Classical Conversations Spruce Grove

Classical Conversations Spruce Grove A Classical, Christian Community of home school families learning and doing life together in Spruce Grove, Alberta.

Classical Conversations (or CC for short) seeks to know God and make Him known as we learn about God and His creation through the classical model of the Trivium: Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric stages of learning.

Elocution (Elocutio)Guiding Question: How should I say it?Action: Express ideas in the style that is most persuasive in ...
05/28/2026

Elocution (Elocutio)

Guiding Question: How should I say it?

Action: Express ideas in the style that is most persuasive in appealing to the audience.

Elocution is just a fancy classical term for “style.” This is the stage when a student decides how to say what they want to say about their topic. Again, their audience is crucial, and will inform decisions as to whether their work should be spoken or written, formal or informal, source-dense or experience-based. It’s also in elocution where a student may compose stylistic devices such as metaphors, similes, and parallelism to include in their work. However, it’s important not to overuse fancy stylistic devices. This will only confuse the audience, since the argument will get lost in all the extra fluff. As a student should always prioritize clarity over decoration.

Read more about the 5 Canons of Rhetoric: https://classicalconversations.com/blog/five-canons-of-rhetoric

Arrangement (Dispositio)Guiding Question: In what order should I say it?Action: Arrange ideas in a logical and organized...
05/21/2026

Arrangement (Dispositio)

Guiding Question: In what order should I say it?

Action: Arrange ideas in a logical and organized manner.

In arrangement, a student takes ideas from the invention stage and organizes them in a logical manner. As a popular example, arrangement may involve creating a formal outline for a speech, lecture, or essay. However, arrangement is necessary even when creating something like a poster board for a science fair.

Audience is just as important in arrangement as in invention. For instance, many pastors begin their sermons with a joke rather than jumping straight into a Scripture lesson. This is an intentional choice made in the arrangement stage to grab the congregation’s attention immediately and to connect with them emotionally.

Many students think they can ignore the arrangement stage. After all, they can just figure out in what order they will say things when it comes time to say it, right? Wrong. Arrangement is just as important as any of the other canons of rhetoric. Spending time in arrangement will give a student clear direction for what to say when it comes time to say it. It also ensures a logical flow to an argument so that the audience will be able to follow along when reading the essay or hearing the speech.

Read more about the 5 Canons of Rhetoric: https://classicalconversations.com/blog/five-canons-of-rhetoric

Join us for Practicum 2026! Practicum is a day-long live event for parents, containing richness of content and conversa...
05/19/2026

Join us for Practicum 2026! Practicum is a day-long live event for parents, containing richness of content and conversation.

The classical model of education is for everyone, for learning every subject. At Practicum 2026, you’ll discover how the fifteen tools from the classical model can help you engage your student with the Latin conversation that transcends the ages, walking away with the confidence to make your family’s home-centered education more satisfying and effective.

Guided by a trained Classical Conversations leader, you’ll have the chance to practice these classical tools in group discussions with local homeschool parents. Throughout the full-day event, you’ll gain valuable insights and practical tips that can lead you as your child’s best teacher throughout the upcoming academic year and beyond.

Ready to join other homeschool families, discover the classical model of education, and enter the Latin conversation at Practicum 2026? Register at www.canada-cc.ca/events

Saturday, May 23 in Spruce Grove
Other dates & locations are also available

Invention (Inventio)Guiding Question: What should I say?Action: Discover ideas, research, and plan.The first of the Five...
05/14/2026

Invention (Inventio)

Guiding Question: What should I say?

Action: Discover ideas, research, and plan.

The first of the Five Canons of Rhetoric is invention. This is the stage when a student decides what to say before sitting down to write their speech or essay. Put simply, invention is the brainstorming, research, and planning stage of rhetoric.

To brainstorm ideas and narrow in on a specific topic, a student might use a technique like mind mapping, freewriting, or having conversations with others to generate ideas. After selecting a topic, they might conduct research online or in a library to understand what others have said about that topic. The canon of invention may also include planning as a student creates a rough outline, although the bulk of organizing thoughts, ideas, and research comes in the next stage, arrangement.

In each of the Five Canons of Rhetoric, audience matters. In invention, a student must not only select a topic appropriate for their audience, but also research sources that will appeal to that audience.

Read more about the 5 Canons of Rhetoric: https://classicalconversations.com/blog/five-canons-of-rhetoric/

In her book The Conversation, Leigh Bortins defines rhetoric as “the use of knowledge and understanding to perceive wisd...
05/07/2026

In her book The Conversation, Leigh Bortins defines rhetoric as “the use of knowledge and understanding to perceive wisdom, pursue virtue, and proclaim truth.” In other words, true rhetoric involves the expression of truth, goodness, and beauty through speech or writing.

The skill of rhetoric is just as important today as it was when ancient orators like Cicero, Demosthenes, and Quintilian gave their great speeches. It’s a skill necessary to practice to become a great communicator, which is why our Classical Conversations Challenge programs have students practice these tools consistently in community with others.

