Shakespeare
European Literature (9th)
Beowulf
, Raffel
Song of Roland
Ivanhoe
, Scott
Romeo and Juliet
, Shakespeare
The Pilgrim’s Progress
, Bunyan
Silas Marner
, Elliot
The Count of Monte Cristo
, Dumas
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
, Solzhenitsyn
American Literature (10th)
Huckleberry Finn
, Twain
Moby Dick
, Melville
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
, Wilder
The Last of the Mohicans
, Cooper
The Old Man and the Sea
, Hemingway
The Red Badge of Courage
, Crane
The Scarlet Letter
, Hawthorne
Classical Literature (11th)
Classics in Translations
, Vol. 1 and 2
Greek Tragedies
, Vol. 1
Makers of Rome
, Plutarch
Metamorphoses
, Ovid
The Aeneid
, Virgil
The Iliad
, Homer
The Odyssey
, Homer
British Literature (12th)
Beowulf
, Chickering
Canterbury Tales
, Caucer
David Copperfield
, Dickens
Henry V
, Shakespeare
Macbeth
, Shakespeare
Midsummer Night’s Dream
, Shakespeare
Much Ado About Nothing
, Shakespeare
Paradise Lost
, Milton
Poetry and Prose of Sidney
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
That Hideous Strength
, Lewis
The Faerie Queene
, Spenser
A Modest Proposal
, Swift
Then the textbooks are for the following classes:
7th Grade
Old Testament Survey
Latin 7
English 7
Math 7
Earth Science
US History
8th Grade
New Testament Survey
Latin 8
English 8
Algebra I
Logic
World Geography
Northwest History
Ninth Grade
Context of the Bible
Latin 9
European Literature
Geometry
Basic Science
European History
Tenth Grade
Principles of Interpretation
Latin 10
American Literature
Algebra II
Biology
War Between the States
Modern US History
Eleventh Grade
Basic Christian Doctrine
Classical Literature
Rhetoric I
Trigonometry, or Functions and Statistics
Chemistry
Classical History
Twelfth Grade
Each student must take Rhetoric, and then several of the remaining courses
Rhetoric II
New Testament Greek
British Literature
Calculus
Physics
Civics
And then this is what it all looks like:
