The Lost Tools of Writing (CiRCE)

The Lost Tools of Writing is the CiRCE Institute's classical writing program, and it is the only widely used American homeschool writing curriculum that teaches composition as a branch of rhetoric rather than as a branch of language arts.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Classical (rhetoric-based, five-canons progymnasmata-adjacent)
Worldview	Christian-ecumenical (classical Christian; denomination-agnostic)
Grades	6-12 (primarily middle school through high school)
Formats	Print text and workbook; streaming video; live online courses
Cost tier	Premium
Parent intensity	4
ESA-common	No
Accredited	No
Established	2006, per the CiRCE Institute
Website	circeinstitute.org

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	5	One of the most intellectually serious writing programs in the homeschool market
Ease of teaching	2	Requires parent investment in the method; CiRCE expects teacher training
Content quality	5	Tight conceptual framework; polished materials; genuinely substantive
Flexibility	3	Can plug into any curriculum as the writing block, but has its own internal logic
Value for money	3	Expensive, especially with video and training; justifiable for the committed
Worldview scope	4	Classical Christian register; content itself is not sectarian
Visual/design	4	Professional, clean, designed for serious study
Support resources	5	Deep: video, live courses, teacher conferences, podcast, author network

Who the publisher is

The CiRCE Institute is a classical education institute founded by Andrew Kern in the late 1990s, based in Concord, North Carolina. CiRCE stands for Consulting and Integrated Resources for Classical Education and operates as a nonprofit focused on classical Christian pedagogy, teacher training, conferences, publications, a podcast network, and a small set of curriculum titles. Kern himself is one of the most cited voices in contemporary classical education; his essays and conference talks are staples of classical co-op teacher prep, and his podcast The Daily Poem and the institute's Commonplace Podcast have substantial followings among classical homeschool parents.

The Lost Tools of Writing is CiRCE's flagship curriculum product. Level I was released in 2006 and has been revised periodically since; Levels II and III followed, extending the sequence from introductory persuasive writing through advanced rhetorical argument. The curriculum emerged from Kern's conviction that modern writing instruction, prompt-based, personal-narrative-centered, process-focused, had lost the classical tradition of teaching writing as rhetoric. The program is explicitly modeled on the classical five canons of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, elocution, memory, and delivery) and draws on progymnasmata, the stepwise rhetorical exercises used in Greek and Roman education.

CiRCE's stance toward the program is distinctive: the institute strongly encourages parents to complete teacher training before teaching the curriculum. CiRCE runs live and recorded teacher training courses for Lost Tools, and many co-ops that adopt the curriculum require instructors to have completed the training. This is unusual in the homeschool market; most publishers sell a product and trust the parent to open it. CiRCE sells a product and argues that the parent should first learn to use it.

The core pedagogy

The Lost Tools of Writing teaches writing through the five classical canons of rhetoric, with the persuasive essay as the central form students learn to produce. Level I introduces the persuasive essay structure: an issue (a question with two sides), a thesis (the writer's position), three proofs (arguments from defined topics of invention), and a conclusion. Students learn to generate arguments using the five classical common topics, definition, comparison, circumstance, relationship, and testimony, which the curriculum presents as tools for invention, not just categories of thought.

Scope and sequence is vertical, not horizontal. Level I is not an introduction-to-writing survey; it is a full year devoted to learning to produce one form (the persuasive essay) well. Students write five-paragraph persuasive essays on assigned literary or historical issues: Should Odysseus have stayed with Calypso? Should Huck have returned Jim to Miss Watson? The essays are not exercises in personal opinion; they are exercises in generating arguments from the topics, arranging them in classical order, and expressing them in precise prose. Level II deepens the same structure with more sophisticated invention and arrangement; Level III moves into advanced rhetorical argumentation, treating the persuasive essay as scaffolding for broader rhetorical analysis and composition.

Signature mechanics: (1) Invention through the topics, the curriculum's most distinctive feature. Students are taught systematic methods to generate arguments rather than simply write what they think. (2) Persuasive essay as central form, one form, practiced repeatedly and deepened across levels, on the classical premise that mastery of form precedes variety. (3) ANI chart, a structured planning tool where students generate arguments affirmative and negative and interesting (not merely pro/con), a distinctive piece of the Lost Tools method that parents and students remember by name. (4) Teacher training ethos, the curriculum assumes a trained adult guide, not a self-teaching student; the teacher's guide reads like a seminar reading rather than an answer key.

A day in the life

A ninth-grader working through Lost Tools Level I in a home-and-co-op hybrid arrangement typically has writing scheduled three to four days a week, roughly forty-five to sixty minutes per session, with the co-op meeting once a week for discussion and workshop. Monday's home session: the student reads the assigned literary or historical source (say, a chapter of The Odyssey) and identifies the issue at stake. Tuesday: the student works through the ANI chart, generating arguments from the topics. What is courage? How is Odysseus's choice like or unlike some other choice? What are the circumstances that shape the decision?, with the parent acting as sounding board. Wednesday: the student drafts the persuasive essay using the arrangement the curriculum prescribes. Thursday or Friday: the co-op meeting, where students workshop drafts with peers and a trained instructor. The student then revises and submits.

