Forty years of essays, guides, and classroom lessons from Rick Reed.
The text of the oath, a study guide with an oath-writing assignment, and a quiz.
Lesson plans, lecture notes, a study guide, vocabulary, and reading quizzes for Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.
Lesson plans, background, study aids, quizzes, tests, and writing assignments for Aeschylus’s Oresteia.
Daily lesson plans, notes, study guides, quizzes, a test, and an archaeology project for The Epic of Gilgamesh and Durant's essay on the conditions of civilization.
A reading list of books that show manly virtue, grouped by era from the Greeks to the twentieth century.
Lesson plans, quizzes, study guides, imagery passages, worksheets, and essay prompts for Sophocles' Oedipus Rex.
Lesson plans, study guides, background reading, and essay prompts for the Shakespeare plays Rick Reed taught.
Lecture notes, AP essay prompts, and scoring rubrics for Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz.
Canto-by-canto class notes on Dante's Divine Comedy, with charts, timelines, and handouts for study.
“I am a part of all that I have met.” – Tennyson’s “Ulysses”
A master index of literature by period, author, genre, and theme.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age masterpiece, is an indictment of materialism which many have mistaken for a love story. As the protagonist is developed, very…
A daily plan for each day of the AP poetry unit, from the first question of what poetry is to the editing of the final essay.
Fill-in and paragraph quizzes for each chapter of the poetry unit, review quizzes, and multiple-choice quizzes on single poems. Each quiz links to the lesson plans it goes with.
Prompts, checklists, sample essays, and rubrics for the poetry explication and the essays that compare two poems.
The questions to ask of any poem, model paraphrases, and worked answers for the poems the class read.
adj. giving pleasure or joy, good and enjoyable; kind, polite, and friendly
NURSE: n. : a person who cares for the sick or infirm
Why C. S. Lewis’s novel still explains the methods and reach of the woke.
Jane Austen’s novel as a timely and wise guide to courtship and marriage.
A Christian poet’s quest tale about a young knight who learns honor and humility.
Richard Henry Dana’s sea memoir as the story of a young man who grows up at sea.
Hawthorne’s novel about public shaming, then and now.
AWESOME: adj. arousing an emotion variously combining dread, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime
n. a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage
Tolstoy’s novella about a man who finds meaning only when he faces death.
The Greeks gave us demokratia. It combines two Greek terms, demos (“common people”) and kratos (“rule”). In simple terms, “rule by the common people.” The Oxford English…
noun. The systematic instruction, schooling, or training given to the young in preparation for the work of life
Derived from Greek, euthanasia is formed by adding the prefix eu- (“good” or “well”) to Thanatos (the personification of death in Greek mythology). The meaning is simply, “a good…
GOOD-BYE: a concluding remark or gesture at parting; a taking of leave
HAPPINESS: n. a state of well-being and contentment
adj. Of, belonging to, or characteristic of man
(n) “knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction”
PAGAN: n. one who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew; one who professes no religious belief
PEACE: freedom from civil or inner disturbance
n. a high or overweening opinion of one’s own qualities, attainments and attitude of superiority over and contempt for others; inordinate self-esteem
REASON: to think or argue in a logical manner
SACRIFICE: n. an act of offering to a deity something precious; something given up
SCIENCE: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws
Twain’s novel as the story of a boy who learns conscience and loyalty on the river.
Why the oldest story in written form may be the best classic to offer young men today.
Dickens’s novel of the French Revolution and its themes of sin, death, and resurrection.
Why the classics, and the languages they were written in, make whole what the woke want to fragment.
How Walter M. Miller’s novel shows a civilization that falls, rises, and falls again while monks keep its knowledge alive.
How Aeschylus’s trilogy turns the cycle of blood vengeance into justice decided by a jury.
Woman is a remarkable word insofar as its origin is concerned. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) expends fifty lines detailing the evolution of the word’s spelling and…
A checklist and admissions statistics for students preparing college applications.