How do I help my older students develop their composition abilities if they’ve not been narrating from the beginning? How can I keep up with all the many narrations my children need to tell and write each day? How do I know that they’re getting the facts right in their narrations? We’re addressing these questions and more as we wrap up our Composition series on the podcast today.

Listen Now:

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

ADE Composition Planner

ADE Exam Planner

ADE Teacher Resource: A Point or Two of Correction and Critique

ADE on YouTube

Emily
Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I’m Emily Kiser and I’m here with…

Liz
…Liz Cottrill…

Nicole
…and Nicole Williams. 

Emily
So as we close out our series on Composition, we want to take some time to answer some common practical questions that often arise. So Nicole, why don’t you start us off? 

Nicole
Sure. So one of the first ones is where we can combine our students, and with Composition…I mean, obviously anywhere where the children are sharing the same source material. So we talked in our last series of lessons about how so many of your children, well so many, depends on how many children you have, but such a wide form level range of children are reading Plutarch together. So if they’re reading the same book, Shakespeare play…

Emily
History. 

Nicole
History, yeah. Then you can tailor their narration, whether it’s a written or an oral one, so that the child, each child, is working at their own level. So that would be one way to do it. So here’s some examples I came up with. After a scene from Midsummer Night’s Dream, say, your Form 2 student might give you an oral or written narration, while your Form 3 student might write a short summary of the same piece. 

After reading Plutarch– I should just preface that some of these are just better done together as a group, but sometimes we might want to do this kind of thing– you might have, again, your Form 2 student recount a single incident or something. Maybe that’s going to be their written narration for the day. Your Form 4 student might create a diary entry from the main character. So just kind of mixing it up there. 

Working from a current events article…lots of us listen or watch current events together as a family. Your Form 3 student could write a descriptive paragraph in prose, while the Form 5 student maybe could craft an opinion piece for the paper on the same topic. 

Emily
Or write a ballad. 

Nicole
Or write a ballad. 

So my last one was just if everybody was on the same nature walk, then maybe everybody could write about like a frozen pond or the first wildflower of the season. But your Form 1 student might say it orally and your Form 2 student might write in verse in the meter of that term’s poet and your Form 6 student might compose 20 lines of blank verse. So everybody can kind of do their own things at their level is what I’m saying. 

Liz
From the same source. 

Nicole
From the same source, right. 

Liz
Have you ever thought about, too, if they’re doing a lesson together, two children are studying the same Ancient History text. While you’re working with the younger children, they can read out loud to one another and even narrate to each other. You don’t have to hear it. 

Emily
Yeah, absolutely. 

Nicole
Another one that we’ve talked about before is maybe they both narrate orally a little bit. And then that student who’s learning to write a narration writes just a small part of the end.

There are a few things, but again it will really depend on the source material.

Emily
Well, I want to tackle the subject of placement and I’ll ask you guys because you both have the experience bringing older students into Charlotte Mason whereas mine have done it from the beginning. I hope all of our listeners have come to appreciate just how important narration is to the subject of Composition. It is far more important than simply learning how to format a five-paragraph essay, right? If you are bringing an older student into the Charlotte Mason method and they are not fluent narrators, time must be spent working on that first. 

This might mean you don’t ask them to write all the different types of compositions appropriate for their form, at least at first. You could let them try writing those and refrain from critique until their narrating skills have grown. We can hold off even on offering our point or two of correction if they’re still developing these skills. Do you guys have anything to add to that?

Nicole
One thing you mentioned in an earlier episode that I did with my older kids when they first started this was when they wrote one I had them read it to me. 

Emily
Yes. 

Nicole
And that kind of kept eyes off, kept my eyes off the paper and allowed them not to have any embarrassment over spelling or anything like that. 

Emily
And they might notice more, which I think is if they’re older like four and three and up, she said that’s when we do start offering the correction because they see a need for it. 

Nicole
Yeah.

Emily
Do you have anything else? 

Liz
I don’t think so. 

Emily
Okay. 

Nicole
I was just also going to say in my history, you know, we’re very careful to give enough of a story that they can narrate that without just parroting it back. But attention is the thing that has to be cultivated for this, and there were times where I had to say like just something so short, just to get them to lock in, get your brain here right now. And then I could read a big piece and they could narrate that piece. But it’s really hard to cultivate that attention. 

And I guess just one last thing is when they’re older and you’re asking them, this all comes naturally when they’re younger and you ask them to do it and they just do it forever. But when they’re older and there’s kind of a sense of embarrassment, you’re asking them to do this…

Emily
It feels uncomfortable.

Nicole
…having a little explanation. 

Emily
Why do I have to tell you, you just read it. 

Nicole
Yes, having a little explanation about why we’re doing this or what’s going on, what the purpose of this is.

Emily
Yeah what’s going on in their own brain, right. This is how you’re learning.

Liz
Yeah, because we have just read it. We know what we think. We don’t know what they think. 

Emily
Mm-hmm. I know what I heard, but I don’t know what you heard. 

OK. What other questions do people often have? 

Liz
You know, I think when you think about the overall big thing, the most common question I have is, well, feeling like I just need to get a course to work my kids through from like 10 years old up because by the time they’re in high school with my lack of skills, they’re not going to be able…I think we need to trust this method. If you do the things that she assigns at every level, you are going to be astounded at what your children can write. 

Emily
And as aforementioned, people who get into college cannot write. 

Liz
Yeah. Well, that’s true there too, but we don’t want to fall to that level for sure. That’s why we’re doing a better way of educating. But I cannot emphasize enough that you just don’t have the option of skipping narrations, like running out of time, just not doing them or blowing them off in any way, whether oral or written. And especially starting in seventh grade, relentlessly give them those composition themes and those delayed narration assignments. Don’t say, I just couldn’t think of a good thing this week or, you know, I’ve got to take some time and figure this out so I haven’t been doing it for two or three or four terms. Just…all you have to do is have them write so you can make time for that. Because it’s the accumulation of the comfort of writing over time that is going to make a difference when they get to high school. 

I also get a lot of questions about how do you hear everybody’s narrations? And I’ll just say right off the bat, there’s no simple solution to this. Every single year of your school, it’s going to change because your children have different skills and you have different children at the table and you have different things going on. 

When I am working out my yearly timetable, on a day-to-day basis I will actually consider if this child, I can’t hear two narrations at one time, so I schedule lessons so I don’t have two children having to narrate. And like Emily keeps pointing out, it’s only in the younger years, especially two or three times that they’re gonna have to be doing it. And once they get to be 10, they’re gonna be writing them. You don’t have to listen to that. They’re sitting there writing. 

Emily
I have my Form 2 and 3 students do several lessons together and I never hear their narrations. I mean I hear them across the room narrating to one another but I’m not hearing the words that they’re saying. 

Liz
Because the fact is they can narrate to the wall and it would be just as effective. 

Emily
It would. Because it’s for them. 

Liz
Exactly. 

And the other thing is to be diligent about planning lessons for tomorrow because you can look at tomorrow’s schedule and decide right then which lessons will be narrated, which ones will be written, oral, whatever, and in which children are going to be doing what. You’d just be surprised. It’s not as hard as it might seem. You might feel like, oh, I have five students. How can I hear 12 narrations a day? You don’t have to, is the point. 