The parent's role is substantial. Lost Tools is not a fill-in-the-blank workbook; it is a method that the parent must understand well enough to coach. Parents who have not completed CiRCE teacher training can still run the program from the teacher's guide, but the return on investment is higher when the parent has attended a CiRCE conference or completed one of the online training courses. Families who cannot commit that time often enroll in CiRCE's live online Lost Tools courses, where a CiRCE-trained instructor teaches the curriculum directly and the parent steps back.

What they do exceptionally well

Systematic invention. Most writing programs assume students will have something to say; Lost Tools assumes they will not and teaches them how to generate arguments. The common topics, as operationalized in the ANI chart and invention exercises, are a genuinely rare pedagogical asset in American homeschool writing. Students who complete Level I come out able to generate multiple lines of argument on unfamiliar questions, a skill that transfers to standardized testing, college application essays, and intellectual life generally.

Intellectual seriousness. The curriculum assumes its students are capable of real thought and treats them accordingly. Essay prompts engage substantive literary and historical questions; model essays in the teacher's guide are written at a genuine persuasive register; the teacher's guide itself reads like an essay on pedagogy. Parents who have used shallower writing programs and wanted something more will recognize what Lost Tools is doing.

Support infrastructure. CiRCE's ecosystem is the deepest in classical education. Teacher training courses, annual conferences in multiple regions, live online courses, a podcast network, a book club, and an active author community mean that a family using Lost Tools is never working alone if they do not want to be.

What they do poorly

Parent demand. The program expects a parent who has read the teacher's guide carefully, ideally completed a training course, and can coach an adolescent through generative thinking. Parents who want to hand a student a workbook and check answers will struggle. CiRCE is transparent about this expectation, but families sometimes underestimate it.

Slow pace by conventional metrics. A student spends an entire academic year in Level I learning to write five-paragraph persuasive essays on assigned topics. Families coming from prompt-rich programs (IEW, Brave Writer) often feel Lost Tools is producing too little variety. The curriculum's premise is that depth of form precedes breadth of form; parents who disagree with that premise will be frustrated.

Cost stack. Level I materials alone are reasonable, but the full Lost Tools experience, curriculum, teacher training, live online class, CiRCE conferences, stacks into real money. Families who want "just the workbook" can get that, but they are using the program differently than CiRCE designed it.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Lost Tools of Writing if: you want classical rhetoric as the frame for writing instruction; you can invest in teacher training or a live course; you value depth over breadth of form; your student is a middle-school or high-school writer ready for intellectual work; you want a curriculum that treats composition as thinking, not expression; you are part of or can join a classical co-op where other Lost Tools families are working.

• Skip Lost Tools of Writing if: you want open-and-go writing with minimal parent preparation; you want variety of forms (narrative, descriptive, research paper) from day one; your student is elementary-age (Lost Tools does not serve K-5 and does not pretend to); you want a secular writing program with no classical-Christian framing; you are price-sensitive and cannot take on the full stack.

Cost honest assessment

As of April 2026, the Lost Tools of Writing Level I student workbook and teacher's guide runs approximately $89-$109 per set from the CiRCE store. The streaming video course for Level I adds approximately $100-$150. A live online Lost Tools course through CiRCE runs approximately $400-$650 per semester depending on term and enrollment tier. CiRCE teacher training for Lost Tools runs approximately $150-$300 per course.

A realistic all-in for a ninth-grader using the curriculum with the video track and the parent completing a teacher training course: $300-$500 for the year. With a live online course instead of video: $500-$800. This places Lost Tools firmly in the premium tier of homeschool writing programs.

Compared to Institute for Excellence in Writing's Structure and Style (roughly $200-$400 all in at an equivalent grade level), Classical Academic Press's Writing and Rhetoric series (roughly $40-$80 per volume, multiple volumes per year), and Brave Writer's Help for High School (roughly $75-$100), Lost Tools is the most expensive of the commonly cited classical-and-adjacent writing programs. It is also the only one that treats writing as a branch of rhetoric.

ESA eligibility notes

The Lost Tools of Writing curriculum materials are available through various ESA-eligible marketplaces where CiRCE's general curriculum line is listed. Arizona's ClassWallet, Florida's MyScholarShop, and Utah Fits All have generally allowed CiRCE purchases where submitted. Live online CiRCE courses are sometimes reimbursable as tutoring; rules vary. Families should verify Lost Tools eligibility in their specific state before ordering, particularly for the live course component, which some states treat differently than curriculum materials. Because the curriculum is Christian-ecumenical in tone rather than sectarian, religious-materials restrictions generally do not apply.

Alternatives

• Institute for Excellence in Writing Structure and Style, a family would pick IEW over Lost Tools because IEW is more scripted, easier for a parent to run without training, and covers a wider variety of writing forms (narrative, research, literary analysis) within the same year.
• Classical Academic Press Writing and Rhetoric, a family would pick CAP because Writing and Rhetoric teaches progymnasmata directly across twelve short volumes, at a lower per-volume price, with video support built in.
• Memoria Press Classical Composition (Jim Selby), a family would pick Memoria's Classical Composition because it teaches the progymnasmata sequence as a classical writing spine, with DVD instruction, within the Memoria Press ecosystem.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed the Lost Tools of Writing product pages, teacher training descriptions, and sample lessons on circeinstitute.org in April 2026, cross-referenced against Cathy Duffy Reviews and classical co-op published syllabi that adopt the curriculum. Pricing was confirmed from the live CiRCE store in April 2026. Founding and release dates were confirmed against CiRCE's own historical timeline.