By Kristy Adjei
May 2024
Driving around the suburbs in our area, one would typically spot a sign or placard welcoming a visitor to the town, and stating the accomplishments of the local high school. Some schools are known for stellar athletics or theater programs. Others have their world-class and state of the art facilities. Some may be known for their cutting edge use of technology in the classroom. Truth be told, North Star Classical Christian school does not currently have any of those things. What we do have, though, is the Senior Thesis.
What is the Senior Thesis? The Senior Thesis is a year-long capstone project that ties together all aspects of the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), and serves as the culmination of the previous twelve years of education. The Senior Thesis has its roots all the way back to the medieval approach to education summarized succinctly by Dorothy Sayers in her 1948 paper entitled "The Lost Tools of Learning". Sayers explains:
"At the end of his course, he (the student) was required to compose a thesis upon some theme set by his masters or chosen by himself, and afterwards to defend his thesis against the criticism of the faculty. By this time he would have learned—or woe betide him—not merely to write an essay on paper, but to speak audibly and intelligibly from a platform, and to use his wits quickly when heckled... But there would also be questions, cogent and shrewd, from those who had already run the gauntlet of debate..."
The intended outcome for the Senior Thesis is formation. Immersing themselves in one question for nine months will cultivate students who think critically, reason logically, and communicate winsomely. The Senior Thesis pushes them towards this goal because the scope and sequence of the project requires the soft skills of thinking deeply, long-range focus, perseverance, organization, and tenacity; and the hard skills of learning how to research, write, speak, and present.
Although 2026 will be the year the first class of students will graduate from North Star, we have a proactive plan and program in place to make the Senior Thesis a reality and requisite for completing one's education at our institution. Our students - from Kindergarten up - are working on their DaVinci Notebook, which is a simplified version of the Senior Thesis. There are different levels of complexity and involvement for different grades, but students (depending on age) are learning to work independently, to research something of interest to them, to learn how to look up books at the library, how to use research databases, how to differentiate between different types of articles (popular, substantive, and scholarly), keep a works-cited page, contact and communicate with an expert in their field, look for elements of beauty related to their topic, present their findings in a structured and logical way, and to respond to questions from an audience.
In addition to this, our Rhetoric-age students have started learning and practicing formal Rhetoric in courses which focus on the five canons of rhetoric: Invention, Arrangement, Elocution, Memory, and Delivery. Last Friday, these students witnessed a thesis presentation given by students at Classical Consortium Academy in Barrington, IL. Faculty, students, and parents gained a tangible vision for the future. They left with a mixture of awe and inspiration at the quality of the presentations. By God's grace, someday they will leave audience members for their presentations feeling the same way.
I have never been welcomed to a neighboring suburb with a "Home of 2024 Senior Thesis Presenters" sign. I do not know of a single modern school that offers this time-tested and ageless opportunity to their students as a requisite of graduation. However, if you visit the North Star campus after 2026, by God's enablement, you will see signs and portraits honoring our Senior Thesis presenters. These will be portraits of our graduates - students who have been seeped in an educational environment that has been gently pushing them towards authentic faith, intellectual virtues, a critical mind, compelling communication, and a purposeful perspective. This is our vision of a graduate.
©Kristy Adjei | This article was first published in North Star May Newsletter Edition, May 2024.