How to teach the mechanics of writing/composition???

Hi Becca!

I can share what we do in our homeschool. I’m holding off on formal writing direction until highschool. We are focusing on written narrations until then. I’ve tried using a few different writing exercises here and there but have been much more pleased with simple written narrations. I did buy a resource for writing essays the other day. I really like the looks of it. It’s called Hands On Essays. I bought the kindle download for around $7 and the author has a website with free video lessons to go along with the book. My daughter and I read the sample from the website and watched the first video and it really appealed to both of us. We won’t be using it for a few more months but I’ll come back here and post a review after we’ve tried it out.

Right now, I’m having my daughter write 1 narration a day and they are averaging out at about a page. Doing them every day is really helping her to learn how to get her thoughts down on paper more quickly and writing is becoming easier and easier for her. I think it’s a great preparation for highschool level writing. I’m very pleased with her progress.

My daughter just turned 14 and we’ve only been doing daily written narrations for a few weeks now. When my daughter was 11, she did only one a week. We moved up to two a week when she was between 12 and 13.

Melanie32 would you be willing to share one of your daughters narrations? I don’t know why, but I really struggle with what a narration should look like at that age.

I actually tried to share one of her narrations on the another thread…I think it was the highschool writing thread. It must have gotten stuck in the spam trap.

I’ll try again…..
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.