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Written narrations for older kids
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Do you assign a particular topic or open-ended question for most of your written narrations, or do you more ofter just require one per week in each subject area (or something like that). I’ve been requiring one per week in each subject (for us that’s history, government and chemistry right now)…but I generally don’t give them a specific topic – just tell about something of interest from your reading this week. The written narrations are new this year…and I’m not particularly happy with the results. Admittedly, I believe a portion of the cause is laziness (or some near or distant cousin to it 🙂 but I also wonder if part of it is how unstructured I’ve left it. Maybe I should give him a question or topic most of the time at this point (even if it’s “today’s reading” instead of “this week’s reading”). Any thoughts from those with more experience than me??!?
I’d work on getting the basic mechanics of thoughts down on paper FIRST. Then I often, once I feel they can explain what they just read relatively well, give them “narration missions” which are more targeted. Compare this character and that one. etc. And nobody is happy with written narrations the first year.
If you need more help, try asking them to explain what they just read so that you can understand it. Or explain so that you felt like you were there. Or something along those lines. But nearly everyone has trouble with this at first. Narration quality usually drops precipately from the oral narrations the student was giving, and it takes a bit of time to get it back up to par–then starat adding in some targeting. We’ve been doing written “narrations” twice a week. They are really more like notebook pages than narration, but there is a blank box at the bottom for them to fill in. Right now I’ve been having them write one sentence in the box…I’m hoping my 10yo will work up to 3 sentences by the end of the year. I have them draw a picture and write about that days reading. I’ve been alternating history, Bible, and science for the topic. For our science pages, we usually have a more specific topic, taken from their Apologia book…there is a suggested assignment or two at the end of each chapter. For Bible and history, they just choose something from that days reading…I love how they write on different parts of the same story! We are using the History/Bible Scribe pages for these…they were on sale at Currclick for 99 cents a few weeks ago and my DC are enjoying them.
We also aren’t where I’d like to be with writing. My 10yo has really struggled with it, but I think it’s getting easier for her…She had a really nice page last week! I’ve been starting small and really trying to encourage her. I’m also still figuring this all out!
My 11YO does 2-3 written narrations a week, in the form of a blog post on his WordPress blog. I allow one a week to be more open-ended, I just allow him to post a personal blog about an activity he has coming up or something like that. Once a week he does a history blog, and then usually 2-3x/month he does a science blog. I do let them choose the specific topic from each of those subjects, though.
Lately I’ve found that my DS wants to just get the blog over with as quickly as possible, so sometimes I require a certain minimum number of words.
Thank you for the suggestions. My son is 17 and he does a great job with the writing (most of the time) if he once decides what to write about and starts in. But more often than not, “there’s just nothing to write about” today or this week…(or month??maybe 🙁 ) So, that’s where I was coming from mostly…wondering if I just need to give a specific topic most of the time for a while. Tell me about Monday’s chapter in SOTW, or describe the Joad family’s situation at the beginning of the book… I think that’ what I’ll try for a little while anyway. More thoughts welcome if you want…!
In our house, most narrations are written in essay form in high school. I do assign topics. I try to vary the essays (argumentive(spelling is wrong sorry), descriptive, compare and contrast, etc. Sometimes they come up with their own, but I almost always assign the topic. Our essays are only 1-2 pages long and we usually do 2-4 a week.
I try to give them at least one creative style narration a week.
Our narrations come from literature, Bible, history,and occasionally something else.
Annie, have you looked at this page? It has lots of great ideas…I keep a printed copy in my schooling binder. http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/narration/
If you need more help, try asking them to explain what they just read so that you can understand it. Or explain so that you felt like you were there. Or something along those lines. But nearly everyone has trouble with this at first. Narration quality usually drops precipately from the oral narrations the student was giving, and it takes a bit of time to get it back up to par–then starat adding in some targeting. 
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