Consider the circle. It is charming, deceptive, in its appearance of simplicity. The idea of the heavens as defined by circles, the so-called “heavenly spheres”, goes back to such cornerstones of the St. John’s curriculum as Plato, Ptolemy, and Copernicus.But what is a circle, really? Mathematicians have, since Euclid, sought to define this shape in…
Tag: books
Mr Venkatesh’s Top Ten Tips on Preceptorial Papers
Recently, Santa Fe tutor Krishnan Venkatesh sent out some advice to his students on writing St. John’s essays, specifically preceptorial papers, but the advice he gave was relevant to just about any essay written during the course of a St. John’s education. The text of what he sent out was as follows: Some Thoughts on…
Our Favorite College Ghost Stories
I’m Petra Schaaf-Grisham, the newest admissions counselor at St. John’s and a member of the Class of 2021. Through extensive research, my friend Ives Williams and I created a ghost tour of the Annapolis campus of St. John’s College. For my first blog post, on Halloween itself, I want to introduce you to some of the scariest parts…
CTCL – Changing my life and yours
This summer as the pandemic promised to wane, the group of colleges know as the CTCL schools (www.ctcl.org) decided to host a series of in-person college fairs for sophomores, juniors, and rising seniors and their families. Virtual college fairs can certainly do in a pinch and provide much need access to students all over the…
2020 Book Collecting Contest Results
Every year in Annapolis, the Greenfield Library holds a contest through which Johnnies can submit a book collection – a series of personally owned books which are organized around a common theme. Students submit and essay and explain what makes each collection so special. This year, we had some great entries and winners. Below are…
Our Favorite Program Ghosts
Halloween season is upon us, and I thought it might be a good time to share some of our office’s favorite ghostly characters in the books we explore on the St. John’s program. While many of the stories that we read are not “ghost stories” in the modern sense, many things that happen in the…
Game of Tomes – what would our favorite characters be reading?
The Admissions staff figured that some of the characters of ‘Game of Thrones’ would be into some of the books on our Program – we take a stab at which ones in the video below!
Some literary madness: St. John’s Admissions’ “Great Books Bonanza”
I love a good tournament. I’ve seen so many awesome faux-march madness brackets popping up around best Disney/Pixar movies to best pop songs of the 1990’s, so naturally, myself and couple of colleagues came up with the idea of doing a March Madness bracket applied to our very own Program. And so, reader, here is…
World Book Day and the St. John’s College Book Awards 2018!
The first of the 2018 St. John’s College Book Awards will be presented today to two students at a local high school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Teachers and counselors are invited to nominate an outstanding high school junior. We are looking for that student who loves to read, who always has one more question,…
The Chalkboard 