Emily
I think another one…moms are, I mean, we’ve perennially heard this, I think, for the last 20 years, that how do I know they’re not making up their narrations? If we aren’t pre-reading or if we aren’t hearing their narrations. It is far harder to make up than to tell what you just read, right? But again, that is not the purpose of narration. The purpose is for them to learn, to dig in, to digest the reading and do their reading. 

Liz
If they’re all studying in the same room, you can be more aware. If you’re taking time to plan lessons for tomorrow, you know where they’re at in the books. I mean, sometimes even just skimming headings in a book gives you enough of a clue if they write about the discovery of some mineral in Alaska and you know they were actually studying about something in Mexico, you know that was all made up. 

Emily
I think that the we just had a mom recently who was brand new to having a consult with A Delectable Education and she was, I think, just taken aback. Like, wait, what do mean you guys all do school in the same room? And I think it’s much easier for a child to go off and not do their work and then they have to make up a narration. 

Liz
You’re really putting them in a moral dilemma too. 

Emily
I’m actually thinking back to my 12 year old self, I probably would have done the same thing. I wanted to read what I wanted to read. 

Nicole
I had a thought too that I wanted to bring up. So lots of times we talk about narration and just the act of knowing, but this has really brought, I hope shed a lot of light on this other aspect in the ride, it’s important.

And if we think about the other forms that people try to use for narration, like to draw a narration, there are times where in their drawing lessons they’re asked to draw a scene from a history book on something. But if we finish a lesson and we draw it on the regular, we are missing this whole aspect of this. 

Liz
Right. Because narration is a verbal activity. 

Emily
And I think there is a rule with them that Charlotte Mason talks about that. Like if the material is unable to be communicated clearly in words and it needs a diagram or a map, that’s their narration is the diagram or the map. But the lessons that we have been talking about that feed composition are all lessons that they’re taking in literary form. They’re reading books, and she was absolutely persistently adamant that literary form deserves a literary narration. So if it comes into us through words, it comes out of us through words. 

Liz
Right. And one other thought I just didn’t get a chance to say, when it comes to balancing their narrating and all of that. First of all, try to read their written narrations the same day they were written. It doesn’t take that long, you know, and that way you’re keeping up with it. Don’t think, I’ll save all this till Friday afternoon. Because Friday afternoon you’re going to want to leave the house. And also, I know it is not ideal, but it is possible to hear a child’s brief oral narration while the child you’re working with is doing their transcription writing or working out a long math problem. I mean, you’re not constantly involved with the seven year old every single second. 

Emily
And you’re also always telling people they need to train the child who needs to narrate to not just come in first. They need to put their hand on your shoulder like they’ve been doing in social situations. 

Liz
Correct. Or just give them a signal. I know you need to narrate. I’ll be with you in 10 seconds. And you get the little one doing something for a moment and you turn to the other child. This is part of learning to love their neighbor as themselves, right? They are cooperating to write a narration. 

Nicole
And if they’re old enough to write a narration they’re probably old enough to make lunch. So maybe you sit with your cup of tea after school while somebody else makes lunch and you read narration. 

Emily
Aww.

Liz
Yeah. Lovely thought. And I think just as well as keeping with the writing assignments and not letting them off the hook or blowing them off just because you are uncertain or feeling insecure or something.

Do not underestimate how much wide reading helps your children to write. Help your children get beyond only fantasy books or only survival books. Help them to take their novels seriously that are assigned every term. From fourth grade on, they have to be able to read widely to ever be able to write well. That would be my major point about this entire session on compositions. 

Emily
Well, I have always at these closing episodes talked about assessing their progress. So this really kind of goes along with the “point or two of correction”, you know, definitely. But even that’s not till the end. So we definitely want to be assuring ourselves, our child, that they’re making progress in their composition skills, even before they get to the point where we’re actually intervening, right, and bringing some things to their attention.

So I think this is the most daunting area. right, especially since the majority of us didn’t grow up practicing narration, it’s just a foreign a foreign concept, right? 

So the first thing to remember is that we gauge progress not against the ideal, the most perfect Composition writing or whatever. 

Liz
Yes. 

Emily
We’re comparing the child to themselves, right? Are you making progress compared to where you were last week, last month, last term, last year…whatever the case may be. So that means we do need to look back at their old narrations. In the early years when this is all oral, we still have their exams that are written down. So we have like a term by term look at what they have been writing.

Our Exam Planner has some helpful criteria to look at and questions to help you assess their work in the front matter of that exam planner. Also, I mentioned previously Jono Kiser did a teacher training video for us and that is available called “A Point or Two of Correction and Critique”. That has a lot of things that you can do, look at to help assess how they’re coming along. 

But some simple questions you can ask yourself are, is their narration or their composition relevant to the topic or the reading? Is it on topic? Does it show their engagement with the material and ideas? Are they showing interest in the things that they’re reading about? Have they improved their fluency of communicating? Do you know what they’re talking about and do you understand their meaning? And have they shown growth over the term or from year to year?

That’s it, and I think we can rest assured that if the answer is yes, even if it’s a tiny amount of progress, if they’re making some strides in these areas, they’re gonna be okay and they will take care of itself. 

Liz
And just maybe keep a folder and keep samples maybe once a month, set something aside and save it and you go back and look over those over a year or two and you will see the progress.

Emily
Charlotte Mason said, “the response of the young students to such a scheme of study is very delightful. What they write has literary and sometimes poetic value, and the fact that they can write well is the least of the gains acquired. They can read, appreciating every turn of their author’s thought, and they can bring cultivated minds to bear on the problems of the hour and the guiding of the state. That is to say, their education bears at every point on these issues and interests of everyday life, and they show good progress in the art of becoming the magnanimous citizens of the future.”

Well that is a lofty goal and that is it for our series on Composition. Resources that we mentioned today are going to be found in the show notes and from here we’re moving into more Language Arts by looking at languages both foreign and our native tongue as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason method while discussing a Charlotte Mason curriculum.

Finally, in the highest forms, grades 10 through 12, Charlotte Mason allowed that students do need some definite instruction in Composition. We’ll be sharing what this looks like on the podcast today.

Listen Now:

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

ADE Composition Planner

ADE Teacher Resource: A Point or Two of Correction and Critique

ADE on YouTube

Emily
Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I’m Emily Kiser and I’m here with…

Liz
…Liz Cottrill…

Nicole
…and Nicole Williams. 

Emily
Finally, we’ve reached the forum with some definite teaching in Composition. She said “some teaching in the art of Composition is advisable, but not too much, lest the young scholars be saddled with a stilted style which may encumber them for life.” It’s pretty severe. So before we talk about what this definite teaching looks like, Nicole, would you tell us what kinds of writing students in Forms 5 and 6 do? 

Nicole
Yeah, these have been years for honing skills and broadening application without abandoning the natural development that has brought them this far. So assignments might include essays on significant questions of the day or ideas from the term’s work. A precis, which is a concise, accurate summary of a longer piece. “Times Leader” is what Charlotte Mason called these. These are opinion pieces modeled on the editorial pages of the Times. They could write those. Speeches for delivery on a particular occasion or in defense of a position. Occasionally they could write debates, or maybe that’s like the intro for the debate because the debate’s more fluid, right?

