Evangelical as I am about the brilliance of narration in shaping a good writer, in the back of my mind was a niggle of doubt; what would happen once Lucy's pithy, informative and dry-humoured paragraphs and pages were no longer enough ? Would I find we'd missed the essay-writing boat, somewhere back in 4th grade ?
As it turns out, no we didn't! And our ride down that particular river has been short indeed.
Day One - we talked about thesis statements. Lucy came up with three and chose one - that Aboriginal cave art should be conserved - as the focus of her first essay. She did some research to add to the knowledge she already had and wrote down three reasons supporting her thesis.
Day Two - Lucy worked on her introduction. I explained this to her as giving the reader on overview of what she planned to say in the main body of the essay.
Days Three, Four and Five - she began work on her paragraphs, moving from the strongest argument in favour of the conservation of cave art to the more minor. This she accomplished easily, having done paragraph length narrations frequently in the last few years.
Day 6 - conclusions are tricky. Lucy knew she needed to restate her case, wrapping up the points she had made in her essay along the way. It was far less tricky for her than I'd feared.
So, three hours over six days and she had it - a template for the essay in her mind and a completed essay we were both pleased with.
This week she's started work on a real essay, for history class. It's pretty good so far, for a girl of 13 with only one essay ( but hundreds of narrations! ) to her name.
At the turn of the 20th century most women had very few legal and political rights. They couldn’t vote in parliamentary elections and social restrictions often prevented them from doing the same things as men. Many women ( especially working class women ) wanted this to change. New Zealand had given women the vote in 1893 and Australia a few years later in 1902. Change in Britain was much slower so a British woman called Millicent Fawcett started the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, or the NUWSS, to campaign for women’s rights. By 1903 still nothing had been done and Emmaline Pankhurst, a middle class woman with radical parents, started another society; The Women’s Social and Political Union, which aimed to use extreme methods to get what they wanted. These two groups became known as ‘suffragists’ (NUWSS) and ‘suffragettes’ (WSPU). Though they each had different policies they had the same aim. The First World War, or the Great War, as it was known then, was what widened the split between the two parties. Ironically, women’s work during the war was what helped them eventually win the vote in the post war period.
A few changes had been made for women’s rights by the turn of the century but women still has few legal or political rights, especially in Britain. British women who were married could vote in local elections, but federal elections were still ‘out of bounds’. Cambridge exams were only opened to girls in the 1860’s and Cambridge degrees twenty or so years later, but even then, getting a degree was considered unnecessary for a girl by many people so very few young women received a higher education. The Married Women’s Property Act of 1882 meant that married women could retain some of their property, whereas previously when a woman married, all her property became legally her husband’s. In 1907 county and borough elections became open to women, but some countries were more progressive. New Zealand women had gained the vote in 1893. A cartoon from the New Zealand Graphic in 1894 shows a New Zealander woman holding a flag with ‘Perfect Political Equality’ written on it, being helped onto ‘Parliamentary Heights’ by a male politician, decades before her British sisters would be in the same position. In the early 20th century Finland, Norway and Australia granted women the vote. Britain’s inability to act on women’s suffrage caused anger and discussion, particularly in women’s trade unions. “The question was women’s suffrage, and the year was 1905. Several years before ‘suffragette’ became a household word, the cotton workers of Lancashire were debating the controversial issue of votes for women in meetings at their factory gates, street corners and in town squares.”
Not perfect, but not bad either! And I'm glad, looking back, for all the time we spent on narration, for all the drawings and character sketches and skits and cities built in the sand pit, for all the letters, biographies, maps, time lines, flow charts and personal responses I encouraged Lucy to do and write; for it brought her here, to this term, this table, enjoying both process of the essay and her subject.
I'm working hard on the radical idea that what works for us isn't always the best approach for others; many ways to skin a cat, I'm sure. Today though, I'm glad to be the lady waving her narration placard in great relief...it works!!!
Showing posts with label narrations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label narrations. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
I Taught Her To Print but I Didn't Need To Teach Her to Write
HOBBITS
Hobbits are, to be precise, small people – hard working people too. Normally they don’t like fighting or anything like that, with the exception of Bilbo Baggins who, if he didn’t like the sound of all the rings and war and stuff, he shouldered it expertly.
