Classical Curriculum Guide

 

This list contains the writings that have generally been held to be the core of Western intellectual history. They provide an excellent opportunity to understand and critique the influences that have shaped Western culture. Unless we teach our children to understand the past, we have not given them the tools to critique the present with a biblical world view. These books have been organized in a loosely historical sequence with a few exceptions being made for pedagogical reasons. To print this table properly, please set your left and right margins to zero under "page setup."

 

Year  Great Books  History Topics  Math/Sci.  Language 
1st  HOMER- Iliad, Odyssey 
AESCHYLUS- Agamemnon 
Eumenides, Libation Bearers 
SOPHOCLES- Oedipus Rex 
Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone 
ARISTOTLE- Poetics 
PLUTARCH- Greek Lives 
HERODOTUS- The History 
PLATO- Gorgias, Meno, Euthyphro 
Apology, Crito, Phaedo 
CLEMENT- Exhortation to Greeks 
Delian League 
Solon, Lycurgus 
Pericles 
Alcibiades, Lysander 
Persian War 
Thermopylae, Salamis 
Marathon, Plataea 
Darius I, Xerxes I 
Algebra 1

Life 
Science 

ANCIENT 
Greek 
Hebrew 
Latin 
2nd  THUCYDIDES- Peloponnesian War 
PLATO- Republic, Theatetus 
ARISTOTLE- Physics, De Anima 
Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics 
VIRGIL - Aeneid 
PLUTARCH- Roman Lives 
TACITUS- Annals 
LUCRETIUS- On the Nature of 
Things 
ATHANASIUS- On the Incarnation 
 
Peloponnesian War 
Philip II, Alexander 
Roman Republic 
Augustus 
Caesars 
Roman Expansion 
Constantine 
Euclid's 
Elements
 

Physical 
Science 

3rd   
AUGUSTINE- Confessions, City of God 
ANSELM- Proslogium, 
Monologium, Cur Deus Homo 
AQUINAS- Summa Theologica 
DANTE - Divine Comedy 
CHAUCER- Canterbury Tales 
SHAKESPEARE- As You Like It; Henry IV, Part I; Richard II 
MACHIAVELLI- The Prince 
Church fathers- 
Augustine, Origen 
Tertullian 
Justin Martyr, Polycarp 
Church Councils- Lyons 
Nicaea, Constantinople 
Rise of Islam 
Holy Roman Empire 
Roman Catholic Church 
Orthodox Church 
"Euclidian
Geometry" 

Biology 

 
4th  CERVANTES- Don Quixote 
CALVIN- Institutes 
LUTHER- Commentary on Galatians
BACH- St. Matthew Passion
MONTAIGNE- Essays 
BACON- Novum Organon 
DESCARTES- Discourse on Method, Meditations 
PASCAL- Pensee 
MILTON- Paradise Lost
SPINOZA- Monadology, Ethics
HUME- Treatise on Human Nature
VERMEER- Woman Holding a Balance 
SWIFT- Gulliver's Travels
AUSTEN- Emma, Pride and Prejudice
Crusades 
Ottoman Empire 
Renaissance 
Reformation 
30 Years War 
English Political History 
Rise of Proquizantism 
Huguenots 
American Puritans 
Alg. 2 

Chemistry 

Shakespeare
MODERN 
German 
French 
Spanish 
5th  LOCKE- Second Treatise on Government
ROUSSEAU - Discourse, Social Contract
SHAKESPEARE- The Tempest 
KANT- Prolegomena 
Foundation of Metaphysics of Morals 
LOCKE- Treatise on Government 
ROUSSEAU- Social Contract 
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality 
SMITH - Wealth of Nations 
TWAIN - Huckleberry Finn 
American foundational documents 
TOLSTOY- War and Peace 
HEGEL- Phenomenology of Spirit 
MARX- Capital 
KIERKEGAARD- Fear and Trembling 
NIETZSCHE- Beyond Good and Evil 
DOSTOEVSKY- Brothers Karamazov 
TOCQUEVILLE- Democracy in America 
LINCOLN- Speeches 
FREUD- Interpretation of Dreams 
The Ego and the Id 
HUSSERL - Phenomenology 
LEWIS- God in the Dock, Essays 
Enlightenment 
Enlightened Despots 
French Revolution 
American Revolution 
Rise of Liberalism 
Industrialization 
American Expansion 
German Political History 
Napoleon 
American Civil War 
Pre-Calc/
Advanced
Mathematics 

Physics I 


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