Today I’m going to talk a bit about how I used some of the curriculum I purchased. I mentioned before that I did not buy the student workbook. In true CM style, I wanted him alone with a blank, lined notebook.
But first…
I needed to be alone with my blank, lined notebook.
I say this because, for the first week, I worked through the exercises while my student watched. I really thought that I could either try to explain it, or I could simply let him watch me do it. At the time, I didn’t know anything about mirror neurons and modeling, but Tammy has since set me straight.
After that first week, he worked on this every single day, five days per week. Because my student was already doing daily, written narrations, this wasn’t a bit deal.
Now, the curriculum is set up so that you spend eight days working on a single fable. I was not willing to do that. I didn’t think that Charlotte Mason would ever have done that, for starters. And, frankly, spending that many days on a single fable sounded like too much time on one reading.
However, comma.
I did want my student to understand that these exercises were different ways of treating a single reading — that they were all valid options. So, as a compromise, I spent one week {five days} per reading.
This means that we did not get through the entire workbook. And that doesn’t matter. You know why? Because my goal was to understand the progym better, and learn how to do the exercises, not to get through a curriculum.
I’ve detailed my plan before, but I’ll summarize it here quickly:
- Day 1: Read aloud, followed by normal oral narration and grand conversation.
- Day 2: Make an outline of the fable.
- Day 3: Write it shorter.
- Day 4: Choose a variation.
- Variation 1: write it longer {add landscape/setting descriptions, character descriptions, etc.}
- Variation 2: write it from the perspective of one of the characters in the story
- Variation 3: invert the sequence of events {so start with the end and work backwards to the beginning}
- Variation 4: write the same plot with different characters and setting
- Day 5: Edit and final draft.
My Regrets: What I’d do Differently
But let me again say there must be no attempt to teach composition. {Vol. 6, p. 192}
I know that outlining was one of the other uses of books that Miss Mason mentioned, but I think I was doing it at too young of an age.
When I’m teaching the variations, I’m not really teaching composition in the sense that she meant it here. I’m not coaching their writing. My sole goal is to get them to understand the variation. The question about Variation 2, for example, is not How do I write this so that it sounds great? but rather What does it mean to write this from the perspective of a character in the story? Do you see the difference?
But in outlining, we’re tearing up the flower. We’ll pulling off the petals and then putting it back together and, frankly, I don’t think it was the best way to spend my time because you know what? The truth is that while my child took to the variations like a fish to water, he still struggled with outlining.
Some people say that this is a sign that he needed to do it, and I suppose that is one way of looking at it. But one of the principles of a CM education is that children reject and accept according to their needs when it comes to skills, and I think the struggle was because he really wasn’t ready for it.
True confession: we don’t outline anymore.
I don’t think it’s the best way to interact with the readings we do. And I think it’s best taught at an older age.
So there you have it: skip the outlining, unless you have {1} a good reason to do otherwise or {2} you’re working with an older child.
2 Comments
If you were to skip the outlining, what would he use to make his variations from? Since we do not want to continue to refer to the original text?
He’d just do it based upon his own narration. If narration is done properly, the whole is stored in the memory, and so a variation is possible without outlining.
This is actually how we still do it. This child is in 8th grade now, and we still use variations to make written narrations more interesting. He doesn’t outline, and he also skips the normal narration — so at this point, the variation *is* his narration, if that makes sense. It’s been fun, but of course now we are adding outlining back in because a little more analysis is appropriate at this age. 🙂