Dormition and Paraclesis Resources

If you have not yet been able to attend a Paraclesis service during the Dormition Fast, it is a beautiful and encouraging service asking for help from the Theotokos. Most parishes provide these services during the first two weeks of August, in preparation for the Dormition Fast.

If you live far from your parish, you could read the service and sing along.

At the very end of the service, we sing a song with some vivid metaphors:

a gold entwined tower

a twelve-walled city

a throne besprinkled with sunbeams

a royal chair for the King


If you are looking for a rainy day afternoon activity for the kids, why not have them pick one of these images and draw it?  My 6 year old boy much preferred coloring a page of the Dormition and a page of the Theotokos "with her arms raised in prayer" as he requested, like the Gigi Shadid song (that line is from song #8, but #3 is Feasts of Mary).

If you have been lighting a lot of candles at church this past week - or still have the light of the Transfiguration on your mind! - and need something to transition your children back into school, you might enjoy these 5 videos about candles. We are actually going to use those, in conjunction with the actual book, student activities download, and teacher guidelines download for part of our middle school science this year!

Finally, do you need an easy meal for one of these fasting nights? The Pioneer Woman's Chicken Tortillas Soup can easily be adapted for a crockpot and fasting by two substitution:

1) use veggie stock instead of chicken stock
2) use an extra can or two of pinto beans instead of chicken.

Looks like Christmas while you are sautéing the veggies. Yum!

Age of Patriarchs - High School Reading List

For 36 Week Outline of Lesson Plans click here.

The Hospitality of Abraham

This is an incomplete list (no geography, art, music - which I'll just have to add as I go), but enough to get you started. I plan to include with my student the file of Prologue Readings that correspond to the Old Testament. I have not listened to ALL of the linked lectures, but I have taken two other Hillsdale courses that I really appreciated and I have listened to the first couple of lectures of the series linked below. We will also use Roman Roads Media lectures to "set the table" for feasting on the Greek epics. If you are interested in
“beta-testing” this curriculum with me, we can work together throughout the year, sharing specific
discussions and writing assignments that develop from each work. With God's help, I hope to post a week-by-week schedule and a course catechism by the end of this week.

1 year High School Credit in World Literature - Antiquity*

Free Online Hillsdale College Course Great Books 101 (Just lectures 1-7 because 8-11 go with the
Age of Triumph)

Literature and the Liberal Arts at Hillsdale  (just an Intro to the course)

Roman Roads Media - Epics Unit - have to purchase $$ to use

Homer, The Iliad  

Homer, The Odyssey

Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

Virgil, The Aeneid

The David Story (1 and 2 Samuel & 1 Kings 1-2)

The Book of Job

Christ in the Psalms $ to buy

Wisdom, Let us Attend – $ to buy goes with Old Testament

Old Testament of the Bible - along with the corresponding Prologue readings

Tragedy of Julius Caesar by Shakespeare**

Analytical Grammar (or whatever grammar you choose, IF you choose, based on your student)

Jensen’s Format Writing

- for reference when writing essays about the Great Books.

Moses with his Arms Supported by Aaron and Hur - Thomas Brigstocke

1-year High School Credit in Western Civilization - Antiquity***

Dr. Pat’s Orthodox Sunday School Lessons on Old Testament

Free Online Hillsdale College Course Western Heritage (just lectures 1-5 if sticking to Antiquity)
(13 weeks – one week on intro and three weeks on every other lecture)

Do not freak out at the number of readings! Most are around 6-23 page excerpts.

Jerusalem, Athens, and the Study of History at Hillsdale College

The Hebrews

• Enuma Elish
• Hesiod, Theogony
• Genesis 1, 2, and 17
• Exodus 20
• I Samuel 8, 15, 24, and 26

The Golden Age of Greece

• Herodotus, The History
• Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (Pericles' Funeral Oration)

The Political and Philosophical Legacy of Greece

• Western Heritage: A Reader, Section II Introduction
• Herodotus, The History
• Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War
• Aristotle, The Politics
• Xenophanes, Fragments
• Plato, The Republic
• Genesis 1-2
• The Gospel According to John
• Tertullian, "Prescription Against Heretics"
• Clement of Alexandria, "On Philosophy"

~insert Sparta & Athen here if doing

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic

• Plutarch, Parallel Lives
• Cicero, On Duties
• Tacitus, The Annals

~ Optional Free Online Hillsdale College Course Sparta & Athens
(inserted in the schedule above after the two Greece lectures and before the Roman)

Why Study the Classics?  (just an Intro to the course)

Life and Government in Sparta

• Paul A. Rahe, "The Spartan Regime and Its Grand Strategy"

Life and Government in Athens

• Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War
• Joint Association of Classical Teachers, The World of Athens, pp. 153-155
• Joint Association of Classical Teachers, The World of Athens, pp. 196-210

Sparta and the Persian War

• Herodotus, The Histories
• Herodotus, The Histories (reading two)
• Paul A. Rahe, The Grand Strategy of Sparta, “Achaemenid Persia: Its Raison d’Être”
• Paul A. Rahe, The Grand Strategy of Sparta, “The Road to Plataea”

Athens and the Persian War

• Herodotus, The Histories
• Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War
• Tom Holland, Persian Fire
• Paul A. Rahe, The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta

Sparta and the Peloponnesian War

• Diodorus Siculus, Library of History
• Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War
• Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (reading two)
• Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (reading three)

Athens and the Peloponnesian War

• Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War
• Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (reading two)
• Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Other
• Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Other (reading two)

Sparta and Athens—Conclusions

• Xenophon, The Politeia of the Spartans

Athens and Sparta—Conclusions

• Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Other
• Donald Kagan, The Peloponnesian War

* Teacher’s Notes for Literature - As a family, we already read children’s/young adult versions of
these stories and watched videos about them, looked at Sparknotes, etc. back in 6th grade.
If your student has not already “met” these books, then I would lay some of that groundwork before
diving into a slow read of the actual book. Furthermore - I would cut out an entire book from the list
and slow down, giving yourselves more time to really understand the books you do read).
I estimate spending one week on the first lecture and 3-6 weeks on each book after that.
We will start each of the Great Books by watching the lecture together with my student and discussing it.
We’ll both take notes so we have a written record of what we are going to notice while we read.
I'll check my notes against my student's and mentor him in the skill of note-taking. Also, we’ll write questions.
The next day we’ll watch the Q&A and see if any of our questions are answered. Then we will start
slow reading and discussing our way through it, perhaps along with a high-quality audio recording.  
My student is working on a fictional writing project on the side, and I plan to point out some literary
techniques that I think he could use in his own writing (like extended metaphors, for example).
We will ask and try to answer questions as we go, trying to use Orthodox resources to shed light on the
text and help us learn. Ideally, we will time it so that the History lectures and readings precede the literature,
so that we have a better understanding of the world of the author before starting each story. Each book will
have a writing assignment, either applying techniques from the book to my student’s own book, or an essay
reflecting on some aspect of virtue or vice or literary technique in the book.

** If we have time we’ll include Julius Caesar - we might do this during the summer as a whole family using
Charlotte Mason’s method of teaching Shakespeare: 1) read a good story version like Charles and Mary Lamb,
2) listen to a good audio recording or watch a movie, 3) close reading & acting out particular chapters.
This play lends itself very well to the study of rhetoric, with great dialogue as Cassius tries to persuade
Brutus, Portia tries to persuade Brutus, Calpurnia tries to persuade Caesar - those are the scenes we would
close read and annotate for the tools of rhetoric used in the three appeals - logos, ethos, pathos)