Most Hobbit’s families are quite ancient, especially ones like the Tooks and Bagginses. The ‘old Took” is the oldest Took mentioned. Hobbits can live till they are over 100 years old. Hobbits live in hobbit holes which are not slimy dark places or dry and sandy but very comfortable. Some holes are very big but some are quite small, all are very nice.
Another thing you must know about Hobbits is that however big or small their house, hobbits nearly always have a full larder. Hobbits love to have visitors because they love to talk. Plus it’s an excuse to bring out something sticky and yummy and eat it! Hobbits like to be comfortable and don’t really like things like hiking and running and (they especially don’t like this ) going on long journeys and running into Orcs and realising you have to fight in wars and that such. Although slightly pompous, Hobbits make excellent friends and companions.
Even though there hardly ever is danger Hobbits are prepared for it. They have danger cries like this one: Fear fire foe! Fire fear foe! Hobbits can do and have done great deeds and indeed will do more.
Hobbits are a little smaller than dwarfes. Hobbits have fairly large proportioned bellies and wear waistcoats. The tallest Hobbit grows to about 4 feet. Hobbits are nice, respectable people. The end.
Because Arwen asked :) She wrote this for her Grandad in 4th grade.
Hobbits are, to be precise, small people – hard working people too. Normally they don’t like fighting or anything like that, with the exception of Bilbo Baggins who, if he didn’t like the sound of all the rings and war and stuff, he shouldered it expertly.
Most Hobbit’s families are quite ancient, especially ones like the Tooks and Bagginses. The ‘old Took” is the oldest Took mentioned. Hobbits can live till they are over 100 years old. Hobbits live in hobbit holes which are not slimy dark places or dry and sandy but very comfortable. Some holes are very big but some are quite small, all are very nice.
Another thing you must know about Hobbits is that however big or small their house, hobbits nearly always have a full larder. Hobbits love to have visitors because they love to talk. Plus it’s an excuse to bring out something sticky and yummy and eat it! Hobbits like to be comfortable and don’t really like things like hiking and running and (they especially don’t like this ) going on long journeys and running into Orcs and realising you have to fight in wars and that such. Although slightly pompous, Hobbits make excellent friends and companions.
Even though there hardly ever is danger Hobbits are prepared for it. They have danger cries like this one: Fear fire foe! Fire fear foe! Hobbits can do and have done great deeds and indeed will do more.
Hobbits are a little smaller than dwarfes. Hobbits have fairly large proportioned bellies and wear waistcoats. The tallest Hobbit grows to about 4 feet. Hobbits are nice, respectable people. The end.
Because Arwen asked :) She wrote this for her Grandad in 4th grade.
Narrations - A Fifth Grade Example
Lucy narrated this when she was just 10; it was the end of term and the purpose of her narration was to show what she had learnt and retained from the biography of George Washington Carver we'd read. again, she dictated, I typed.
The Life and Times of George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver was born a slave but his mother Mary was taken away by slave traders so he was brought up by his mother’s master and mistress who he called Uncle and Aunty. George used to sit outside of the church and listen to the singing in the village but he wasn’t allowed to go in the church because he was black. He also wanted to go to school and learn about botany and plants but he couldn’t go to school in his village because the school was only for white people. He heard about a school in another town that black people could go to. He really wanted to go there so he decided because Uncle has set George free, George knew he would be allowed to go if he wanted to. He told Uncle and Aunty that he wanted to go to the school and that he would go there by himself. So Aunty baked him some corn dodgers which were George's’favourite food and George started out.
After a while he began to wish he hadn’t already eaten the corn dodgers but he kept going because he really wanted to go to the school for black children. He got to the town. He met a lady called Aunt Maria and she said that George could stay with her if he wanted to. George did want to but after a while he saw that at the school there wasn’t exactly the things he wanted to learn. He wanted to learn about botany and plants but the teacher didn’t teach those kind of things. Eventually George decided to leave that town..
