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Narration Bump in the Road
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Wondering if anyone has any ideas about how to help a child get over the “I dont know” stage of narration. My DS 15 seems to have lost his narrating ability. He used to be quite good at it, at least the basic ”tell all you know” narrations. Last year in 9th grade the ability seems to have just poofed away. Granted the reading material is harder, but I think properly challenging and not frustrating. Its alway ”I dont know.” Occasionally I get something he copied straight out of the book. We have never done any writing curriculum, started a few but never had the stomach for them. Now I am feeling like I need something to help him identify important points in a reading and organize his thoughts. Or maybe help him generate thoughts that dont revolve around Roblox – lol. He says the material is not too hard, he just doesn’t know what to say. Any ideas? Is it laziness? His grammar and spelling are very good thanks to consistent use of SW/ULW. Plenty of good literature with years SCM. He used to produce very interesting, though short, narrations. In the past he has even written stories and poems in his free time. Now I cant seem to get anything out of him. I have a tedious writing curriculum in my shopping cart right now. Talk me out of it….
I wonder if the increase in depth of the material is giving him a mental block? There’s so much material he’s not sure where to begin?
Here are some ideas to try:
Briefly narrating to himself after each key idea or name as he reads the assigned portion for the day.
Help him learn to jot down key names, dates, and ideas as he reads so that when he has finished the reading he has a list to start his narration from. This would be similar to what is given on SCM’s Narration Notecards, only he’s creating his own.
Have him give some of his narrations in creative ways, such as drawings, interviews, diary entries, stop-motion animation, a poem in the style of a particular poet, etc.
My son didn’t like narration when he grew older because he said it made him feel silly. I let him use the Institute for Excellence in Writing instead. He thrived with that program and is a very good writer to this day. He has received lots of praise on his writing skills.
As a side note: I have found narration to be a superior method of both retaining information, and of learning composition. My daughter thrived using narration and still uses it today for her college classes. I still prefer CM methods to others but I also like to give my kids more autonomy as they reach the high school years so I would talk to him and see what he would like to do for composition.
We also used The Power in Your Hands to teach some basic essay skills. We did not use it as written but pulled a bit from it here and there.
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