And then still narrative verse and ballads often tied to current events. I loved your point of the Light Brigade in the last episode. That just really is an inspiring idea to me, I guess. And then now, you know, they started letters in Form 2 and then they were writing letters, maybe even to characters that they didn’t know. They were having to make that up in Forms 3 and 4. But now they’re going to write letters to publications, bringing their voice into the public conversation. That’s a pretty big deal. 

Liz
So when you said the Times, you meant the London Times. 

Nicole
Yeah, the Times Leader was opinion pieces. 

Emily
We would call them op-eds, right?

Nicle
Yeah, yeah. 

They also may be assigned to write lines of verse which must scan on abstract ideas or on current events. By this stage they’ve already practiced Scansion, we hope, in Form 3, analyzing the rhythm and meter of a line of verse and should be able to apply those skills well at this point. If they haven’t, they can probably pick it up pretty quickly if they’ve been reading poetry for a while. And so when writing in the style of a particular poet, they follow the conventions of that poet’s form, maintaining both the rhythm and the structures, they’re like the rules to these poems. 

And then again, all this work is undergirded by a steady diet of reading that shaped their style and their other things like their Grammar, and they’re not doing a lot of the things like Dictation and stuff like that anymore. Am I saying that right? 

So a lot of that is formed in those earlier years, but they’re using it now. So they should have pretty good mechanical skills by this time and be able to represent themselves well, whether it’s more of a creative piece, you know, like we talked about the letters between two characters, that are in two different books, or it’s this op-ed piece.

Emily
Well, the weekly format, they still have a weekly Composition lesson, but it actually decreases in time. It’s down to 20 minutes once a week. Of course, they’re still doing their written narrations at least two per day, which is the majority of their book lessons. They’re reading and discussing various kinds of writing and use those as models, right? Like you mentioned, essays, they would be reading essays and then asked to write them. So they still have models for these things in front of them. 

But that can be more drawn out. How does so-and-so make his point in this essay? Drawing their attention maybe a little more overtly than we have possibly done in the past. So we would be reading over their writing and Charlotte Mason says a point or two might be taken up in a given composition and suggestions or corrections made. 

So this is not bringing out all our red pens and marking up everything in their writing that needs improvement, but she said with a little talk, right? So we’re just starting to draw their attention to what they can improve and give them again the inspiring idea with a little talk. This is an oral lesson. That’s it. We’re not tearing their papers to shreds, but just choosing one or two things to draw their attention to and ask them to improve upon.

So we largely trust that they have found their unique writing voice by this time from the copious amount of literature that they’ve consumed so far. And again, style cannot be taught. So our criticism must focus on the mechanics of writing. That’s the kind of things that we’re going to be working out. Hopefully they’re writing a complete sentence. That’s the mechanical thing that you say. This is actually a sentence fragment. You need to finish your thought or any complete thought here. 

So our objectives are the same as in the earlier forms, drawing upon their habit of attention and their imagination, their free and fluent expression in the written form is what we’re after. 

So our teacher prep now, we have a little more definite work to do than we have thus far. We need to read their writing, right? A lot of times it’s not going to be in the moment or directly after. They’re going to use their time in their Composition lesson and we’re going to have to read it outside of that time.

And then we just are needing to identify what’s the biggest problem or what’s the biggest thing that they can do to improve, the most important thing they can do to improve a correction. And then we just talk over those points a little. So that could happen in their English Language lesson, maybe. It could happen the next week in their Composition lesson. We don’t have specific guidelines, so there’s just freedom for us to work on that as we will.

Nicole
I’m also thinking that a student who really takes an interest might be writing some of these things outside of lessons because they’re interested in that. 

Emily
That’s so true at this age, right? Yeah, they’re making decisions about what to do with their free time. 

And then also part of our prep is we need to give them the scope for all these different kinds of writing. So that does take a little preparation on our part. We need to, you know, come up with some ideas and we have a Composition Planner that is full of them that kind of details what was assigned and gives some ideas for those. So you can use that as a resource. 

My husband Jono Kiser also has given a workshop at one of our past conferences called A Point or Two of Correction and Critique and it literally is how to help your students become a better writer, but in Charlotte Mason’s style. 

So that’s it. I mean really we think okay some definite teaching but really it’s just still a little bit…

Liz
Vague? And that’s what drives moms crazy. They want a step-by-step guide. When she says a point or two, I just want to make a point or two. Because moms often feel like they don’t know what to correct. You know, like this feels like a big mess to me. Sure. So I think you’re helped by her advice to just correct one or two things, because just find one thing that’s wrong with it or two little things…see what their biggest problem is. Is their biggest problem that they keep forgetting to use punctuation or paragraphs or is it that they keep switching from past tense to present tense or something like that? Just pick one thing or two things.

Emily
And I would say spelling is probably not going to be the biggest thing, right? We live in the 20th century and spell check abounds, much to my dismay sometimes, because I really am writing the correct word that my computer doesn’t think I am trying to say. But really, some kids are just not going to be natural spellers and they’re done with that at that point. 

Liz
But my point about the point or two that you might just select one or two things is that then give them time to practice that. Like don’t use every single lesson to critique. Let them work that out. And you can even keep pointing it out. Like are you confused about what I mean by this? You know, I’m still seeing you do this. Could you try really hard today to correct that problem? 

One thing she points out somewhere, I’m sorry, I don’t remember exactly where I read this, but I always remembered that she said, usually by this age, kids are starting to really care how they’re coming across. So it’s not as daunting as it is to a 13 or 14 year old. When you have a 16 year old who knows maybe they’re headed for college or really wants their writing to be better, they’re gonna be much more open because they know a lot more about words, they care a lot more about words. 

If you don’t know what kind of things to correct, you know, there are writing guides out there that can help you. But I think some of the best things are some of the things that Jono brought out in that, is it readable? I mean, is this making sense? And if it isn’t in some place, why is that? So just hone in and say, I’m with you all the way till this part. And then tell me what you were trying to say here. Could you rewrite this so it’s more sensible? 

So that might be a help in some way. I mean, there are Grammar handbooks when it comes to mechanics, moms are always very concerned about the term paper. And I think that is a good thing. You know, they ask me… 

Emily
Oh yeah I meant to say that. One of the things you need to go over.

Liz
Yeah. So a research paper. There are lots of guides out there free online for how to do a research paper. Just follow the steps. 

Emily
And the biggest thing is citation and learning how to do works cited, so yeah. 

Liz
Yep. And that information is all out there. 

Nicole
Yeah, I use a generator.

Liz
And when I, when they say 20 minutes a week. So that gives you a clue right here that they might be working on something for several weeks running, you know, and a research paper might take a whole term or two terms, maybe one term of doing the research and another term in writing it or something like that. 

And Nicole mentioned a precis and that is an unfamiliar word to a lot of people, but basically it just means an abstract or a summary like when you read a formal journal entry there’ll be a one page summary that tells you what that article is going to be about. They have been reading essays and so they understand what they’re after here. If you just google online how to write a precis there will be two or three things come up that will give you the steps. It’s really a wonderful tool. It will help them tremendously in later research and stuff. If you can read a 10,000 word essay and distill it down to 300 words for your own use, you know, that’s going to be very helpful. 

