To know God and to make Him known

Challenge III

Age 16+

All Choices Bring Consequences

Challenge III students pursue a more fully embodied understanding and presentation of truth, goodness, and beauty through poetry, essays, readings, speeches, debates, and, above all, conversations firmly grounded in Christian ideals.

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A family hugging outside

Cultivate the Garden of Your Mind

Caesar and Cicero, Shakespeare and poetry, as well as American history, chemistry, music, philosophy, and mathematics are the gardens in which Challenge III cultivate their conversations. Through each area of homeschool study, high school-aged students discover their unique place in the overarching story of mankind’s search for knowledge and justice and the consequences of their choices.

Using all Five Canons of Rhetoric, students hone the art of effective and beautiful communication with their fellow man. This is an incredibly enriching high school homeschool program where parents will continue to see the rewards of their educational investment into their teenagers. Students are also able to earn college credits through our CC Plus program, should they desire.

Challenge Yourself to See the Truth

The Six Strands of Challenge III

Each additional building block brings us closer to Divine knowledge. Each week, students further their understanding and discuss assigned concepts from precalculus. Conversations held at home and within their community group seminar synthesize the ideas of relationships, shapes, higher order equations, variables, Euclidean proofs, and trigonometry functions.

To know His world is to understand its every component. Students spend the year immersed in the field of chemistry as this seminar offers a combination of labs and math tutorials. Students hone observation skills through hands-on science labs and witness the consequences of chemical combinations. Students build their own notebook, write lab reports, and complete additional scientific research at home.

French novelist Victor Hugo said, “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.” In the first semester, Challenge III homeschool students learn the fundamental principles of music (from keyboard notation and key signatures to chords and triads) in the context of analyzing familiar hymn scores. The course provides students with vocabulary and conceptual knowledge that builds on their study of Western Cultural History in Challenge II.

In the second semester, students focus on Philosophy. Your high school-aged student can practice how to outline the text and prepare discussion questions at home each week. Besides examining the major ideas of influential philosophers, students work on the Five Canons of Rhetoric—invention, arrangement, elocution, memory, delivery—and improve their public presenting skills through student-led group seminars.

The past is a roadmap for the future. With a year-long focus on American history, students read and study the text, write and present essays that relate to various events in American history, polish presentation skills through a variety of forensics events, and compile events into a timeline. In their weekly community group seminar, students participate in Socratic discussions about events and philosophical ideas that shaped America, all firmly grounded in a Christian worldview.

Only by mastering a language can we appreciate all of its subtleties and nuances. In both semesters, students continue to follow Caesar’s footsteps in his conquest of Gaul and, later, to his final breath at the Senate in Rome. Next, students turn to the great oratory of Cicero, one of the finest Roman statesmen, who skillfully defends the ideals of a republic against a tyranny. Students encounter the elements of stylistic devices applied to political eloquence. They witness the intrigue of Cicero’s day, while gaining a deeper understanding of the art of rhetorical speaking.

Great thinkers are not limited by genre. This course requires students to read five Shakespeare plays, a Christian commentary guide of the plays, and a book on poetry. Students write an in-depth analysis of a chosen aspect from each play and create a poetry anthology of their own work. In community group seminar, students lead and participate in discussions about each play and present memorized lines in dramatic interpretation. Between plays, students present poetry readings and discuss poetic forms.

We embrace a real-world approach in all aspects of our education. Local directors can choose to offer a yearly formal event for Challenge students to better learn how to interact with their communities and each other.

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Having both graduated from the CLC, we have appreciated the transformative influence in our marriage, family, and local community relationships. We practice hospitable assessment when mentoring others or solving problems at work and home.

John and Rebecca

Completing the CLC was the best thing I have done in terms of taking my skills as a classical educator to the next level… it deepened my understanding of the classical skills of learning and more clearly revealed to me the connection between education and discipleship.

Lauren

When parents and tutors invest time, talent and treasure into the CLC as mentees, they find they come away refined as human beings in how they live and lead at home and in community, CC and otherwise.

Abby

By far, the single best thing that has helped me direct and talk with parents, has been the CLC. It has helped me be a better director, a better parent, and a better leader.

Jennifer

The CLC points us to the Lord and guides us to find truth, beauty and goodness in the subjects we study, but also the relationships within our group, with our families, and with our CC communities.

Kristin

As I have attended the CLC and CLC practicums, I have found fellowship with others…the Mentors in particular, who have poured into my life and understanding the balm of gentle and kind assessment, leading me to even more faith and good works.

Charity

CLC was the perfect amount of time: every other week for two hours, with six meetings. It was manageable and the cost was well worth it! The lessons my mentor presented each time were great, and it was a growing experience.

Kristen

CLC has been great in helping me follow a form in preparing my lessons at home . . . I think through the lessons . . . and how to relate them to the students and create a desire to learn the material. The questions have been very helpful in assessing that the students are following the lessons, too.

Angela

The CLC has had the single largest positive impact on my growth as a classical educator. It is the reason my class feels successful on community day, and it has changed how I give assessment.

Laura G

My Essentials classes are far more engaging, and I am able to clearly see the important pieces of the lesson . . . with the specific students I am walking with, and I’m better able to bring those two elements together in a meaningful way.

Cheree

This has given me so much confidence in . . . my own skills, a desire to seek to improve in showing hospitality to my students, and encouragement that other moms are out there doing the same thing each week!

Brenna

It has helped me grow in leading my classes and my own children to be more efficient, classical, confident, and gracious.

Stephanie

The CLC has given me the confidence to teach my children at home and to lead Essentials in my community.

Courtney

The cohort does a great job of helping parents, teachers, and directors, feel equipped to lead a lesson and a conversation. Each semester [builds] on the previous one nicely, giving a well-rounded picture.

Jakki
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