Purple Workbook: A Complete Course for Young Writers, Aspiring Rhetoricians, and Anyone Else Who Needs to Understand How English Works (Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind)

The first of four Workbooks in the Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind series, Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind: Purple Workbook provides detailed, well-designed exercises in the correct use of English grammar, based on great works of literature as well as classic and contemporary works of science and history.

Purple Workbook, along with the accompanying Key and the Core Instructor Text, make up a full year of Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind: a complete course that takes students from basic definitions (“A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea”) through advanced sentence structure and analysis―all the grammar skills needed to write and speak with eloquence and confidence.

This innovative program combines the three essential elements of language learning: understanding and memorizing rules (prescriptive teaching), repeated exposure to examples of how those rules are used (descriptive instruction), and practice using those rules in exercises and in writing (practical experience).
Each year, parents and teachers go through the dialogue, rules, and examples in the Core Instructor Text; students follow along in the Workbook. This repetition solidifies the concepts, definitions, and examples in the student’s mind.

There are four Workbooks. Each Workbook contains the same rules and examples―but four completely different sets of exercises and assignments, allowing students to develop a wide-ranging knowledge of how the rules and examples are put to use in writing.

The Workbook comes with its own Key, providing not only answers, but also explanations for the parent/instructor, and guidance as to when the answers might be ambiguous (as, in English, they often are).

All of the rules covered, along with the repeated examples for each, are assembled for ongoing reference in the Comprehensive Handbook of Rules. This will become the student’s indispensable guide to writing through high school, into college and beyond.

• Step-by-step instruction takes students from the most basic concepts through advanced grammatical concepts such as modal and hortative verbs and multiple functions of noun clauses.
• Extensive diagramming exercises reinforce the rules and help technical and visual learners to understand and use the English language effectively. Each step of the diagramming process is illustrated and thoroughly explained to the student.
• Text for examples and exercises are drawn from great works of literature, as well as from well-written nonfiction texts in science, mathematics, and the social sciences.
• Regular review is built into each year of work.
• The first of four non-sequential workbooks, each containing new exercises that allow students to practice and apply the grammar principles under study.