George walked to another town where he stayed with a lady he called Aunt Lucy. She owned a laundry and sometimes George helped her with her work.
When George was older he thought he would like to go to a college so he started to send letters to colleges asking them if they would have him as a student. The problem was even thought sometimes letters got delivered to him, there was another George Carver in the town so the letters were really for the other George Carver. That was when George decided he’d better put a letter between George and Carver so people knew he was a different George Carver. So he chose the letter W and some of his friends thought it should stand for a name. One of his friends joked and said, why didn’t he say ‘Washington’ and George thought that was quite a good name, so now his name was George Washington Carver.
Still, not many colleges wanted to enrol someone who was black. But someone told him about a college that had once had a black student and that they might have him too. They did and George went to that college.
One of George’s favourite studies was agriculture. He thought he would like to be a teacher of that. Another college wanted someone to teach agriculture and told George that he could be the teacher but before they could start the school they had to build the agriculture building first! Which means that the students had to build their classroom before there could be students in it.
When that part of the school was actually finished they didn’t even have a laboratory or anything to use to help with their studies but George said that they could use things around them and they did. George also did experiments himself. Lots of people grew cotton but George knew that cotton was bad for the soil. He tried to find ways to make the soil better soil to use. He thought of two ways – the sweet potato and the peanut. He found lots of ways that those two crops could be used as well as just helping the soil. The reason they could help the soil was because they had lots of nitrogen in them and they didn’t use much, so they would give nitrogen to the soil and not use it up.
Once he even made a whole meal with just peanuts and the people he served it to didn’t even know that everything was made out of peanuts!
He gave speeches about how to do farming and make the soil better for the crops. He also wrote a handbook called ‘300 ways to use the peanut.’
He used to take long walks in the wood every day. When he got much older a museum was made in honour of him and the President gave him a medal.
He died when he was 79 years old.
The Life and Times of George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver was born a slave but his mother Mary was taken away by slave traders so he was brought up by his mother’s master and mistress who he called Uncle and Aunty. George used to sit outside of the church and listen to the singing in the village but he wasn’t allowed to go in the church because he was black. He also wanted to go to school and learn about botany and plants but he couldn’t go to school in his village because the school was only for white people. He heard about a school in another town that black people could go to. He really wanted to go there so he decided because Uncle has set George free, George knew he would be allowed to go if he wanted to. He told Uncle and Aunty that he wanted to go to the school and that he would go there by himself. So Aunty baked him some corn dodgers which were George's’favourite food and George started out.
After a while he began to wish he hadn’t already eaten the corn dodgers but he kept going because he really wanted to go to the school for black children. He got to the town. He met a lady called Aunt Maria and she said that George could stay with her if he wanted to. George did want to but after a while he saw that at the school there wasn’t exactly the things he wanted to learn. He wanted to learn about botany and plants but the teacher didn’t teach those kind of things. Eventually George decided to leave that town..
George walked to another town where he stayed with a lady he called Aunt Lucy. She owned a laundry and sometimes George helped her with her work.
When George was older he thought he would like to go to a college so he started to send letters to colleges asking them if they would have him as a student. The problem was even thought sometimes letters got delivered to him, there was another George Carver in the town so the letters were really for the other George Carver. That was when George decided he’d better put a letter between George and Carver so people knew he was a different George Carver. So he chose the letter W and some of his friends thought it should stand for a name. One of his friends joked and said, why didn’t he say ‘Washington’ and George thought that was quite a good name, so now his name was George Washington Carver.
Still, not many colleges wanted to enrol someone who was black. But someone told him about a college that had once had a black student and that they might have him too. They did and George went to that college.
One of George’s favourite studies was agriculture. He thought he would like to be a teacher of that. Another college wanted someone to teach agriculture and told George that he could be the teacher but before they could start the school they had to build the agriculture building first! Which means that the students had to build their classroom before there could be students in it.
