The lay out of Diogenes Maxim

[Lene Mahler Jaqua]

The lay out of Diogenes Maxim is linear. Start at the beginning and go to the end. Each day has an analysis and imitation lesson(or a theory lesson of grammar) and one step in the writing project. It is actually laid out very well for a co-op setting, that is a small homeschool class room setting, since most of our homeschool moms that continue in junior high and up teach in co-ops.

There are only two components to Diogenes
1. a daily lesson (oral discussion or writing or both)
2. a step in the writing project (day 1 outline, day 2 draft, day 3 macro edit, day 4 micro edit)

So every day you will:

1. teach the lesson in the main unit. Those lessons vary from
a. grammar lesson with application on short literature passage
b. teaching a paragraph type (introduction, paraphrase, encomium, cause, example, comparison, testimony or conclusion)
c. discussion of literary passage
d. analysis and imitation of literary passage (dissecting words and sentences in great literature and putting them back together in student’s own imitation)

2. teach or review or (if familiar) simply assign a step in the writing project, as mentioned above.

The students write one writing project per week and do as homework whatever they don’t complete in the main lessons.

Our week is set up only with 4 days, assuming 4 x 45 minutes of student contact time per week.