Classics-Based Writing Resource / Poetry
by Janice Campbell · Published May 19, 2014 · Last modified January 16, 2021
“On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” by English Romantic poet John Keats. This sonnet tells of the delight and astonishment the author felt while reading the ancient Greek poet Homer in a new translation...
Classics-Based Writing Resource
by Janice Campbell · Published May 1, 2014 · Last modified January 16, 2021
This 1899 essay by Elbert Hubbard is one of my favorites. Hubbard’s keen sense of humor and skillful use of hyperbole and metaphor help him make a sharp point about the value of individual initiative...
Audio / Video / Classics-Based Writing Resource / E4-Resources / Poetry
by Janice Campbell · Published March 31, 2014 · Last modified February 26, 2021
Sonnet VII: How soon hath Time, the Subtle Thief of Youth ON HIS BEING ARRIVED AT THE AGE OF 23. by John Milton How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol’n on...
Classics-Based Writing Resource / E1-Resources
by Janice Campbell · Published March 3, 2014 · Last modified January 16, 2021
Situational irony is a form of humor that focuses on a contrast between expectation and reality. In these excerpts from Around the World in Eighty Days, you will see how Jules Verne has used...
Audio / Video / Classics-Based Writing Resource / Poetry
by Janice Campbell · Published January 31, 2014 · Last modified December 30, 2022
“How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix” is a vivid and evocative story poem is characteristic of Robert Browning’s dramatic verse. In the first video at the bottom of this post, he...
Classics-Based Writing Resource
by Janice Campbell · Published December 31, 2013 · Last modified November 20, 2023
The Slavery of Free Verse by G. K. Chesterton THE truth most needed today is that the end is never the right end. The beginning is the right end at which to begin. The...
Classics-Based Writing Resource / Short Stories
by Janice Campbell · Published December 2, 2013 · Last modified March 9, 2021
“The Three Questions” by Russian author Leo Tolstoy is a short story in the form of a parable. In it, a king seeks answers to what he considers the three most important questions in life....
Classics-Based Writing Resource
by Janice Campbell · Published October 21, 2013 · Last modified October 31, 2013
The Pumpkin by John Greenleaf Whittier Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun, The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run, And the rock and the tree and the...
Classics-Based Writing Resource / Reading / Resources for Teaching
by EILeditor · Published October 20, 2013 · Last modified July 17, 2020
Reading Fairy Stories with J. R. Tolkien In “On Fairy Stories,” J. R. R. Tolkien explores the realm of Faerie, and considers “What are fairy-stories? What is their origin? What is the use of them?”...
Audio / Video / Classics-Based Writing Resource / Short Stories
by Janice Campbell · Published September 30, 2013 · Last modified August 18, 2020
The Ant and the Grasshopper From Aesop’s Fables In a field one summer’s day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart’s content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great...
Classics-Based Writing Resource
by Janice Campbell · Published July 4, 2013 · Last modified November 22, 2014
The Declaration of Independence IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve...
Classics-Based Writing Resource / Poetry
by Janice Campbell · Published June 4, 2013 · Last modified January 21, 2021
Sonnet XVIII: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? By William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the...
Classics-Based Writing Resource
by Janice Campbell · Published April 29, 2013 · Last modified August 26, 2013
Charles Dickens was a master of description, both in scene setting and character creation. One of my favorite passages is the opening six paragraphs of Bleak House. I can hardly read it without wanting to...
Audio / Video / Classics-Based Writing Resource
by Janice Campbell · Published March 29, 2013 · Last modified August 29, 2017
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud By William Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of...
Classics-Based Writing Resource
by Janice Campbell · Published January 31, 2013 · Last modified August 27, 2013
“It is sweet and good (or right) to die for your fatherland,” wrote the poet Horace (Odes III.2.13), and echoes of this idea are seen in requiems and memorials throughout history. “Dulce et decorum...
Classics-Based Writing Resource
by Janice Campbell · Published January 31, 2013 · Last modified August 27, 2013
The Bixby letter has long been considered one of the finest examples of letter writing. This letter from Abraham Lincoln to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a widowed mother thought to have lost five sons in...
Audio / Video / Classics-Based Writing Resource
by Janice Campbell · Published January 31, 2013 · Last modified August 27, 2013
In the early days of the American Civil War, American writer Julia Ward Howe penned the lyrics now known as the The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The stirring words were set to the equally lively music of...
Classics-Based Writing Resource / E2-Resources
by Janice Campbell · Published December 28, 2012 · Last modified February 5, 2021
Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene II by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) ANTONY Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after...
Classics-Based Writing Resource
by Janice Campbell · Published November 30, 2012 · Last modified November 26, 2018
To a Locomotive in Winter by Walt Whitman Thee for my recitative! Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining, Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d dual throbbing and...
Classics-Based Writing Resource
by Janice Campbell · Published September 21, 2012 · Last modified January 5, 2015
In the classic tradition, appearance was used to signify character. A hero or heroine was not only virtuous, but also handsome or beautiful, but a villain tended to be shifty-eyed, sneering, scowling, or otherwise less attractive. Why do you think Cather described Father Vaillant as she did?
Audio / Video / Classics-Based Writing Resource / Poetry
by Janice Campbell · Published August 23, 2012 · Last modified August 28, 2013
This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:– There spread a cloud of dust along a plain; And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords...
Classics-Based Writing Resource / E3-Resources / Poetry
by Rebecca · Published July 16, 2012 · Last modified January 23, 2021
PAUL REVERE’S RIDE by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Composed as a narration by the landlord of the Wayside Inn, Longfellow’s 1860 poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” is the fictionalized retelling of a patriotic story. It was...
Classics-Based Writing Resource / E4-Resources / Poetry
by Rebecca · Published July 7, 2012 · Last modified July 20, 2020
Poems by George Herbert (1593–1633) George Herbert was a 17th-century British poet, now recognized as one of the best devotional poets in the English language. You may read two of his poems available from...
Here’s the Everyday Educator — our annual newsletter handout. It has book lists and helpful articles about homeschooling topics. We’d rather be sharing it in person, but for now, you can download the Everyday Educator here. I hope you enjoy it!
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