Getting back to the basics of Grammar and Composition

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Back in 2016 (Wow! Five years ago now!) I became intensely interested in a course of learning called The Trivium.

Here are 2 posts on my Artventure blog from when I first started all this mad activity:

• Streamlining the Classical Curriculum
• My approach to The Trivium - Into the nitty gritty

I made it some ways in and stopped. I became dejected when I understood what Aristotelian Classical Logic really is. Turns out it's excellent in a very specific set of situations, but outside of those conditions it really doesn't help much to convert statements into carefully crafted syllogisms and diagram them to check for inconsistencies. It becomes more an exercise in grammar-checking for the most part. And people tend not to speak in syllogisms these days. Still though, the work I did back then taught me how to think much more clearly, so I don't consider it lost time or wasted effort at all.

I decided recently to get back to it, this time specifically on Grammar and Composition. I've already bought all the textbooks, time to put them to use! This covers stuff I knew pretty well when I was 8 or 9 years old but have entirely forgotten since then. I remember diagramming sentences and breaking them down all the way to the component parts, but unfortunately not how to do it. I do know what adverbs are, but not adjectives or prepositions or participles. And if I want to consider myself a writer, I need to know this stuff at least as well as I did in grade school (far better is the actual goal).

So I'm spending an hour or so each morning now studying this stuff, and often reviewing it later as well. A big part of each morning's study also consists of reviewing recently-learned things, otherwise you just forget it. It's amazing how fast it overloads your brain some days, depending on how complicated the material is and how well-rested and non-distracted I am.

Onward and forward, one step at a time! That's the way it's done my friends.