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Narration For High Schoolers Who Are New To It
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Hello…my name is Kim, and I am new to this group. It looks as though there is much wisdom to be found here, and I look forward to gleaning from it.
We have two son, ages 15 and 17, and except for using living books and attempting to create a love for and atmosphere of learning in our home, we have not officially incorporated any CM methods in our home education. After much prayer and reading, I felt led to make CM methods a mainstay of our remaining years with our boys’ education, though they are few.
I planned our year in greater detail than I had when we first began in September with the aide of Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education in 5 Easy Steps, which was tremendously helpful.
Here is my delima, and forgive me if this has already been addressed. If it has, please direct me to a prior post, and I will be happy to head that way for help. It concerns narration and just where the best place is to start. Our 15-year old, for as long as I can remember, has had an innate ability to easily narrate anything read to him or by him. (I didn’t realize that we had actually been practicing narration in the normal course of a day, simply because he loves to plass along to me what he was learning.) Our 17-year old, however, does not find it as easy, having difficulty expressing himself verbally after listening to me read or reading himself. He has a great overview and can offer some details, but not to the degree I think he should, although I’ve never told him that. I’ve made the mistake (now that I know more about how to do narration) of asking questions to get the thought process going if there is hesitancy on my son’s part.
Since I am attempting to add narration, both oral and written, to our days, in order to help our young men become independent thinkers, where do I start?
I am already planning on having each of them narrate orally to me during our family time of poetry, reading about composers, and during picture study. With each of them, I use Institute For Excellence In Writing for composition and will continue using it. However, I want to incorporate written narrations as well from their individual reading from various subject areas. I don’t know how much to have them do and in what combination.
Do I build up the 17-year old’s oral skills before including written narrations or go ahead and assign them now?
Also, how do I know how well the oral or written narrations are if they are from independent reading, which encompasses most of their work at this point?
I appreciate so much any advice you have. As badly as I want to begin all of these wonderful new methods that will help provide a depth to our boys’ education that they so far have lacked, I find myself approaching the newness with timid hesitation, because that fear of failure looms ever before me.
Thank you for your time.
Blessings,
Kim
Kim,
I do not have high schoolers, but I will tell you what I know of narration in general. First, you begin with oral narration, even for older students. Read a passage or have them read a passage, and then ask them to tell you all they know about that passage. If one son is better at narrating than the other, allow the one who needs practice to start first; then the other one can add anything that was left out. It is important that they (or you) not interrupt during a narration, as it can be very distracting to have someone interject something in the middle of your thoughts. Once you feel they are reading for written narrations, it’s the same concept.
Also, narration can take many forms. If you’re reading about the tabernacle, and one of your boys has carpentry skills, his narration might be a small reproduction of the tabernacle, built to scale as best as he can. If one boy is an artist, he might want to paint or draw something that stood out to him in a particular book or poem.
Ultimately, the written narrations build the skill of composed writing. They are learning to take their thoughts and arrange them on paper. You want them to use proper grammar, verb tense, punctuation, good sentence structure, etc. They should spell correctly. If, when you are reading their narrations, you come across errors, they should be corrected quickly.
There are a couple of ladies on here (Linda and Michelle) that could give you loads and loads of wisdom to answer your questions and calm your fears. Sonya, of course, has graduated two of her girls, I think; plus, she is full of CM wisdom! I hope they will respond to your question as well.
Blessings,
Lindsey
Hi, Kim. It may take your 17yo a little while to hit his stride in narration; after all, he’s gone almost all of his school years without it. It seems like oral narration would be the place to begin with him; however, I remember Linda(?) saying once that one of her daughters “took” much better to written than to oral. So try to do what will smooth the way best for him.
I think at this age, the key will be to communicate with him the goal of reading for instruction using the tool of narration: to self-educate. Explain that narration is a tool we can use our entire lives to learn anything we want to, and that you want him to develop that skill so it can serve him well both now and in the future. It may take some effort, but it will give great rewards.
And, as you said, he may “take away” different aspects from the book than you had in mind. That’s okay. Our job is to spread the feast of great ideas in the great books, so anything he takes from it is healthful. If he narrates items other than you had in mind, don’t worry. He’s giving you a peek into what he formed a relation with. Now, if you think there are points that he didn’t mention that you want to make sure are brought out somehow, you can bring up discussion points after his narration.
As far as narrations from books you haven’t read yet, I was in the same situation this past year with my (now) oldest student. What worked well for us was that I turned the tables, as it were, and became the learner. I explained to her that I hadn’t read that book, though I had wanted to for a long time, and I was counting on her to tell me all about it. When she narrated, I tried to express enthusiasm and curiosity and genuine interest, sometimes asking questions at the end from a true desire to learn about the book rather than a teacher-evaluation type standpoint. Does that make sense?
I hope some of these ideas help a little. Keep in mind that any steps you take toward helping your boys learn to narrate will serve them well. As with any skill, it will take practice to become fluent.
Hi Sonya, Yes it was me. The girls came to narration very late – and in the end the written narrations were much better for them. They would stumble around with the oral narration, but that same narration in writing was brilliant. So we focused more on the written, but also practised some oral narration to get used to it. They now do both very well, but the written is still superior and easier for them. I would see what works better for your son. I also do what Sonya does with the books I have not read – it works great when they know (or think, lol) that I am really interested, and they tell me wonderful things and also opine on their thoughts – I use that technique in history as well. Also, as Sonya says practice makes perfect. Linda
Thank you, ladies, for your responses. They are most helpful, and I appreciate the thought you put into them.
If it is not too much to ask, could you also advise me on just how much narration to begin with, and how did you find it best to schedule it into your day?
Thanks, again, and hope you’re enjoying a glorious 1st of November!
Kim
We had short oral (and I mean short) oral narration after a couple of readings a day – I never told them which ones because they then had to really read the things, so I would not catch them out. I would also ask for a written narration on one book – again I would not tell them which. I built it up very slowly until they were able to do it naturally and without stress. As they needed to learn the essay writing techniques, I would sometimes frame the narration and ask for a compare and contrast, or a persuasive essay among other things. I would also ask them to write the story from a different characters point of view on occasion, they enjoyed doing that. Not everything I do is pure CM because we came to it late. Now I expect at least one or two oral narrations and one written a day. If they have an essay and it is a harder one, I let them have a few days and no other written narrations. We also have discussions on lots of subjects – but they are always engaged in one way or another with narration. Don’t know if that helps. Bookworm I think has done this longer than me, and has high school students, maybe she can add something.
Yes, we are enjoying a wonderful 1st of November, lovely day. Off to see the political process in a minute as the girls can vote this year. Three of the top state legislatures are here this afternoon, so we are going to see how a last minute rally works. Linda
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