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Other ways of using books and the Teacher's part
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I found these passages, CM’s Vol 3 p 180-181, to be interesting.
Other Ways of using Books.––But this is only one way to use books: others are to enumerate the statements in a given paragraph or chapter; to analyse a chapter, to divide it into paragraphs under proper headings, to tabulate and classify series; to trace cause to consequence and consequence to cause; to discern character and perceive how character and circumstance interact; to get lessons of life and conduct, or the living knowledge which makes for science, out of books; all this is possible for school boys and girls, and until they have begun to use books for themselves in such ways, they can hardly be said to have begun their education.
Has anyone used books in this way? If so, what does it look like in practice? Do you have it planned out for the day or is it spontaneous to the reading? My son (5th/6th) tends to have very long narrations and he will sometimes tell events out of order. I’m thinking some of these CM ideas would help him to pull out the “ideas” and “connections” from his readings. If you do have your child use these for books do you do it orally or written?
The Teacher’s Part.––The teacher’s part is, in the first place, to see what is to be done, to look over the work of the day in advance and see what mental discipline, as well as what vital knowledge, this and that lesson afford; and then to set such questions and such tasks as shall give full scope to his pupils’ mental activity. Let marginal notes be freely made, as neatly and beautifully as may be, for books should be handled with reverence. Let numbers, letters, underlining be used to help the eye and to save the needless fag of writing abstracts. Let the pupil write for himself half a dozen questions which cover the passage studied; he need not write the answers if he be taught that the mind can know nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put by the mind to itself.
Does anyone prepare for lessons like this? I don’t usually prepare for lessons this way. Mostly I just pick the book up were we left off and ask a simple question about what happened yesterday, no prep on what we are about to read. Most of the time I have no idea what we are about to read as I’ve never read the book before.
While viewing the Books & Things DVD is struck me that Sonya prepared for her “lesson” in such a way. Before she read the excerpts about Charlotte Mason she struck a spark and prepared the audience for what she was about to read. I was reeled in and listening attentively even though I knew I could stop and rewind if I missed something. I wish to impart that same excitement and “delightful impact” upon my son.
Do any of you do this? In reality how much time does this take and do you prepare for each book you use?
Thanks for any thoughts you might have.
I’d love to read thoughts on this as well. I get all excited when I read passages like this or watch the Books and Things DVD but I struggle to implement it.
Well…I’m like you. This sounds great, but I’m not up to the task!! I just bought a couple of Sonya’s guides recently though…and it looks to me like she’s put at least a hint of this kind of thing in there for us. Can anyone speak to that who’s been using them?? I’ve only begun to skim the guide. I have used other guides as a help in this respect the last year or so on a very limited basis – not for nearly every book…Beautiful Feet is my current crutch.
I think I just might get the Books and Things DVD right NOW.
I especially love the idea of having the children write down questions regarding the passage studied. We do this orally with our Bible readings. Thank you, Charlene.
Yes, I do some of these things, but not all of them every reading. Obviously. I do need to sleep.
What I often do is I choose one or two books or readings that lend themselves very well to some of these techniques and we use those, rotating around to do different things over the course of reading the book. I spend maybe 15 minutes or so on Fridays when I make sure my plans for the next week are in good shape, putting a stickie on a book or two to remind myself to challenge the kids a bit for that reading, and I often give “narration missions” to the kids doing written narrations nudging them to do some of these sorts of things with them. There is another passage that I do not have time to quote now, but I know Sonya knows where it is and I believe she quotes it in Hearing and Telling, that has different things one might do with a narration–compare and contrast, summarize, etc. and we also do some of those things. I used to have a little small flip notebook with these things written down, but I’ve lost it, and so now I mostly go off the top of my head (until I lose that too, which some days seems a distinct possibility!) I think you’re referring to a couple of paragraphs in the same vicinity as the ones Charlene posted, Bookworm. Are these they?
“This, of getting ideas out of them, is by no means all we must do with books. ‘In all labour there is profit,’ at any rate in some labour; and the labour of thought is what his book must induce in the child. He must generalise, classify, infer, judge, visualise, discriminate, labour in one way or another, with that capable mind of his, until the substance of his book is assimilated or rejected, according as he shall determine; for the determination rests with him and not with his teacher” (Vol. 3, p. 179).
and
“There is much difference between intelligent reading, which the pupil should do in silence, and a mere parrot-like cramming up of contents; and it is not a bad test of education to be able to give the points of a description, the sequence of a series of incidents, the links in a chain of argument, correctly, after a single careful reading. This is a power which a barrister, a publisher, a scholar, labours to acquire; and it is a power which children can acquire with great ease, and once acquired, the gulf is bridged which divides the reading from the non-reading community” (Vol. 3, p. 180).
What I often do is I choose one or two books or readings that lend themselves very well to some of these techniques and we use those, rotating around to do different things over the course of reading the book. I spend maybe 15 minutes or so on Fridays when I make sure my plans for the next week are in good shape, putting a stickie on a book or two to remind myself to challenge the kids a bit for that reading, and I often give “narration missions” to the kids doing written narrations nudging them to do some of these sorts of things with them. There is another passage that I do not have time to quote now, but I know Sonya knows where it is and I believe she quotes it in Hearing and Telling, that has different things one might do with a narration–compare and contrast, summarize, etc. and we also do some of those things. I used to have a little small flip notebook with these things written down, but I’ve lost it, and so now I mostly go off the top of my head (until I lose that too, which some days seems a distinct possibility!) 
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