When that part of the school was actually finished they didn’t even have a laboratory or anything to use to help with their studies but George said that they could use things around them and they did. George also did experiments himself. Lots of people grew cotton but George knew that cotton was bad for the soil. He tried to find ways to make the soil better soil to use. He thought of two ways – the sweet potato and the peanut. He found lots of ways that those two crops could be used as well as just helping the soil. The reason they could help the soil was because they had lots of nitrogen in them and they didn’t use much, so they would give nitrogen to the soil and not use it up.
Once he even made a whole meal with just peanuts and the people he served it to didn’t even know that everything was made out of peanuts!
He gave speeches about how to do farming and make the soil better for the crops. He also wrote a handbook called ‘300 ways to use the peanut.’
He used to take long walks in the wood every day. When he got much older a museum was made in honour of him and the President gave him a medal.
He died when he was 79 years old.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Narrations: A Second Grade Example
Rather than using a writing program, I am much happier following Charlotte Mason's idea of narrations - oral for the under 10's, gradually progressing to written narrations. Here's an example of a narration by Snowy, dictated by him and typed by me. It was completed over a period of a few days and was a narration of the 'mammals' section in The Adventure Of Life by Jean-Benoit Durand.
Mammals
The mammals took over when the dinosaurs died out.
They didn’t die out because they had little heaters in their body that kept them warm and they needed small amounts of food because they were small animals but the dinosaurs needed lots of food.
Mammals are different from other animals because they give birth to their babies and feed them with milk.
Primates are mammals who can can walk on two feet and pick things up with their hands and feet. They have smart brains.
Humans and monkeys shared the same family tree so some people said that humans developed from monkeys but it isn’t true. We do have a common ancestor.
Our direct ancestor is Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens created art and they were the first to use speech. For a while they lived with the Neanderthals but the Neanderthals died out. When they died out, humans ( the Homo sapiens ) had a clear path to come in. People who lived in the hot places developed darker skin to protect them and people who lived in the cold developed lighter skin.
Animals, including mammals can be endangered by people cutting down forests, people throwing waste into the river and introducing animals that don’t belong into a habitat ( like angry red eared turtles.)
We edited some of this narration together after Snowy had finished, taking out a lot of 'and then the writer says'. I would also give him words if he forgot them; he needed a reminder of Homo sapiens and ancestor.
As you can see, the information in his narration isn't as comprehensive as it could be. It is, however, a good, clear expression of what he did retain from the reading and now knows. It was great practice in ordering a narrative, following the professional narrative modelled by the author. And most importantly, this 13 sentence 'report' on mammals wasn't a cause of conflict or stress, making it an efficient use of our time. It only required a book and a mother to type; pretty simple and inexpensive.
Narration: it's easy and it works.
Mammals
The mammals took over when the dinosaurs died out.
They didn’t die out because they had little heaters in their body that kept them warm and they needed small amounts of food because they were small animals but the dinosaurs needed lots of food.
Mammals are different from other animals because they give birth to their babies and feed them with milk.
Primates are mammals who can can walk on two feet and pick things up with their hands and feet. They have smart brains.
Humans and monkeys shared the same family tree so some people said that humans developed from monkeys but it isn’t true. We do have a common ancestor.
Our direct ancestor is Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens created art and they were the first to use speech. For a while they lived with the Neanderthals but the Neanderthals died out. When they died out, humans ( the Homo sapiens ) had a clear path to come in. People who lived in the hot places developed darker skin to protect them and people who lived in the cold developed lighter skin.
Animals, including mammals can be endangered by people cutting down forests, people throwing waste into the river and introducing animals that don’t belong into a habitat ( like angry red eared turtles.)
We edited some of this narration together after Snowy had finished, taking out a lot of 'and then the writer says'. I would also give him words if he forgot them; he needed a reminder of Homo sapiens and ancestor.
As you can see, the information in his narration isn't as comprehensive as it could be. It is, however, a good, clear expression of what he did retain from the reading and now knows. It was great practice in ordering a narrative, following the professional narrative modelled by the author. And most importantly, this 13 sentence 'report' on mammals wasn't a cause of conflict or stress, making it an efficient use of our time. It only required a book and a mother to type; pretty simple and inexpensive.
Narration: it's easy and it works.
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