SCM Discussion Forum

1. 

   Jennifer
   Member

   I have always used CM narration/copy work techniques for our language arts.  This year, though, I thought I'd try Writing with Ease, because I'd read good things about it and I thought it would make my life easier somehow.  I'm now 6 or so weeks into it with each of my children and I have very mixed feelings about it.  I have to stop my ds9 from telling me so much, because it is definitely a summary program, not a CM narration program.  He is used to telling me EVERYTHING he can think of about the books he reads.  He loves narrating.  I do see the value in  being able to pick out important information and being able to make several really good sentences to sum it up instead of going on forever.  My ds11 has formulated some great sentences because he HAD to keep it to a few sentences and had to fit what he wanted to say into a limited amount of space. However,  I don't like the way it seems to stifle their own thoughts and perceptions and what they find important or interesting about their reading.  I'm wondering if I should ditch them and go back to my original CM narration style, or whether there is enough value in learning to summarize this way to make it worth our time.  I am torn and I don't know what to do, so I would love your opinions on this. 

   Thanks!

   Posted 1 year ago # Report Post
2. 

   simple home
   Member

   I'm no expert and still learning myself on what to do for writing narrations, but I remember reading on the topic of detailed vs. Summary narrations here...

   http://www.charlottemasonhelp.com/2009/07/detailed-narrations-and-summary.html

   And also it seems I have read on this forum or maybe from Sonya about summarizing. I do understand your desire for wanting to teach this writing aspect, as I do too, and I think the CM way would be better in approaching this.

   I look forward to more responses on this post! :)

   Posted 1 year ago # Report Post
3. 

   jeaninpa
   Member

   Listening in....

   I have mixed feelings about this.  My 8 yo dd usually retells me the whole story and I try to encourage her to summarize, so I'm eager to hear what others have to say.

    

   Posted 1 year ago # Report Post
4. 

   Bookworm
   Member

   I do think that older children who are fluent narrators can profit from learning to summarize.  I often ask for the main idea, or the most imporant three things, or try and explain the author's point in  four sentences, etc.  But this is not ALL I do.  I also want the very individualized, more personal narrations.  So I'd hesitate to completely STOP doing this.  Students will need to be able to think BOTH ways, whether in further school or in jobs or life--it's very useful to be able to take "just the facts, ma'am" from a passage, boil it down, write a short essay or apply it to how to clip coupons, etc.  However, it is also very beneficial to be able to take a poem or a reading and communicate how it makes you feel, what it reminds you of, use your own words to explore the writer's intent or how the character must feel.  This makes for good essays, also, and also more creative, multidimensional thinking. 

   Narration is a workhorse.  It is a tool that can cover a LOT of things.  I think it's false to say that anything but stream-of-consciousness narration is NOT CM.  Just like it's false to say that any science but nature study is not CM.  By all means include some summarization type narrations.  They will be more effective at some things than at others.   Great for your history reading, perhaps, less great if you read Thanatopsis.    Or just try giving only a factual, summary narration of a Bruegel the Elder painting.    You'll miss a lot if you lean too heavily on summary type narrations.  Also look at each child--what does each child need?  An older child who is a very prolific narrator maybe really needs some summarization skills.  A child who tends to brevity anyway maybe needs more work on more personal, imaginative narration skills.  Remember our goals here--not JUST to retain information, not JUST to tell us everything they just learned--but how large is the room in which your child is standing, and about how many things does he CARE?  Summary is a useful tool, but not necessarily a provider of astonishing views out of the windows of that large room.  

   Posted 1 year ago # Report Post

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