Rhetoric Stage (9-12)
"It is absurd that a man should be ashamed of an inability to defend himself with his limbs, but not ashamed of an inability to defend himself with speech and reason: for the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs."
--Aristotle
Rhetoric Stage:
"The final phase of a classical education, the 'rhetoric stage,' builds on the first two. At this point, the high-school student learns to write and speak with force and originality. The student of rhetoric applies the rules of logic learned in middle school to the foundational information learned in the early grades and expresses her conclusions in clear, forceful, elegant language. The student also begins to specialize in whatever branch of knowledge attracts her; these are the years for art camps, college courses, foreign travel, apprenticeships, and other forms of specialized training."1
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1 Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), 13-14.