Name: CHEC Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-12T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-14T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Denver, CO

Tagged: High school narration, written narration

This topic has 4 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 12 years ago by Misty.

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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May 27, 2013 at 5:38 pm
Sue
Participant
As I was reading another thread about literature/reading expectations for a slow-reading 9th grader, I realized that I am in a similar boat with my “going into 10th” grader, and I thought of a question regarding narrations.
Could those of you who have high school students give me an idea of how often you have them write written narrations? Do they write one per book? One per chapter? I guess I’m asking how often they write them per subject and how long they should be.
DD15 is a rather slow reader, so I actually had her use Stories of America, Volume 2, to round out her reading this year since it was taking her soooo lonnnng to finish Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and The Endless Steppe. I want her to bump her up to things like Great Expectations for literature and something like Golden Goblet or The Cat of Bubastes for history next year. Her written narrations were getting a little better toward the end of the year, but she was only writing the barest minimum for narrations, like a couple of skimpy paragraphs for a chapter.
How do you structure written narrations for your high school students? Thanks.
May 27, 2013 at 8:41 pm
my3boys
Participant
So far, I plan to have my ds (going to be in 9th) do daily written narrations. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to plan that out. Some curriculum will have it built in, some won’t. Right now, I have him choose between history and lit., or I just choose for him (he doesn’t usually have a preference) but it’s only about 3 x’s a week, plus oral narrations. I would like to have a better plan for next year, though. I’d like to use composition books and have one for lit/history, etc., and it can be a something he can look through and over time “see” how much better his writings are becoming from one book, then move on to the next.
I don’t know, I’m just thinking outloud right now. I have been reading some from CMH, but haven’t implemented anything yet.

May 28, 2013 at 2:51 am
marmiemama
Participant
I like that idea for the composition notebooks. Sometimes looseleaf paper rips or I want to re-use the binder next year so I end up rubber-banding loose paper to store it away. Not the greatest system! I’ll get my girls’ input on this idea.
May 28, 2013 at 3:27 am
my3boys
Participant
Just so you know, Lindafay at Charlotte Mason Help, requires one a day from literature, I think. I get a little confused on some of the explanations, but I think that is correct. I seem to remember her saying something about history, as well, but can’t remember if it was daily for history.
I think it all depends on the student and your personal goals. I know my ds could do a written narration everyday from lit/history, but then if I have him do a writing program or lit program, I guess that would have to count for the day. Not sure on that. I’m thinking of adding in Lightning Lit for literature so I’m assuming there will be writing in that program. Then I plan to use a writing program (right now he’s using Write w/ the Best, slow, but sure) or a writing reference program (maybe Writer’s Inc, already own it). I don’t know if it has writing prompts or if it is simply for reference, have to check. Either way, I’d still like him to give written narrations for history (I need the samples) but not sure if I will after each reading or at the end of a chapter. Probably the latter. But, it probably wouldn’t be on the same day as the other programs, but still not sure.
I have a bit of time to work it out but am trying to get my ideas on paper now and go back over notes I’ve made to make some decisions on curriculum and the “when to’s”.
@marmiemama, I love the idea of comp. books (we have a ton of them) but not sure if my dc will take to them. You can’t really add anything to them but they do keep the paper in nice and tight (you can glue pages into them if you had to, like coloring pages, etc.). Plus, from what I’ve read, they can cause the writer to use his best penmanship since it’s not as easy to remove the pages. Basically, it’s there forever.
May 28, 2013 at 11:35 am
Misty
Participant
My son will be doing one a day – one day it’s written, and 2 days it’s typed. It’s on anything he read that day as I am not picky. I also have him do some oral narrations with me when I am correcting his math and science lessons.