Take someone like Francis Bacon that they commonly read even in ninth or tenth grade. He’s super organized and his essays aren’t super long. The language is difficult sometimes, but you can still see how he makes point one, two, three. And that helps kids a lot too. 

I don’t know, can you think of any other…? 

Children who maybe come to 10th or 11th grade who still have struggles with spelling and things like that that might be benefited from Dictation, even though Dictation is not on the schedule, you might want to include that for a year or so to help your child, you know, make some progress in spelling better. 

Emily
If they have not been…

Liz
…if they’ve never had it. 

Emily
I’m thinking of when I said earlier, like we just need to give it up. It’s like if they’ve been doing dictation since 3rd grade they don’t need any longer. They’re just not going to be a speller, guys. And it’s okay. 

Liz
And even Mason acknowledged that some people are not spellers.

Emily
So true.

Thanks for tuning in as we have progressed through Composition lessons across the forms. Next week, we will turn our attention to some practical questions we often hear. We hope you’ll join us next time, as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method and conclude our series on Composition.

As our children move into middle and high school, we can ask them to write in various styles and genres. Join us on today’s podcast to learn what we can do as teachers to support them in their Composition lessons while not diminishing their unique voices.

Listen Now:

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

ADE Poetry Scansion Lessons

ADE Poetry Scansion Additional Exercises

ADE Composition Planner

ADE Exam Planner

ADE on YouTube

Emily
Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I’m Emily Kiser and I’m here with…

Liz
…Liz Cottrill…

Nicole
…and Nicole Williams. 

Emily
Charlotte Mason says, if we would believe it, composition is as natural as jumping and running to children who have been allowed due use of books. They should narrate in the first place, and they will compose later readily enough. But they should not be taught composition. 

As we have discussed over the past few episodes narration forms the foundation, and is really the training ground, for composition. But as students move into middle and high school, they are asked to do more. Nicole, can you tell us what Composition looks like at this level? 

Nicole
Yes. So in Form 3, Composition expands to many new forms. Students are still going to write straightforward narrations and short essays, but they’re also tackling narrative and descriptive poems, often in the meter of the term’s poet, which they were doing some of in the previous form, but often tied to history or current events.

They may write ballads on heroic deeds or historical events. They are, you know, as I read these things I think, scenes for a play inspired by literature or history. They aren’t narrating the scene, they are writing the scene for the play. 

Emily
And you question the current events. Hello, I’m thinking of “Charge of the Light Brigade”. That was a current event at one time, right? Like a lot of poems come from things that… 

Liz
They have a lot more fun with their current events when they make it into a poem. 

Nicole
Letters. Now they already wrote some letters in the last form, but now they are going to write letters both real and imagined. Such as from one literary character to another. They’re also going to write dialogues. Again, this isn’t narration on dialogue they read. They’re going to write the dialogue or conversation between historical or fictional figures. Still subjects such as current events, nature observations, History, Plutarch, Geography…they all provide the subject matter. Even their Sunday readings at this point may lead to a composition topic. Recitation continues to feed their writing voice, and prepared Dictation and Grammar lessons support spelling and punctuation and increased awareness of sentence structure.

Then in Form 4, the variety continues. Students begin to work at greater length at this point and some new forms of writing appear. They may write essays “in the style of” an author studied that term. And this is the first time they’re going to write summaries of readings, which seems a little like narration, but maybe they’re… 

Emily
More honed. 

Nicole
Yeah, maybe closer to that original full text.

They’re going to write diary entries “as from a historical figure”. I liked that one. They may write orations or speeches modeled after examples in their studies and more advanced verse forms such as blank verse or heroic meter now. It’s very exciting. 

This is also a time when analysis and creativity often blend. Students may be asked to imagine a conversation between, I saw this example, “between Cromwell and Christian from Pilgrim’s Progress” or to compose a ballad about a current event. Throughout both forms Charlotte Mason still warned against correction or instruction, however she does clarify that exercises in Scansion are necessary at this point. 

Scansion is the act of scanning a line of verse to determine its rhythm. Students are now required to write verse in that scans, she says, right, such as a poem that scans, meaning they must follow the guidelines for whatever type of verse they’re composing. 

So by the end of Form 4, the student has an impressive toolkit, the ability to write in multiple genres, adapt their style to match an author’s, compress an idea into a clear summary, and even develop a topic at greater length. They’re really doing some stuff at this point.

Emily
Well, as far as the lesson format goes, this is the turning point here. Form 3 actually has a lesson time for Composition on the timetable. In Form 3, it’s once a week for 30 minutes. Form 4 has 40 minutes once a week. So these lessons are for their writing apart from the narration, of course, that just occurs during their other lessons. They can also be used for writing delayed narration, which this is the first age that they are asked to read something and then two days later write their narration on it. And that is just stretching their intellect and memory much more.

Oral narration, however, I just need to underscore this, is never given up entirely. Forms 3 and up were to write at least two written narrations a day. And you said they have at most three book lessons a day. So maybe they would write all of them, but not always, right?

Nicole
Meaning, sometimes they would say an oral narration, they wouldn’t just not… 

Emily
Correct, of course they’re narrating every lesson. Yeah. 

And then Form 4, they might have up to four book lessons a day. And so if they’re writing at least two, there would be at least one that was an oral narration. So the majority, but not all, lessons are going to be written narration. There’s still going to be room for oral narration. 

And then Charlotte Mason is adamant that until the student begins noticing a need for critique and revision of his work, we still do not do any formal teaching or training of Composition. We have our students read essays. They read letters and of course they read lots of poetry and they get their understanding of these forms pretty much organically, without us pointing out the characteristics of what makes an essay an essay, right? 

Liz
Right. 

Emily
We do however, as you said Nicole, start training them in verse scansion at this level but that occurs during their Grammar lessons, right? 

Nicole
Yes. 

Emily
So it’s not part of that Composition time but it’s aiding their ability to do the Composition prompts that Charlotte Mason laid– 

Liz
Composition time is just when they get to practice what they’ve been learning in Scansion. 

Emily
Yeah, or put it into practice as they write a poem that scans in the meter of Tennyson or whatever it is.

Okay, so yes, they’re composing their own verses that must scan. And then apart from their narrations, Charlotte Mason tells us that at this level, she said, “they should only be asked to write upon subjects which have interested them keenly”. So the topics of the compositions that we set for them are becoming a bit more abstract than in earlier forms. Now we’re kind of starting to bridge that idea of you’ve got a blank page before you, right? A little more just instead of retell this or tell me what you know about this, they’re having to do some more abstract thinking and so they need to write on things they’ve actually had time to think about. 

Liz
Yes. 

Emily
So I think that we’ll talk about in a minute but it is a responsibility we have as teachers to consider that as we set these. 

So the objectives for Composition are developing the habit of attentive reading. So they’re using their attention to read and that is coming out in their composition and also to express their ideas clearly and fluently to communicate well with writing. 

So our teacher prep, as I mentioned, is to take some care to select writing prompts that they’re going to be excited about, right? I think this is such a core idea at Charlotte Mason. We’re never trying to catch kids up about what they don’t know how to do. We’re trying to give them opportunity to show what they can do, right? And it’s the same here as we’re helping them develop their composition skills. So we need to set questions on topics that they’re interested in. 

