composition

I am not aware of a list that organizes the questions in order of type of writing. I do know that Charlotte Mason introduced the narration questions covering the types of essay forms gradually over the years. She gave examples of narration questions and student narrations in her writings, which we know as The Original Home School Series, 6 volume set.

SCM does sell two books which have Charlotte Mason’s narration examples organized by grade level with the types explained. Those books are Your Questions Answered: Narration and Hearing and Reading, Telling and Writing. The first book is focused on narration, the second on all of language arts.

I am using ELTL for language arts this year.  I’m subbing in Spelling Wisdom since we prefer the dictation selections there, but I really like ELTL’s approach to writing.  She breaks down written narrations into simple steps.  It is a Classical/CM approach, so it has a bit more writing than just narrations.  She gets into outlines and literary analysis as well.

I do plan on teaching essays and research papers before they graduate, but I’ll wait until high school for those topics.  We have also played around with this book:  http://www.learn4yourlife.com/Write-On.html .  While it’s not purely CM, I have found it fun and easy for the kids to use.  We have been doing 1 assignment per week from it this year.

Another suggestion is to have them type their narrations.  My DC prefer this over writing them by hand.  I hope to have them able to do both eventually, but for now I’m just glad they are putting their ideas into words.

English Lessons Through Literature