Composition Topics for Your Students

 A Dahlia in my dad's garden

The following are to be used as topics for composition writing. I always enjoyed coming up with topics and challenging the Roy Academy students to really think through their responses. It would also be a profitable exercise for the head mistress of your homeschool (mom) to write a composition or two from these subjects.

1. "Innocence is better than repentance."
2. The Adult I Wish to be
3. How to Motivate Myself to do a Hard Task
4. My Letter to a United States Soldier
5. The Benefits Within and Without of "Preferring Others"
6. Define True Success
7. How does your tone of voice affect a conversation?
8. The View From My Window
9. The Power of Influence
10. Books and How They Affect Your Life
11.The Perfect Day
12. Integrity: What is it and why is it important?
13. How can you comfort someone who is going through a trial? (Try James 1)
14. Describe the benefits of heeding the following advice:
       "Give to thy God the first thought of each day,
        At night, before sleep invade, reflect and pray."
15. "Govern thy passion." Describe for me the ill-effects of irritability and temper.
16. "Humility becomes a dependent being." Explain.
17. "What you are to be, you are now becoming." Explain.
18. "People see God every day, they just don't recognize Him." How can this be?
19. How does the love of "things" corrupt your heart?
20. "Value wisdom over gold." What is "wisdom" and how do you personally value it?
21. What are the benefits of being homeschooled?
22. The greatest thing I can do for somebody else is...
23. Politeness and its Effect on Others.
24. The Privilege of Prayer. What is a "privilege"? Who is listening to your prayers? Who is talking?   Where is our confidence that He will hear?
25. When I am 30 years old, this is what I think my life will look like...
26. How can you be a delight to the LORD?
27. How can peace in your heart affect those around you?
28. Kind Words and the Effect it has on Others.
29. In reference to the Bible, explain the saying, "This Book will keep me from sin, or sin will keep   me from this Book." Why do I capitalize all references to the Bible?
30. How can humility bring contentment?

Is it Scripture or is it Shakespeare?

     Christian, know thy Bible well. We ought not to be quoting Shakespeare when we mean to quote Scripture. Use the following poem written by Mr. Shakespeare to find the sayings often attributed to our Bible. Compare these to the actual Scripture. Then, find the Scriptural principles expressed and list them with a good Scripture reference teaching the principle.

Summer, 2015

This Above All
Shakespeare

And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel,
but do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched unfledged comrade. Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear't, that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

A Holiday Assignment

     Oh, the blessedness of a true work borne out of a true heart! Giving opportunity to your dear children to spend time with a master and his work is a worthy pursuit. The heart of the writer, the composer, the painter is surely seen in his work. As Tomas Carlyle said, "Genuine work done faithfully, that is eternal." 
     Handel's Messiah has stood the test of time. It is a work worthy of your attention. My copy is The London Philharmonic Orchestra and choir , conducted by John Alldis, 2002.

Mr. Handel’s Messiah

Assignment: Listen to each tract, then place a check on the provided line. Next, using the Strong’s Concordance and your Bible, locate and list the verse that Mr. Handel put to music.

Disc One

1. Overture _____
2. Comfort Ye My People _____
3. Every Valley Shall Be Exalted _____
4. And the Glory of the Lord _____
5. Thus Saith the Lord _____
6. But Who May Abide the Day of His Coming _____
7. And He Shall Purify _____
8. Behold, A Virgin Shall Conceive _____
9. O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings To Zion ____
10. For, Behold, A Darkness Shall Cover The Earth ____
11. The People That Walked in Darkness _____
12. For Unto Us a Child is Born _____
13. Pastoral Symphony _____
14. There Were Shepherds Abiding in the Field _____
15. And the Angel Said Unto Them ____
16. And Suddenly There Was With the Angel _____
17. Glory to God ____
18. Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion _____
19. Then Shall the Eyes of the Blind be Opened _____
20. He Shall Feed His Flock Like a Shepherd _____
21. His Yoke is Easy, And His Burden in Light _____
22. Behold the Lamb of God _____
23. He Was Despised _____

Disc Two

1. Surely He hath Borne Our Griefs _____
2. And With His Stripes We Are Healed _____
3. All We Like Sheep Have Gone Astray _____
4. All They That See Him Laugh Him to Scorn _____
5. He Trusted in God that He Would Deliver Him _____
6. Thy Rebuke Hath Broken His Heart _____
7. Behold, and See if There be any Sorrow _____
8. He Was cut off Out of the Land of the Living _____
9. But Thou Didst Not Leave His Soul in Hell _____
10. Lift Up Your Heads, O Ye Gates _____
11. How Beautiful are the Feet of Them _____
12. Their Sound is Gone Out Into all Lands _____
13. Why do the Nations so Furiously Rage ______
14. Let us Break their Bonds Asunder ______
15. He That Dwelleth in Heaven _____
16. Thou Shalt Break Them _____
17. Hallelujah! _____
18. I Know That My Redeemer Liveth ____
19. Since By Man Came Death _____
20. Behold, I Tell You a Mystery _____
21. The Trumpet Shall Sound _____
22. Then Shall be Brought to Pass ____
23. O Death, Where is Thy Sting? _____
24. But Thanks be to God _____
25. If God Be For Us, Who Can Be Against Us? _____
26. Worthy is the Lamb _____