And then also our teacher prep is we need to include Scansion in our Grammar lessons. 

Nicole
Yes. 

Emily
And if you don’t know what scansion is, as I did not until my husband wrote a teacher resource for us and I read through it and learned it myself, we do have one available on our website.

So as far as that we have the Scansion Manual and then now some additional Scansion Exercises and we do have our Composition Planner that can help you with all of the list of things so you don’t have to pause this podcast and try and take notes. This can help save you the effort. 

Nicole
Yeah, this is just the highlights; that includes pages of prompts and ideas. 

Liz
Basically it tells you everything we just said. 

Emily
And more. So what are some challenges of teaching composition at this level, Mom? 

Liz
Well, there’s so many, probably. Nicole’s always thinking of those children that are just coming into the Charlotte Mason way of doing school, maybe at 12 or 13 or 14 years old, and they haven’t had years of narration. And I guess I would just encourage you to start with the oral narration, but don’t overlook the written for very long time, because they will catch on quicker than a six-year-old will. And so they will catch up.

And I don’t think there’s any reason to hesitate on Composition because you don’t have to have narration skills to be able to try to write. Basically, they’re given this 30 or 40 minute lesson at this age. It’s a time limit. But in that time for once, for the first time, they’re kind of set free to roam where they will and put their ideas on paper. And a lot of them take to it quite readily, especially boys who are perhaps reluctant…I shouldn’t…some girls are also very reluctant to write, but…it is helpful, I think, sometimes when Nicole said have them write about a character, have them write about what they don’t like about a character or, you know, because teenagers love giving their opinion on negative things. 

Emily
(Laughs) Being critical.

Liz
And also, even if you didn’t have that wonderful composition guide, if you have Charlotte Mason’s volumes, you can always…because I’m always asked, well, what kind of things? I would just say a variety of things. Don’t give them the same kind of thing every single week. And start making a page in your planning notebook and jotting down ideas. Because when the day comes, you don’t want to be trying to scratch something out, you know, at the last minute when your mind’s on a lot of other things. So write down some ideas ahead of time. 

Nicole
I was thinking that those could come from some of the things the kids seem to be talking about– 

Liz
Well, that was why I was saying if you have a really reluctant writing boy, have him write about his latest soccer game or something he’s really interested in that will help him to start feeling more comfortable about putting ideas down. He’ll have lots of opinions maybe about sports or other things. But also if you look in the back of volume 3, Charlotte Mason’s School Education, where she has sample exam questions, or even our Exam Planner on our website. Any of those. 

Emily
Even in this section she gives lots of writing prompts.

Liz
She does in volume six. I guess what I’m saying is those are good ideas. You might not be studying Napoleon, just substitute Churchill or whatever you are studying in those questions because exams basically were the writing of compositions on things that they were assigned to do. 

Emily
That’s true. Yeah, and that’s made clear in the notes of “composition as assessed not just in the subject of composition but throughout the whole exam”. 

Nicole, I was thinking about when your son took Literature and Composition with Jono for the first time and he had to write, was it a sonnet? 

Nicole
Yes. 

Emily
And you were like he can’t do this. I never asked him to do it, right? But what did he do? 

Nicole
Yeah, he did it. So he, we had never done Scansion because I didn’t know what that was and Jono would much prefer you have done that before you get to his class, let me tell you. But he learned it quickly through Jono because he had been reading a lot of poetry so that came quickly. So he had to use those rules for the sonnet and then rhyme, you know, certain ones and, and he did it. And my son’s severely dyslexic. I thought there’s no way he could do this. So maybe that’s something to keep in mind too, is that don’t underestimate their ability. 

Emily
It’s kind of the balance of what mom was saying about, you know, like definitely give them time to do narration, but don’t neglect the composition. Cause we don’t know, they don’t know what they have in them.

Liz
I love it that Charlotte Mason actually waits till they have the skill to write comfortably enough, you know, but they’re becoming young people who have lots of ideas and opinions and they might even be contrary to yours. And the thing that’s valuable about composition over a regular written narration, which is just summing up what you have just read, they’re actually allowed to bring in their own thoughts to compare to other information they’ve gotten somewhere else and all that. 

How much should we help our child? As Emily said Mason didn’t want us teaching them how to write their compositions, and it is a big temptation to interfere. Let them experiment. I mean, you may get a wide variety of kinds of writing. They’re practicing, they’re trying things out just like they might be doing in their wardrobe at this point in their life, right?

I have been told by so many Composition teachers that they can help a child learn how to do all kinds of things for writing, but no one can teach you your writing voice. And this is what they’re learning how to get comfort with at this age, is how to put down their thoughts. And this was a weekly subject, right? You already said that. 

Emily
Yeah, once a week. 

Liz
So let them struggle and learn how to do it and just be an encourager and don’t critique and hand them back to them. Make notes for yourself and work on their paragraphing or things that you think are important in the other lessons. But this isn’t a time to really be working so much on various forms and styles of essays. It is a time for letting them learn how to put their thoughts on paper. 

And I just think, you know, some of you might be daunted by all the talk here about writing verse for this time. You might be shocked. When I first timidly told my son he was going to have to write whatever it was for Composition that day in verse, I was shocked at how he just readily said “sure.” And he did it, and that was even more shocking. 

Honestly, reading poetry is the best help you can give a future writer, and the value of this Scansion lesson that gets tackled at this stage is…I don’t even know how to estimate how valuable it is because they’re really learning to analyze. The best authors that I’ve ever read were those who are extremely acutely aware of the sound of words as well as the content. So I just encourage you to dive in. Most kids think Scansion is great fun.

Emily
Next week, we will wrap up our look at Composition lessons and dive into the rest of high school lessons. In the meantime, check out our show notes for the links to all the resources we mentioned today. We hope you’ll join us as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.

How do we help our children learn to write down their thoughts? What should we expect as our students transition from oral to written narration? Join us today on the podcast as we look at composition in Form 2, grades 4 through 6.

Listen Now:

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

ADE Composition Planner

ADE on YouTube

Emily
Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I’m Emily Kiser and I’m here with…

Liz
…Liz Cottrill…

Nicole
…and Nicole Williams. 

Emily
Well, we don’t give formal Composition lessons or instruction in Form 2. The students are developing their skills all the same. So Nicole, would you share what type of compositions they do at this level? 

Nicole
Yeah. So they’re still narrating every lesson, but some of those narrations are recorded in writing. And it’s the type of things that are changing at this time. They’re still narrating every lesson. Just be very clear there. And it’s still coming from all of their sources. But now they could be asked to write in verse sometimes. 

Emily
A narration in verse. 

Nicole
In verse.

Emily
Like, poetry. 

Nicole
Yes. And sometimes even in the meter of a poem that they have been, like a poet that they’ve been studying that term. So it’s not just any poem. And just to note, no formal poetry writing is taught. There’s some things in Form 3, but not at this level. 

The written narrations, though, in Form 2 can take on some fresh forms. We see them being asked to write a story on a scene from Shakespeare or a historical figure or a story from something they’ve read in the newspaper because they are reading current events, right?

They can be asked to write descriptive pieces from their nature walks or seasonal observations. They can be asked to write letters. These can be personal notes to friends or family, invitations or thank you notes. And like I said, the verse sometimes. 