The skill of rhetoric is best practiced by understanding what are commonly known as the Five Canons of Rhetoric. These canons, or stages, give students of rhetoric clear direction in crafting their speech, essay, lecture, presentation, or other work of rhetoric so that it appeals to their intended audience and persuades them toward truth, goodness, and beauty.

Read more about the 5 Cannons of Rhetoric here: https://classicalconversations.com/blog/five-canons-of-rhetoric/

Applications are open for the upcoming academic year! Contact us to explore how our Christian, classical community can e...
04/30/2026

Applications are open for the upcoming academic year! Contact us to explore how our Christian, classical community can equip and support you as you homeschool.

Finally, we arrive at the fifth common topic of testimony. Practicing testimony is hugely important because we need to t...
04/23/2026

Finally, we arrive at the fifth common topic of testimony. Practicing testimony is hugely important because we need to train our children to recognize when a testimony, authority, or source is credible or not. For example, is a given historical document trustworthy or should we take what it says with a grain of salt?

CATEGORIES

Testimony can be divided into six classes — authority, testimonial, statistics, maxims, laws, and precedents.

Authority – An expert in a subject
Testimonial – Given by someone who witnessed an event firsthand
Statistics – Quantitative data supporting an argument
Maxims – Common knowledge
Laws – A type of testimony encoded in writing and said to be binding
Precedences – Evidence through past examples

EXAMPLE QUESTIONS

Use the following questions as a guideline for practicing testimony to better understand a subject:

What type of testimony does this argument rely on?
Should ___ be considered an authority or expert?
What are this authority’s biases? Do they invalidate his/her testimony?
How recent are these statistics? How were they gathered and by whom?

Read more about the 5 Common Topics at https://classicalconversations.com/blog/five-common-topics-of-dialectic

Curious what our families learn in a year? Come and see! We will share highlights from our year and provide information ...
04/23/2026

Curious what our families learn in a year? Come and see! We will share highlights from our year and provide information on our programs.

Circumstance deals with possibilities, certainties, and probabilities. For instance, when attempting to solve a math equ...
04/16/2026

Circumstance deals with possibilities, certainties, and probabilities. For instance, when attempting to solve a math equation, you may consider whether it’s even solvable with the given variables. Circumstance also helps us understand what else was going on at the same time as a specific event, which, of course, is useful when studying history.

CATEGORIES

The common topic of circumstance can be grouped into possible/impossible and past fact/future fact.

Possible/impossible – Whether something can or can’t happen
Past fact/future fact – Determining whether something has happened in the past or predicting whether it will happen in the future

EXAMPLE QUESTIONS

Use the following questions as a guideline for practicing circumstance to better understand a subject:

Is it possible or impossible to ___?
What might prevent us from ___?
Do we know for sure that ___ occurred?

Read more about the 5 Common Topics at https://classicalconversations.com/blog/five-common-topics-of-dialectic/

Next is the common topic of relationship, a natural follow-up to comparison. Of course, practicing relationship helps us...
04/09/2026

Next is the common topic of relationship, a natural follow-up to comparison. Of course, practicing relationship helps us to understand how our subject is related to other things. If you and your student are learning about the American Revolution, you can consider what events led up to this war (e.g., high taxation, the Boston Massacre) and whether these former events directly caused the latter.

CATEGORIES

This tool can further be categorized into cause/effect, antecedent/consequence, contraries, and contradictions.

Cause/effect – Events, ideas, or actions that directly lead to a given outcome
Antecedent/consequence – Potential good or bad outcomes of events, ideas, and actions
Contraries – Two statements that belong to the same categories but cannot both be true
Contradictions – Two statements where one must be valid and the other invalid

EXAMPLE QUESTIONS

Use the following questions as a guideline for practicing relationship to better understand a subject:

Did ___ cause ___ ?
What will happen if ___?
If ___ is true, what cannot be true?
Are ___ and ___ mutually exclusive, or can they coexist?

Read more about the 5 Common Topics at https://classicalconversations.com/blog/five-common-topics-of-dialectic/

After defining something, we can then compare it to other things to increase our understanding of it. For example, if ou...
04/02/2026

After defining something, we can then compare it to other things to increase our understanding of it. For example, if our topic is Julius Caesar, we can compare Julius Caesar to other Roman emperors, perhaps comparing the length of their reigns or ruling styles.

CATEGORIES

Comparison is commonly classified into similarity, difference, and degree.

Similarity – How two or more things are alike
Difference – How two or more things are different
Degree – To what degree are things similar or different

EXAMPLE QUESTIONS

Use the following questions as a guideline for practicing comparison to better understand a subject:

How is ___ similar to/different from ___?
To what degree is ___ similar to/different from ___?
Is ___ better/worse than ___?

Read more about the 5 Common Topics at https://classicalconversations.com/blog/five-common-topics-of-dialectic/

Address

Spruce Grove, AB

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Classical Conversations Spruce Grove posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share