Quintilian advises a progressive introduction into the art of eloquence, beginning with grammar, which students should largely have mastered upon arriving at instruction in rhetoric. Once students are able to manage the language without significant or embarrassing error, he recommends that they write narrations (stories about things that have actually happened). Once they’re skilled at narrations, he recommends that they learn to write encomia (essays praising and blaming people or things). Having mastered encomia, they can move on to declaiming (arguing) on both sides of an issue. The progression of assignments listed here follows a common principle in language-arts instruction: start with basic and manageable skills, working up towards the more complex and mature subjects, the more difficult tasks. Is this a valid supposition? Should students learn to crawl before they walk? If not, why not? If so, does narration really constitute crawling? Why is disputation on both sides of an issue especially difficult while praising and blaming is easy? Would it feel boring and pointless to narrate events and praise people ? If so, would these school-room exercises be empty of the passion and interest that motivate invested writing?