So this is also where recitation, dictation and grammar, really begin to shape the child’s written work. They’ve really been practicing all these other things in other lessons, you know, specific lessons. And now they’re able to put those to use in some of these things. I really think it’s fun that they learn some very practical skills at this time, like letter writing, you would have to learn how to address the envelope and things like that. So yeah, this is the time for that.

Emily
Well, the lesson format, again, there’s no separate Composition lesson in Form 2 on the timetable. So all their composition work is happening within their other lessons. In Form 2B, which is again, 4th grade, beginning of Form 2, they’re expected to write one narration per day. And in 2A, 5th and 6th grades, they were to write two narrations per day. Now, I will say, in Form 2, I don’t think there’s ever a day in our schedule where there’s four..that we see in Charlotte Mason’s timetables that we have where there are more than three books. So they’re writing their narrations maybe on all of their book work for the day or two out of three books. 

And this is as we’ve seen, and you keep saying even the story on the historical figure, well that’s a narration from their history, right? This is the bulk of their composition work. But for writing letters or sometimes poems on like a seasonal topic or whatever they might be asked to do, I have personally used some of their writing lessons, which is like handwriting most days, but I have them work on that during that. That’s how I’ve incorporated some of those other topics that we see come up on the programs.

But they can narrate their Literature or History written as a poem, right? Sometimes Charlotte Mason tells them they weren’t asked to do it. They just did it because they are taking in all this poetry and that just naturally is what they want to come out. 

But for lessons that will have a written narration, we must allow ample time. Like normally we maybe could read 20 out of the 30 minutes and then save 10 minutes for narration and discussion. With writing, we need a lot more time. And as we’ve looked at the amount of work that Charlotte Mason assigned and then we compare that to the length of the lessons that they had on the timetable. We see that at most, if we spread out all that reading over the term for those 11 weeks, the reading would usually take no more than half the lesson time. So that’s kind of a good rule of thumb. If they need more time, they’re going to be reading fewer pages. And actually, I think we see this when we add up the pages that they read. There’s actually a step back from page count in higher forms because they’re spending so much time writing.

So as students transition to written narrations, they can always – also, whatever that looks like for your children, and maybe you have a child who is not a fluent reader, and so the writing is kind of behind that, whenever they make that transition to written narrations, we can ask them to write a part and then tell the rest. Because really, even if they’re not narrating the entirety of their passage, just the thought of going through and sorting out what can I write? Because my son, my oldest, when he started written narrations, was giving one sentence and it was the most comprehensive yet very concise sentence that he could manage. That is a really good writing skill to take a whole thing and he’s getting the gist of it, but then I’d be like okay can you tell me a little bit more? and he would narrate some more orally.

So we should not be discouraged at what looks like a regression in their narration abilities, when they get to this age. The skills that they use to select even those concise paragraphs or phrases and arrange them and hold them in their mind while their hand is laboriously writing them out are really the same things. They’re still accomplishing the learning that narration affords. 

So our objectives are the same as in Form 1. We want to allow children to tell what they know. We want to increase their attention and their imagination and to develop their writing skills now is a new objective by exposing them to many different voices. Their writing is actually becoming written down at this point. 

So our teacher prep, it’s such a relief after we’ve given you lots of other things to prep, but using narration allows children to harness and perfect their own natural abilities and by narrating from excellent books we eliminate the roadblock to composition of coming up with what do I need to say, what do I need to talk about? Charlotte Mason said it is our business to provide children with material in their lessons and then leave the handling of such material to themselves.

We do have a resource at this level. Actually a friend of ours, Morgan, has compiled a Composition Planner. This looks at all of the types of writing Nicole just gave you a snapshot of, but then some specific prompts that were taken from Charlotte Mason with some ideas of what we might do today in our situation. 

Nicole
That’s helpful when you’re in the middle of lessons and you were like, Hmm, I’m supposed to do something a little unique here. What does that look like? 

Emily
Yeah. And then of course, all you need for written narrations is paper and a pencil, and that could look like a spiral notebook. It could look like loose leaf paper in a binder. It could look like a journal. There’s no need to separate– I’m just trying to answer some of these questions about these nitty gritty details. But you don’t need to separate narrations by subject or anything. They can all be together in one book. 

Liz
And you can just put the date and the subject, and they could write on the next clean page.

And the fact is, this is an essential skill because we do have to write sometimes in our life, but they’re already adept at the speaking part. I get so many questions. Moms, you know, my child can barely write. They don’t know how to spell. They haven’t really had grammar and they’re worried about punctuation. All the little details that we remember teachers marking our papers up with. And I think it’s first of all to note that in Form 1 they have Transcription so they have been learning some of those rules, and you’ll be surprised at what comes out that you didn’t realize they had assimilated right. 

Emily
Quotation marks, capital letters. 

Liz
Right. So I guess this is kind of the warning to parents is to not evaluate all those little details so much. My goodness, they’re just beginning. It’s a daunting task to a child to have a blank piece of paper. It’s a daunting task for me to have a blank screen when I have to write. So I think one of the best things you can do for your child is to be sympathetic. Let them off the hook about a lot of those picky details. They will be working on all those skills in the mechanics, like Nicole said. And I always say, so you can disagree with me about this, but my understanding from the programs was they had to have at least 10 minutes for the writing of their written narrations. 

Emily
I don’t think we ever see a time like that. We’ve only come up with it based on… 

Liz
But basically, if a lesson is 20 minutes, that is giving them half the time, you know. And so I guess what I’m saying, though, is it’s good for the child to know a time limit. So I get asked a lot, well, how long should they be? How many words should they be writing at this age and so on? 

Emily
And that’s what we’re used to from our school is like you had to write a paragraph. I want you to write seven sentences, however many words. 

Liz
Yeah. And so I think just like with lesson times being set, I think that having a set writing time is helpful to the child to know what…that’s the parameter, not how much they get written. I’ve never seen anywhere where she outlines they have to write this many words. So I think that that just helps us to relax a little bit, but they do have to write for that whole time. 

Emily
And if you think about it, some authors like Charles Dickens are very verbose and some authors like Hemingway are not, you know?

Liz
The time limit I think helps them to realize this is not going to be an endless, unendurable thing, like there will come to an end. And just encourage them; kids just sit there and they don’t know what to write. The first word is the hardest, right? So maybe what is helpful is to just say, well, what would you tell me if you were giving a regular narration? If you could only say one thing about this whole thing you just read, what would it be? Or what are the two most important things? Just help them to…because this is what they’re really learning is how to be concise, which is what writing requires. So that’s why they have the time limit, because writing is much, much slower. 

And then if they have extra time in that time limit that you’ve set, and they’ve already written down two things, they will tell some other things that would help people understand more details or something. So they shouldn’t be allowed, I guess is what I’m saying, to just write, scribble down a couple things and say, OK, I’m done. It’s like, no, you need to use up this time.

And I think it’s good for us to remember sympathetically, because moms ask me all the time, should I correct all the things they’ve done wrong and hand it back to them? Absolutely not. We don’t correct the oral narrations that way. And if you think about it, writing is an area when people criticize it that is the most threatening thing to most of us. It’s a hard area to be corrected in. And it’s going to take some restraint on your part. But I always say keep a note of all the words you see misspelled and all the grammar problems they’re having and you can address those in those subjects. 

