CTC-Another Written Narration?

[John'smom]

So the box usually gives questions for the child to think about, was it Carrie's intent for all these questions to be answered or is the child allowed to focus on one of the questions and use all their sentences on that one question? I don't know why, but it seems like my kiddos' narrations aren't what they were since we've switched to the new history book, Ancient Greece. It is strange to me since Story of the Ancient World's language seemed much more difficult etc.

I would just love for someone to tell me everything I need to know about written narrations, so please give me whatever info you are willing to share other than my original question above.

[LynnH]

I think my ds usually answered most of the questions in his narrations. I know he struggled more with narrations from the Ancient Greece book. I think part of that is that many of the stories in The Story of the Ancient World were familiar even though the language is challenging. The Ancient Greece book deals with more facts and things that my ds had little previous knowledge of which I think makes it more difficult to write a vibrant written narration. In those situations my ds tends to write a more just the facts type of narration.

I also have seen with my ds that with every new book he struggles at first with the narrations and honestly with some books he just never does the same quality of narrations that he might have done with others. I don't know if it is the writers style or what. He also struggles if there are a lot of names.

My encouragement would be just to remember that your dc is really still at the beginning of learning written narrations and it truly is a process where progress can seem slow at times.

[my3sons]

So the box usually gives questions for the child to think about, was it Carrie's intent for all these questions to be answered or is the child allowed to focus on one of the questions and use all their sentences on that one question?...

The intent of the questions was to get students thinking about what they were going to write for their narrations and to be a recap of the most important things read. It was not meant to be a question/answer assignment, with each question being answered in the narration, though I remember my oldest ds often did try to answer all of the questions in his narrations somehow, but my middle ds did not approach it that same way. In general, having a good portion of the information gleaned from answering the provided questions will result in a well-rounded written narration. Choosing one question's answer and expounding upon that would result in a more narrow narration. So, in general, having more rather than less of the information discussed written in the narration is a good idea. However, narrations (whether oral or written) are not meant to be cookie cutter with every student's narration being just like the next student's narration. Creative leeway is allowed and encouraged. I know this isn't an exact answer to your question, but narrations don't have exact parameters to equal success. I personally used this part of the HOD plans to correct/edit my dc's written narrations in CTC...

Check for the following things: Did you include who the reading was mainly about? Did you include what important thing(s) happened? Did you include how it ended? If not, add those things. Use the Written Narration Skills in the Appendix for editing.

By following these more general guidelines, I found that the boys did use most of the information gleaned from our discussions, as well as learn to edit their narrations using the Written Narration Skills list. I had to encourage each of our sons to grow in their written narration skills in different ways. For Wyatt, I needed to encourage him NOT to just answer the questions provided in order, but to instead put more of his own creativity into his narrations. He always did well with the editing. For Riley, I needed to encourage him to write with proper punctuation and capitalization, as well as to include a better balance of what happened (often times, he left out an important thing that happened or completely left out the end as he was automatically stopping at 5 sentences ). I think it will become more and more apparent to you how to help your ds when checking for the above things and when using the Written Narration Skills list. I hope this helps!

In Christ,
Julie