This is my third week of being deliberate with our post-narration “grand” conversation, and it keeps getting better and better. The first week, our conversations were all of two minutes long {including me asking and/or better explaining my question}. Sometimes, yes, I didn’t even need to ask a question because he had a question about the same thing. But on an average meeting, I asked him something, and he answered briefly.
Emphasis on briefly.
The second week, his answers grew a little more.
This week, I’ve been particularly encouraged because it has begun getting closer to my target, which is real conversation. You know: the kind you’d have at a book club or something.
Like all things, even conversation about a book is learned. And so we are learning.
Here are my questions from this week:
- Madam How and Lady Why {pp. 12-15}
Do you think Madam How always does things slowly, over hundreds of years? Give an example of how she might effect change quickly.
- Robinson Crusoe
Did God cause the rice and barley to grow? Ought Robinson to be more thankful for them? How could one remember God without a Bible? Talk about only remembering God in the hard times. Who is the man in Robinson’s dream? What would repentance look like for Robinson now that he is stuck on an island?
- This Country of Ours {ch. 33}
Should the people have had the right to choose their own governors? How should a governor rule?
- Story Book of Science {ch. 8-10}
Do you think a tree’s rings are the same size every year? Can you tell a tree’s age by the size of its trunk? Should a man aspire to live long or to live well? Can a man live both long and well?
- Poor Richard {pp. 57-69}
Do you think Ben should have patented his stove invention? Do you think Latin and Greek are really “dead timber?” Do you agree with Franklin’s views on education? Should the Penn family have exempted their own lands from taxation? Do you think the English king should have cared more about what was happening in America?
I do not necessarily ask all of these questions. I simply prepare questions while I am doing my pre-reading. Sometimes, I open my notebook and read them, but most of the time the act of reading and asking questions is enough to prepare me to initiate a conversation with him. Sometimes he focuses on something unexpected in his narration, and so my questions need to go a different direction than expected. I’d say it has been a learning experience for both of us.
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