Emily
Yeah, sometimes if that’s too tempting for you, you can, I will just have my son read it out loud and they notice, they, you know, things that they left out. 

Liz
Or if their handwriting is really sloppy. 

Emily
Yeah, but or like sometimes I do this still, you know, you’re writing and your mind is thinking faster and you skip over words, right? And so that has been helpful to have him read them aloud to me. 

Liz
And the other thing is, you know, a lot of kids want to spell correctly, they just don’t know all the words yet. And so I always want my children to just ask me how to spell something and if I’m in the middle of another lesson, it’s just a matter of reaching over and writing it on the board while you’re still dealing with the other child. And so they can see it and take it in themselves. 

Emily
Yeah, that’s usually how we start because they’re very unsure if they’re spelling. I think that’s been the biggest hard roadblock for my sons. And so I will just take…they finish reading aloud to me or, whatever they might come to me and then my second son just hands me the whiteboard and I’m like what words do you need? And it’s like he’s already formulated what he wants to write and I’m writing down the words he’s unsure about and I’m like well this is still the mechanics; that’s just a helpful transition. 

Liz
And then I think the other thing is but my child can’t read yet or they’ve just barely are able to write their alphabet, which is true of a lot of kids going to fourth grade. So if they’re still not reading just have them give you their own narration but you write it out in longhand, which is going to be a lot slower than when they just give a regular oral narration, right? 

Emily
So they’re still having to hold their thoughts in their mind. 

Liz
And so they’re learning that process, that writing is a much slower process. They’re going to have to slow down. But it is one day going to help them become a really good, concise writer, which is something most teachers have to work really hard with kids to be. 

Moms want to help, especially if you’ve had a child who’s been slow to read and write, and all of a sudden they’re in this form and they must do it. Just her usual caution to the teacher is don’t do the work of the child’s education for them. They need to put forth the effort. You can encourage them, but don’t coach them what to write down, know, because that can be a temptation. Don’t do their thinking and their writing for them. Can you guys think of any other common…? 

Nicole
I’ve just taken the calling Form 2 “the messy middle”. It feels like it is such a time of transition…such a time of transition and it is so important that we help our children or allow our children to make that transition because it’s vital that on the other side of this, you know, starting Form 3, that they’re going to be ready to do the things that are going to be asked of them at that point. 

Liz
Right, but helping them is not dictating to them and they’re copying it down. Or writing it out for them and then they copy it from your writing. That is the very opposite of what they need to be doing.

Emily
You’ll find links in our show notes to all the resources we mentioned in today’s episode. We invite you to read along with us and join us next time for Composition in Forms 3-4, which is Grades 7-9, as we discuss some other aspects of the feast that helps our students develop their compositional prowess. Thanks for listening today as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.

Charlotte Mason called narration an art, something that is inherent in every person that needs not to be taught. But how can we help our child develop and hone their abilities to tell? We’ll be discussing this in today’s podcast as we look at composition in Form 1, grades 1 through 3.

Listen Now:

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

ADE on YouTube

Emily
Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I’m Emily Kiser and I’m here with…

Liz
…Liz Cottrill…

Nicole
…and Nicole Williams. 

Emily
Well, last week we talked about Charlotte Mason’s unique idea about Composition, that she didn’t believe in the formal teaching of Composition until the last few years of high school.

But that doesn’t mean that the children don’t learn Composition or have any growth or development in their abilities. In fact, the essential groundwork of Composition begins in Form 1. So Nicole, will you remind us what that looks like? 

Nicole
Yeah. So the central tool is narration, like you said, after hearing a reading, whether from Bible, History, Literature, Geography, the child tells back in their own words. And these narrations are oral in the early years and they are the first exercise in Composition. They are gathering ideas, they’re ordering the things in their mind, and then they’re choosing words to express it clearly. So there’s a lot going on there.

Children in 3rd grade who have the ability to do so can even start making a single narration each week or narrating part of the narration and then– 

Liz
Do you mean the writing? 

Nicole
I’m sorry. Yes. So maybe they would start out and mom would give them just a few minutes to write and then she could say, okay, now tell me the rest. 

Liz
Right. 

Nicole
Yes. At the same time, several other subjects are building the skills they’re going to need later for this written work. So they have the Handwriting lesson to establish control and confidence with forming letters and then words. Then dictation begins very simply with first single letters and then whole words and that’s laying the foundation for accurate spelling.

And Grammar lessons aren’t formal at this stage, but children are unconsciously absorbing sentence structure and vocabulary and style from the beautiful language in their books. I’d say Recitation also plays an important role at this stage. Here the child studies a short passage and if they’re not readers yet, it might be just be that mom is reading it to them, a poem, a psalm, Bible story. And then when they speak it, they’re speaking with clear enunciation and expressions. They’re really getting to the heart of that author who wrote that beautiful language and, you know, taking that in. So they’re also with that developing an ear for the cadence of poetry, which is going to take something they’re going to need to know later. And they’re internalizing vocabulary through that syntax. So all of that is very important. 

And then remember that Charlotte Mason, we keep saying she did not have any instruction, but she would warn against composition drills at this stage, forced exercises and sentence making or artificial story prompts. That would not be on the schedule.

So they really have the power of oral composition by the time they graduate and they may be starting into that written a little bit. 

Emily
By the time they graduate the form. 

Nicole
The form, yeah. Just that form, not the whole thing. 

Emily
Hopefully they’ll be further along by the time they get to graduation.

Well, as far as the lesson format, narration, which is Form 1 Composition, as you’re saying, it’s not its own subject. So we don’t have a narration lesson. Some people think that, you know? But it is a part of whatever lesson requires a narration. 

Nicole
Maybe because there are like notes of lessons where narration is the goal or something. 

Emily
But you can clearly see it. It’ll even, like below that look at the subject and it tells you what subject that was in it.

So it’s not it’s own subject on the timetable, rather it is a part of virtually every other lesson. Charlotte Mason says, all their work lends itself to oral composition and the power of such composition is innate in children and is not the result of instruction. But children do need the right material in order to narrate and they need time, Charlotte Mason tells us. So we ought to, just in order to perfect the art of narrating. 

So in Form 1B, those first year beginner students, B for beginner, Charlotte Mason tells us that we ought to read a short passage about a paragraph or so and stop and ask them to tell and then read another paragraph. And then they narrate that part. So they’re taking narration in smaller chunks. As they become accustomed to narration we’re going to extend the length of that passage even to a whole chapter by the time they’re in form 1A before we stop and have them narrate. 

So we also have some important instruction from Charlotte Mason about our part in this. We do not make corrections to grammar or otherwise if they start with um and but and and then and then and then… Yeah, can you see we’ve had lots of small children? We don’t allow any interruptions. We don’t allow them to interrupt themselves and ask questions. We don’t allow other children to jump in and interrupt their narration. And likely those children who do have ideas, they know they will have a chance to tell. 

Next, they could make a correction before they begin their narration. Or else I should say, we never allow a child to narrate what has already been narrated. But they could say, well, he said it was the queen and actually it was the king and then jump ahead to wherever they were picking up the narration. And then we can also, as teachers, if there’s not another child to correct or whatever, they made a grave error. No one has sinned, you know, and we can correct that in the discussion time after the narration is complete, but we don’t interrupt during the narration. We don’t stop readings to explain words, vocabulary, or really anything. And we instead are allowing the child to grapple with their understanding of the text and only answer questions that they ask, right? We have a lot of things that we might want to make sure they understand, but we’re only going to answer the questions that they ask us.

