the Primary & Middle School Curricula lay the foundation for High School

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Essay Engineering for Primary School & Middle School

Curriculum Materials for Primary School

Curriculum research & development is geared towards developing the skills suitable for the intellectual development of each age group. This means one set of foundational skills for primary school and middle school students. And a second set of advanced skills for high school and university students. The Essay Engineering Manual will be available in a four-volume textbook series with skill-based lessons and workbook-style drills.

The beginner-level textbook (grades 2-4) and intermediate-level textbook (grades 5-8) are developed expressly for the younger student, and provides introductory instruction in the fundamental elements of Essay Engineering> The age-appropriate readings are both accessible and challenging, and the assignments are perfectly manageable. The readings are of course less complicated in language and meaning, but the fundamental skills of evidence-based thinking are taught with the necessary rigor that prepares the student for later sophistication.

Readings for the Essay Engineering Manual for Literature cover a wide range of topics and include literary works in prose, poetry, and drama. (There will be a separate Essay Engineering Manual for History, which will cover major historical periods with supplementary coverage of current events.) At the primary school level, these readings begin with one or two chapters from a larger text, and the writing assignments are relatively short. Readings of moderate length are introduced in middle school, in advance of the complete texts studied in high school. But in all other respects, the evidence-based thinking process is identical to the advanced-level of grades 9-12.

The fundamental skills and the systematic process of evidence-based thinking consist of:

i) Meaning reconstruction (micro) of the textual layer at the sentence and paragraph level, with active reading and 100% comprehension.

ii) Meaning reconstruction (macro) of a coherent reality in crafting chapter synopses and a complete plot summary of iInterior & exterior meaning.

iii) Identifying the Interior meaning elements of the text and organizing these elements in the “Topic Register,” or proto-outline.

iv) Working with the proto-outline to develop categories; the finalized category definition constitutes the outline of paragraph topics.

v) Composing short paragraphs that give the prose formulation of topics, and revising paragraphs for improved content exposition.

vi) Analyzing the formal pattern (macro) of multiple paragraphs to generate an overarching thesis. (The conclusion is taught at the advanced level)

Frequently Asked Question:

Q: Isn’t this awfully complex for primary and middle school students?

A: Students in the 9th grade are often required to write a five to nine page essay on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – so it stands to reason that they must be capable of developing the preliminary version of these skills in primary school and middle school. The emphasis in the primary school curriculum is on the meaning reconstruction Modules. These modules results in sophisticated understanding, but the module itself entails only a conceptually rudimentary and theoretically straightforward method.

Preparations for Advanced Literacy – the beginner-level and intermediate-level curriculum

The beginner-level and intermediate-level Essay Engineering curriculum provides younger students in grades 2-4 (age 7-9) and grades 5-8 (ages 10-13) the strongest foundation for later, advanced skills. This curriculum goes beyond the obvious task of teaching rudimentary, mechanical skills – it prepares the student for the advanced curricular requirements of grades 9-12 (ages 14-17).

Essay Engineering for Primary School is like the training wheels on the smaller bicycle – the training wheels allow the child to acquire the skills which make it possible to later ride a grown-up bicycle. The most rudimentary skills, like a tricycle, are certainly necessary and suitable for certain ages. But the younger student is best served by learning transitional skills that anticipate later educational requirements.

Most important of all, the younger student gains a familiarity with the fundamental outline of advanced literacy. When a new grade presents entirely unrecognizable requirements, even the most talented and motivated student can be perplexed and confused by the entirely unfamiliar assignments which are completely foreign to her or his experience of studying books.

Training wheels in grades 2-4 give the younger student an awareness and understanding of the basic building blocks of evidence-based thinking: active reading skills, independent meaning reconstruction, and synopsis of sophisticated meaning. The intermediate-level curriculum (grades 5-8) develops these skills through the applied practice of paragraph composition (three to seven sentences) and short-essay compositions (one to three pages). The beginner-level ‘training wheels’ of grades 2-4 and the intermediate-level short essay composition provides a curriculum far more sophisticated than the typical junior high curriculum (grades 5-8). This prepares students for the second half of secondary school (grades 9-12) when advanced literacy skills are developed through a humanities curriculum focused on sophisticated and lengthy five-paragraph essays of five to fifteen pages.

Foundational and Fundamental Skills

The fundamentals of ‘meaning reconstruction’ teach younger students to practice essential skills. First, the younger student learns attention to detail through the careful study of each and every sentence, and learns to work with more challenging texts that contain sophisticated meaning. Secondly, younger students learn the written work of crafting a synopsis of each chapter and the entire story. Thirdly, younger students learn distinction between the Interior and Exterior meaning which constitute the primary elements of a story or literary work.

After establishing these tools of ‘meaning reconstruction,’ middle school students are ready for the next stage of working with ‘meaning patterns’. In this stage, younger students learn to work the basic thought structures that develop the “category definitions” of Interior meaning. Students also learn the conceptual element of Universal meaning, which consists of the abstracted versions of Interior meaning. With this conceptual framework, younger students are able to intuitively and naturally craft a short, single paragraph – writing is second nature once the thought structures of analysis are explicated in their fundamentals and taught as a process. These thought structures consist in the evidence-based, rigorous analysis of textual meaning and the inductive synthesis of these to create ‘meaning patterns’. Students then learn to connect individual paragraphs, which is the essence of crafting the short essay.

Students are most successful when they can gradually transition from one grade to the next, and each grade lays the foundation for more advanced skills. For this reason, the ideal curriculum for primary school will naturally prepare students for the advanced literacy of secondary school. Primary school students in grades 1-4 (age 6-10) can benefit greatly from practicing the modified skills which are the precursor to evidence-based thinking.

Private Instruction

Parents seeking private instruction for younger students can contact us for information on tutor availability. For contact information, please see the bottom of the "Bio/Contact" page, located on the menu bar above.