Written Narration Questions

My ds 10 has been doing daily written narrations for about a year. Maybe you could go up to 3-4 times per week during Term 1, then go up to 5x per week beginning in Term 2, if you think going from 2 to 5 is too much of a jump? 

A few paragraphs is great, I think! Ds gives me a few paragraphs usually, but when he first started a couple of sentences was good enough for me. I don’t think narration is about how many paragraphs or pages, but about how much the student is able to re-tell without parroting the story too much. My ds is still doing quite a bit of parroting, which he is slowly transitioning out of. Perhaps she just needs some questions to get her thinking a bit deeper. Have you tried having her compare/contrast? Determine cause/effect? Write what she likes about the protagonist? What she dislikes about the antagonist? How the hero of one story or time period is like/different from the hero from in another story/time period? What characteristics she admires about a certain character or historical figure? I don’t know what subject you’re having her narrate, so I’m just throwing stuff out there for you.

I’m also throwing the idea around of having ds do his written narration at the end of a book, rather than after every chapter. I think it will be easier for him to compare/contrast and go a little deeper in his narrating at the end when he knows how the story ends and how the characters developed throughout it.

For science narrations, I’ve had my kids do oral narrations coupled with notebooking in the past. This year may be different since we are switching curriculum, and I think an oral narration w/ experiment at the end of the week/lesson may be the route I take. I don’t think that every, single subject requires a written narration. I also think it’s ok for a 12yo to do quite a bit of oral narrating.