The recap that we’ve talked about in all these other subjects that we’ve discussed so far this season at the very beginning of the lesson before we even read the new material for the day, that’s like a little bit of a narration too. And it’s requiring them to go into longer term memory, usually a whole week basically is how the structure of lessons happens. And so they’re having to really recall and bring forward and just summarize in a very concise few words or sentences what we learned about last time.

And that’s another valuable skill in composition that they will put to use later. And when we ask for a narration at this stage, we don’t need carefully crafted prompts. But we are to ask them to tell about the character or the event that they just read about and then we leave it open for them to tell what they know and think important about the reading. Instead of asking a question like, tell me how such and such or okay, tell me how King Arthur was able to pull the sword out of the stone, right? Instead of saying something like that be like, tell me what you learned about King Arthur, right? It’s more open-ended. They can tell us any part of that that they knew.

Liz
Sometimes to help them put it in their own words. I just like to say now you tell this your way, you know, so that they realize they’re recreating it themselves 

Emily
Yep, sometimes training does need to happen at this age of getting them to tell back from the beginning. And I know a lot of children struggle with this, they always want to tell you the last thing, but we do want to work on that consecutive– 

Liz
Start at the beginning… 

Emily
Start at the beginning. And so you have a thing that you often tell people… 

Liz
Well, if a child persists in that problem I often, right before I read the next portion, will just say, now, listen carefully to what I’m going to say next, because this is where you will start your narration. You know, that just to help them for a little bit till they get the idea. 

Emily
And of course, this is why we have the single reading, right? So that they pay full attention, because it takes all of our attention to learn how to narrate at this age. 

Liz
And did you say that every lesson with a book must be narrated?

Emily
And actually I would say that there is narration of other kinds of lessons too, with oral lessons… 

Liz
I think my point is that they don’t learn to narrate by doing it now and then, you know, every time I read to them they have to narrate.  That’s how they learn. 

Emily
And even Charlotte Mason is famous for quoting this and she didn’t know where she got it, but she’s quoting somebody and so we know the citation, but “the mind can know nothing except the answer to a question put by itself.” So the mind has to ask a question and usually the question in narration is what’s next?

But so that means you know when we have a math thing and they’re having to explain the process that they…or how did you come up with that answer? So that is a kind of narration as well. So virtually every lesson in Form 1 is a narration lesson. 

Nicole
I even have quotes from Nature Study where they said every Nature Study walk should be narrated. 

Emily
Yes, yes, exactly, and that’s part of the Nature Notebook, right? We’re narrating our walks that we took. 

So the objective for Composition or narration at this level are to give a child a chance to tell what they know, to increase their powers of attention and imagination. Because they have to pay full attention to the passage that’s being read and that visualizing of the scene is fueling their imagination, it’s helping their imagination expand. And then they have to recall what they saw in their mind’s eye in order to narrate and tell back, right? 

So through narration, children are absorbing vocabulary and syntax, and they’re effortlessly integrating this into their narrations. It’s quite delightful to hear huge words thrown in there or just like that little turn of phrase that you know, they just delighted to hear it because it’s coming back. They’re not merely parroting, but it’s more of a it’s more like being a connoisseur, right? They’re sampling, they’re tasting and they’re adopting what gives them pleasure and answers the needs that they have to tell.

So our teacher prep in narration is, other than selecting excellent books for their lessons, we don’t really have any specific prep. We don’t have to come up with narration prompts. Our part is to hold our tongues and to allow the kids to narrate and do the work of their own education. 

Liz
And I think narration is valuable to the teacher, not because they’re going to tell you all the things that you think they should know or have gotten out of the passage, but you are definitely going to find out straight from their own lips what is on their mind and the ideas that they received in that passage that was read. It is a big mistake to hurry a child in this process. I mean, it takes most young children at least a year to become adept at narrating. Once they are, they love it. And some of them love it from day one. 

Emily
And you don’t mean like to learn to do it at all? 

Liz
No, they’re learning the whole time, but it’s going to just continue to improve and improve. At first they may say one little thing and just let them, you know, they’re, they’re putting their toe in the water, so to speak, but give them an opportunity to tell and they’re going to tell. 

It’s also a mistake to read too small of a passage. Some people hear, just a short portion. But if you only read them one sentence, what option do they have other than to repeat it back and be a little parrot? On the other hand, if you read two or three or five pages or 20 minutes straight, it’s way too much and it overwhelms them. It’s kind of like feeding a nine month old a 20 ounce steak. It’s going to be disappointing. 

There is no set length for the way you should break down books either. Different books have different difficulty levels for narrating. Some are really easy to narrate. They go down like applesauce, I like to say. Others are full of dense materials, so it’s going to be a little more challenging and so some of those kind of books you’re always going to be stopping frequently during the lesson time for multiple narrations. 

Emily
We should also talk, have Nicole tell us, you hear a common objection about a certain kind of book that students are always assigned in form one for a nature lore and how they think their kids aren’t understanding it or it’s irrelevant or they don’t like it because they can’t narrate it.

Nicole
Just that science in general is harder to know for one thing because there are lots of facts and details in there and sometimes the order is not helpful with that. But another thing that I’ve noticed with the children who in these early science nature lore books is that there’s so much in their head and they haven’t really gotten it out yet. They can’t…I think it has more to do with the fact that they get stuck on something, like because they’re excited about that thing, not that that’s the only thing they can remember. It’s just that this is what’s piquing their interest at the time. And then later you hear them talking about it and here and there, little bits coming out later. 

Emily
And you always say it’s okay if they don’t tell chronologically through the passage that you read, right? Because especially if it doesn’t have a narrative. 

Nicole
Exactly. So just throwing out little facts and details sometimes is the thing they need to do with regards to…And those early nature and lore books are science .

Liz
And I think that’s the value of taking those couple minutes at the end of the lesson. I always call it the “tell me more” part, you know, So you did a wonderful job of describing that butterfly. Tell me more about where he went, what he ate…and you know, whatever it is that they didn’t put in because they usually know all about that too. They just couldn’t get it out like you said, right?

I think there’s a lot of wisdom in Charlotte Mason’s hands off. Like Emily said, don’t talk. This is their time to talk. And I think every writer knows that the hardest part of writing is thinking about what to say and ordering things appropriately for the reader. And the children are just beginning to learn that whole process. They’re being given a lot of good fertilizing ideas through their reading, and narration is giving them the skills that they need that they’re going to need later when they’re writing for themselves. 

And I think that words strengthen a child to have confidence in taking in intellectual material, like you said, things they’ve never been presented with before. And really it’s kind that she waits until their handwriting skills have caught up to their verbal skills before they’re asked to literally write an essay or something. 

Emily
It is in the earliest forms that we see how Miss Mason did not underestimate the intelligence of children. Rather, she gave them the opportunity to use their powers of narration on material perfectly suited for them. Next week, we’re turning our attention to upper elementary Composition lessons and see how the child’s skills progress. We hope you’ll join us as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.