Western Culture 3-4: The Reformation

Age: 14+ Middle School, High School Half Credit

The Reformation is the fourth unit of Christendom, year three in the Old Western Culture curriculum on the Great Books.

Description

Post Tenebras Lux, introduces students to the great minds of the Reformation: John Calvin, Martin Luther, Thomas Cranmer, Erasmus, Spense, and Chaucer. But a study of this tumultuous period of history would be sorely lacking without a thorough understanding of the historical setting of the Reformation. Wesley Callihan and Dr. Chris Schlect team up to lay a solid foundation for understanding the origins and struggles of the Reformation, as well as its theology and influence. Students will read part of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, as well as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Spenser’s Faerie Queene.

How does this course work?

Old Western Culture is a video course. It is built around a master teacher, Wes Callihan. With decades of teaching experience, he guides students through the story of Western civilization. Early Medievals contains 12 video lessons. Each lesson begins with a brief review before jumping into summary, commentary, analysis, and inter-disciplinary connections of the works covered. After each lesson, students complete the assigned readings, and answer comprehension questions in the Student Workbook or online workbook.

Credits

Each year of Old Western Culture is a double-credit Humanities course which is most commonly broken down into 1 Literature credit and 1 History credit. The double-credit assumes that the student will watch all the videos, read the required reading, answer the daily worksheets, and take 4 exams (one for each unit). This a robust course academically, and requires a fair bit of reading. Wesley Callihan will coach your student on how to approach the reading in the video. Average daily reading load is 30-40 pages. As an “integrated humanities” course, Old Western Culture will constantly be incorporating history, literature, theology, philosophy, art, and art history, all through the eyes of the Great Books.

Prerequisites and Age

Old Western Culture is intended for mature and discerning students. We recommend this course for ages 14 and up. The course will deal with mature themes such as paganism, sexual immorality, battle scenes (mostly in actual reading), and classical paintings. Old Western Culture is meant to equip your child with a Biblical lens from which to process these themes. We assume your child has a working knowledge of the Bible and basic Christian doctrine.