By Jenny Michna
As parents, you often see the projects come home, hear about themed days, or listen to your child recount a favorite scene, but behind each of those moments is careful, intentional formation.
At Anthem, a classical Christian school, we believe education is not merely the transfer of information—it is the formation of the whole child. In a true classical education, great books do more than build literacy skills; they shape loves, cultivate virtue, and train the affections. When our fourth graders enter the world of Anne of Green Gables, they are doing more than reading a novel, they are growing in attentiveness, imagination, resilience, and wisdom.
Why Anne of Green Gables?
There is a reason so many parents remember reading Anne of Green Gables themselves. Anne Shirley is unforgettable and remarkably relatable for fourth graders. In the story, Anne is just one year older than our students, and the themes she navigates—friendship, belonging, resilience, imagination, and community—mirror the experiences our students are living every day.
Students see themselves in Anne’s triumphs and in her mistakes. That recognition draws them in, making the story not only academically rich but personally transformative.
Becoming What We Behold
As a classical Christian school, we often say: we become what we behold. If we want students to grow in wisdom and virtue, we must place beautiful, true, and good things before them.
Anne of Green Gables is filled with beauty—both in its language and in its moral vision. Through Anne’s vivid imagination and her deep capacity for love, students encounter themes that will remain with them long after fourth grade: loyalty, repentance, forgiveness, growth, humility, and perseverance.
They also learn from Anne’s faults. Her impulsiveness, quick temper, and dramatic reactions provide fertile ground for discussion. In our classroom, we practice “lingering with what provokes us.” When a character’s actions stir frustration or admiration, we pause and ask why. In doing so, students learn to examine not only Anne’s heart but their own.
An Immersive Literature Experience
Anne has such real experiences in the story—each one building upon the last. As she learns what it means to belong to a real family for the first time, and to grow in real friendships for the first time, she is taught lessons about disappointment, forgiveness, truthfulness, repairing broken relationships, and learning from failure. We want those lessons not only discussed, but embodied.
One of our most beloved moments is Raspberry Cordial Tea Time, inspired by chapter 16 in which Anne, so eager to feel grown up while hosting her “bosom friend” Diana Barry, accidentally serves wine instead of raspberry cordial. In the beautiful words of L. M. Montgomery, Anne “sets Diana drunk”—a complete mistake and not even truly her fault when the full story is considered. Still, Anne is devastated. She is remorseful. She longs to repair what has been broken. After discussion of the tea time gone awry, students were treated to raspberry cordials as they wrote a narrative of Anne’s experience and the lessons learned from it.
Another fun thing we have done is to really appreciate the beautiful description throughout the book. Anne has a wide scope for imagination, and encourages everyone around her to develop imagination as well. Her own imagination leads her to deeper appreciation for the beauty around her at Green Gables. As she experiences the beauty of her surroundings, she gives new names to her favorite spots, like the White Way of Delight and The Lake of Shining Waters. One particular section of the book has Anne describing the beauty of the garden of her bosom friend, Diana Barry. To make this part of the book come alive, each student was assigned a particular flower mentioned in the garden.They had a week to consider the medium they would use to create that flower before bringing it to school, where we created our own Diana Barry’s Garden, displayed outside our classroom. It inspires the students to use their own God-given scopes of imagination to create beauty for others to appreciate and enjoy.
A final thing we have done during our study of Anne of Green Gables is to write well thought-out apology letters. When Anne first arrives at Green Gables, she carries a serious disposition of temper and chooses to react in anger rather than respond to a challenging situation between herself and a bit of a nosy neighbor of the Cuthberts, Mrs. Rachel Lynde. Each of us has been in a situation where we have reacted rather than responded. In fourth grade, we talk often about the virtue of taking time to respond rather than quickly reacting.
After discussing Anne’s situation, students learn the five Rs of a meaningful apology and practice writing formal letters from Anne’s first-person perspective. They study proper letter format, reflect on what it means to repair a broken relationship, and consider how repentance restores. In this way, academic skill and virtue formation intertwine beautifully.
Literature That Forms Character
One of our daily catechism questions asks: “Why do we come to school?”
The students respond: “We come to school to become better human beings.”
This is the heart of classical Christian education.
Through Anne’s journey, students see that mistakes do not define them. Growth is possible. Repentance restores. Imagination is a gift. Resilience is cultivated. Truth anchors us.
As they discuss Anne’s impulsiveness, loyalty, repentance, and growth, students naturally connect the story to their own lives. They share about friendships that needed mending, moments of embarrassment, times they reacted too quickly, and situations where courage was required. In these conversations, literature becomes a mirror that is gently shaping hearts.
Partnering with Parents
For families walking through this novel at home, I encourage you to read alongside your child. Shared stories create shared language. Ask your student:
- Where do you see yourself in Anne?
- What mistake did Anne make in this chapter?
- What would responding (instead of reacting) look like here?
- What is beautiful in this scene?
These simple conversations extend the formative power of great books beyond the classroom and into the home.
Why Slowing Down Matters
In a fast-paced world of skimming and scrolling, slowing down to dwell in a rich story matters deeply. A classical education invites students to linger. To wonder. To notice beauty. To wrestle with virtue. To sit with discomfort. To grow.
When students inhabit a story like Anne of Green Gables, they are not escaping reality—they are learning to see it more clearly. Through Anne’s imagination, they consider their own. Through her mistakes, they reflect on humility. Through her longing for belonging, they better understand gratitude and grace.
At Anthem, we believe that immersion in great literature cultivates attentiveness, wonder, and virtue. It slows students down. It trains their affections. It forms not just capable readers, but thoughtful human beings.
This is the beauty of immersive, classical learning: it invites students into a world rich with truth and goodness—and then sends them back into their own world better equipped to love it well.
And that is the kind of formation that lasts far beyond fourth grade.
If you’d like to learn more about how Anthem approaches literature, virtue, and classical formation, we invite you to explore our curriculum or schedule a campus visit.