high school narrations

Karen-I’ve always heard it recommended on Ambleside Online that a student new to narration of any age should only be required to narrate orally for a bit so that he/she can become familiar with the narration process.

I don’t know how well this will work but I am going to try to copy and paste one of my daughter’s narrations here. She will be starting highschool in a few months.
ALBRECHT DURER
Albrecht Durer was the son of a goldsmith. He had seventeen other siblings, but only two of the other sons survived to adulthood. Albrecht was the oldest and therefore his father expected him to take over for him when he died. Albecht went to school to be a goldsmith and showed talent in it, but he told his father he wanted to become an artist instead.
His father was upset that they had wasted those years of training to be a goldsmith, but he wanted Albrecht to be happy and he made him an apprentice to a local artist. Albrecht was very happy and showed amazing talent with drawing. He drew a portrait of himself when he was thirteen, and it is still around today. The other apprentices weren’t very kind to him. This didn’t bother Albrecht though and he continued to work his hardest.
Durer started doing wood-cuts which were used to illustrate printed books. They worked the same way the letters did and were stamped into the books. He illustrated many pictures in the Bible and supported himself for years this way. Probably his most famous wood-cut was The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, which he made while illustrating the book of Revelation. He traveled to lots of cities but returned to his home town to be married. His father had arranged a marriage for Albrecht and a wealthy man’s daughter. She became like a business partner to Albrecht and was the one who arranged for his art to be sold.
Later Durer went to Italy, where art was a big part of the culture. It took some time to be respected by these Italians. Italian artists and German artists never really got along well, but he was so gifted that even they could see his talent. His art was seen and admired by many famous people of the day, including the Emperor.
Durer was a big follower of Martin Luther. He helped convince Prince Frederick to protect Martin, and Albrecht and Luther exchanged art and books a few times. When everyone thought Martin was captured and killed, Albrecht was extremely upset, and was relieved when he found out he was safe.
Albrecht became the most famous living artist of his time and traveled from city to city where he was awarded all sorts of honors. In one city he was given a mansion, rent free, and was treated like royalty. When he died all of Italy and Germany mourned his death and his widow received many letters from Albrecht’s old friends.

Honestly, I have no idea how to teach literary analysis. I am not a fan of that particular area of study. :-\ I’m not sure if we will cover that in our homeschool or not. If I do, it will be a very brief study. The only reason I will even consider teaching literary analysis is to prep for college.

I’ve heard Lightning Literature is a good choice for literary analysis.

As far as teaching the essay, I just bought a resource called Hands on Essays that really looks good to me. It’s simple, inexpensive and to the point. The book is only $7 something for the download ($12 or so for the print edition) and the author has free videos on her website for each lesson.

However, you don’t really need a resource to teach the essay if you’d rather teach it yourself. I’m sure you can find a simple explanation online and start there. Many Charlotte Mason homeschoolers simply assign written narrations until highschool and then begin having their students read through a few, good writing handbooks. The Elements of Style comes highly recommended as well as Writing, Inc.

I plan on saving research papers for  late highschool. I have my eye on seven sisters homeschool guides for this purpose but I haven’t settled on anything at this point.

I use Rod and Staff Reading 9 and Words of Delight by, Leland Ryken for literary analysis.  I do this to avoid some of the classics I don’t approve of,  and to use the Bible to teach literary concepts via Words of Delight.