About the Authors
The Classical Writing team consists of
four homeschool moms of a total of sixteen students, who at the present
time (spring 2008) range from the early twenties down to grade school
age.
We live in four different states across the United States, and not all
of us have met face to face yet.
 Lene
Jaqua lives with her family in Firestone, Colorado. She has a
Ph.D. in physics but has of late focused on classics and the
humanities as part of her research to write the Classical
Writing series. Her youngest son Benjamin was born with Down
Syndrome, and special needs parent-to-parent support is one of
Lene’s many interests. She also quilts, knits socks, cooks
Indian food, sings in an acapella choir, and writes novels. |
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 Tracy Gustilo has four children, two of whom have graduated from
homeschooling. She grew up in the Midwest and attended public schools.
In college and graduate school she studied philosophy and biology,
earning her doctorate in 1995. Tracy’s enthusiasm for classical
education grew after meeting many accomplished homeschoolers
online—including Lene, Kathy, and Carolyn—and she founded the Classical
Co-op website to promote cooperation between Christian parents and
teachers. Her work on Classical Writing springs from her interest in
persuasive writing (rhetoric) and in the classical world, especially the
Church Fathers. She is known for asking and re-asking the question,
"What IS a classical education, anyway?" Tracy, her husband Nick, and
their children currently reside in Kansas. |
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 Kathy Weitz and her husband Rick live in Virginia with their six
children, ranging in age from twenty down to eight. She has educated her
children at home since 1994, and has graduated her oldest two sons,
Joshua and Caleb. Ethan (15), Grace (12), Daniel (10), and Connor (8)
remain at home, and are the primary testers for the Classical Writing
workbooks. Kathy, who has a B.S. in Home Economics from Virginia Tech,
stays busy pursuing a classical education for herself as well as her
children, and has developed a passion for Latin and the classics. The
Weitz family enjoys practicing hospitality, reading aloud together,
watching old movies, and long (and often loud!) discussions around the
dinner table. |
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 Carolyn Vance homeschools her two children, Abigail (10) and Patrick
(9), in Minnesota with her husband Dan. She has always been drawn to
languages, and enjoyed them so much in college that her major changed
from Computer Engineering to Russian. In 2003, she had the privilege of
editing a portion of Classical Writing—Poetry, and has been editing and
proofing for Classical Writing since then. Her favorite leisure activity
is curling up on the couch under a homemade quilt with her knitting, a
book, and a cup of cocoa. |
History
The Classical Writing series has its
beginnings in 2002, when Tracy Davis Gustilo and Lene Mahler Jaqua wrote
the first Classical Writing book, entitled
Aesop. Their aim was to help other parents and teachers
following classical educations methods to teach students the first
exercise in the progymnasmata series.
Our second book was
Poetry for Beginners, was written in 2003. It is a supplementary
enrichment text for teaching writing, specifically with analysis and
imitation of poetry in mind. Both of these books were field tested prior
to publication by several home educating parents from the Trivium-at-Home
group. At this point Carolyn Vance joined us as editor-in-chief.
2004 saw the publication of
Homer, the second book in the main
series. About this same time, Kathy Weitz, a homeschool mom and fan of
our books, was beginning to make up her own workbooks to ease the
preparation work for teaching her students using the Classical Writing
series. Kathy showed us her workbooks, we were totally impressed. In
2005, she joined our team, and with blazing speed had Student Workbooks
and Instructor’s Guides with answer keys ready. In addition, she put
together long asked-for workbooks for
Harvey’s Elementary Grammar.
In 2005, Tracy decided that it was necessary to step back from writing
and developing Classical Writing books due to family committments, but
she remains an integral part of the team as Lene’s consultant and first
field tester.
Since then,
Diogenes Maxim and
Intermediate Poetry, our
first books for middle school and up, along with their accompanying
Student Guides, have been published. Diogenes Maxim includes beginning
writing of standard five paragraph essays. The second book in the
Intermediate level,
Diogenes Chreia, is currently in beta
testing.
For the high school level, production is well along on the first books,
Herodotus and
Advanced Poetry. Lene has begun writing
Plutarch as well. The final books in the Classical Writing series,
Shakespeare and
Demosthenes, are on the horizon.
