Why Great Books?
Textbooks tell students what to think about history and literature. Great books let students think for themselves.
When students read Homer, Augustine, Shakespeare, or Dostoevsky in their own words (or faithful translations), they encounter ideas with full force. They wrestle with questions about truth, justice, beauty, and human nature that textbook summaries flatten into bullet points.
This is not about intellectual snobbery. It is about giving students access to the best thinking humanity has produced and trusting them to engage with it.
How It Works
At Saints Classical, the great books approach looks different at each stage:
- Grammar stage (K-5): Living books - real authors writing about history, science, nature, and biography. No dry textbooks. Students narrate what they read, building deep comprehension.
The Charlotte Mason emphasis on living books in the early years builds naturally into the great books tradition in upper school.
What Students Read
Reading lists are curated to build on each other across the years. Students encounter works from classical antiquity, the medieval period, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the modern era - always within a biblical worldview that asks: what is true here? What is beautiful? What is good?
Contact us for specific reading lists by grade level.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Reading selections are carefully curated for each grade level. Younger students read living books appropriate to their age. Challenging themes in upper school texts are discussed within a biblical framework with teacher guidance.
The tutorial model helps. Teachers guide discussion on campus, and the home-day structure gives students time for sustained, uninterrupted reading. Narration (retelling in their own words) builds comprehension even before students are strong independent readers.
Scripture is integrated throughout all subjects. The Bible is treated as the foundational text - the lens through which all other books are understood.
Contact us for grade-specific reading lists and curriculum details.
The "great books" are the foundational works of Western civilization — texts that have shaped how humanity thinks about truth, beauty, goodness, justice, and God. They include Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Plato's Republic, Virgil's Aeneid, Augustine's Confessions, Dante's Divine Comedy, Shakespeare's plays, and many others. At Saints Classical Academy, students read these works in full — not excerpts — as part of a curriculum that spans the entire Western tradition from ancient Greece to the modern era.
Saints Classical Academy in Spring Hill, TN (30 minutes south of Nashville) uses a great books curriculum throughout its K-12 program. Students read complete works — from picture books and Narnia in elementary school to Homer, Augustine, Shakespeare, and Dostoevsky in high school. The great books are integrated with history, theology, and Socratic discussion.