Someone tell me what we are doing wrong

[Parrothead]

A large part of the classical method is narrating aloud when young and retelling in writing when older. Dd has never gotten this concept. Out of frustration I ditched narration of history in 2nd grade.

 

But she still has to do it with her writing curriculum. This week the story is Belling the Cat. The first sentence of the model is:

 

Long ago, the mice had a general council to consider what measures they could take to outwit their common enemy, the Cat.

Her sentence:

 

Long ago, the mice had a council to consider what measures to take to outwit their enemy, the Cat.

All she has done is drop two words from the original. I've modeled a retelling in "my" own words and now she is writing my words. Which is what she does every time she has to do this.

 

I keep thinking when she is more mature she will figure it out. But that is not happening. We are both frustrated and hate writing with a passion now.

 

Please help me to help her.

 

ETA: If I go through all the steps "what happened first, what happened next..." I get memorized story.

[Sophia]

How about having her first list synonyms for several words, then create her new sentence using a combination of original words and synonyms?

 

I think retelling a sentence is way harder than a story.

[Unicorn.]

Go through her sentence, and circle words that she can change. For example, council, and outwit. Ask her for words that can replace those. Then, have her change the phrases, "Long ago", and "consider what measures", into phrases of her own. She needs the little baby steps. I wish someone had done that with me- putting things into my own words was the hardest part of writing for me. I would also consider IEW- totally worth the price imho. hth

[Karen in CO]

My dd struggles with this. It is one of the reasons I use the WWE workbook. It is helping her to pick out the important parts of a story or passage. We summarize longer passages than just sentences, so I think that helps her. I have her use a pencil and underline the important details as she is reading. At first it was terrible, she couldn't figure out what was important and what wasn't. We talk about it as "getting to the bones of the story." A big breakthrough with her was reading an alternate version of Little Red Riding Hood. We concentrated on the details that made it a little red riding hood story and left out the details that were different than the other versions we knew.

 

After we got that, then she got stumped on non-fiction. She is getting better slowly.

[Parrothead]

Oh, I should have said that her assignment was to retell the entire story. The first sentence was an example. The rest of her retelling is more of the same.

 

It helps to know I'm not alone, and neither is she. We will work on it some more incorporating your ideas.

 

I have sat down with her and taught her to use both a hard copy thesaurus and thesaurus.com. On Mondays we read and analyze the story, look up words, find alternate (usually on line) words. More of the same on Tuesdays, then by Wednesday everything is gone. *Poof* Like we did nothing on Mondays and Tuesdays.

[elfgivas]

can she narrate out loud? we found that doing it on walks or in the car worked far better than in the house. once they can do it out loud using their own words, then we segue into written narration by them speaking the narration and my typing it. once they can do that AND have learned to touch type (which here typically happens ~ age 10) then they sit at the computer and talk out loud while typing. very quickly, they discover they don't need to actually say the words.

 

we do hand written things for language arts, but not as part of narration.... at least, not yet....

 

hth,

ann

[Parrothead]

can she narrate out loud? we found that doing it on walks or in the car worked far better than in the house. once they can do it out loud using their own words, then we segue into written narration by them speaking the narration and my typing it. once they can do that AND have learned to touch type (which here typically happens ~ age 10) then they sit at the computer and talk out loud while typing. very quickly, they discover they don't need to actually say the words.

 

we do hand written things for language arts, but not as part of narration.... at least, not yet....

 

hth,

ann

No, she freezes up when she has to narrate out loud.

 

On one hand she can generally quote me the story or passage word for word after she has read it. On the other it seems that since she has memorized the story or passage that there is no room for narrating.

[elegantlion]

Can't remember where I heard this, but ask her to change her audience. I think it was either SWB or in the CW stuff. Belling the Cat uses some more refined language. Ask her to change the story as if she were telling it to a six-year-old. If she doesn't change anything act like the six-year-old and ask her what every odd word means. You should get some synonyms or at least more of herself shining through that way.

[Stacy in NJ]

Don't read it to her or retell it to her. Have her summarize the story in a few sentences.

 

Say, "Tell me the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears."

 

Let her tell it first, then have her write it down sentence by sentence.

 

This will force her to come up with her own words.

[joannqn]

I second the suggestion for IEW. It begins with imitation. In the beginning, it is okay if the student's writing is nearly identical with the first. Then, step by step, the student begins learning how to make it their own but adding adjectives, adverbs, strong verbs, various types of clauses, various sentence openers, etc.

[Mimm]

Can you ask her to narrate other things that aren't school related? Just casually, as part of your usual conversations. For instance, Imogen has always liked telling me the plots of tv shows or movies or even books she's reading. She only watches tv at her grandparents' house so I am fairly unaware of what she's watching (I trust my inlaws to monitor this). But it always drove me nuts. I hate people telling me the plots of things. But when it occurred to me that this is basically narration, I let her do it. Perhaps you can ask her what happened in a tv show she watches or a book she's reading for fun, just to get into the practice. Perhaps if you know the plot you can even ask more leading questions. What was your favorite part? Why do you think character X behaved in such and such a way? Etc.

 

I will say that this hasn't necessarily translated beautifully into being able to do narration for school. But we're getting there. There was one selection from WWE that I hated and we skipped. I had no idea what was going on and couldn't even summarize it myself. Then we got to a chapter talking about Charlemagne and it was perfect. It was a descriptive passage and she was complaining that she didn't know what to say. I read the first paragraph to her and said, "What is the main thought of this paragraph?" She said, "It's about what he looks like." I read the next one and asked the same thing. "It's about what he likes to do." Etc. It was easy because the passage was clearly divided up into paragraphs with distinct thoughts. But the concept that we're trying to pull out main ideas really helped her and she's been able to take that and apply it to other things. I make her write four or five sentences over her history selection, but on Monday she wrote eight so she could say everything she wanted to say. This might not sound like a big deal to some of you, but this is a child who likes to do the very minimum that you ask and no more.

 

I will say that writing is my kids' least favorite subject. I still don't know how to make it fun. I make Imogen write stories out of Latin derivatives and I think this is the only writing she really enjoys because they don't have to be logical. They're completely random. One week she wrote, "I am a female in an ambulance. I adore animals. If I see one in a trap or something, I will liberate it."

[Parrothead]

Can't remember where I heard this, but ask her to change her audience. I think it was either SWB or in the CW stuff. Belling the Cat uses some more refined language. Ask her to change the story as if she were telling it to a six-year-old. If she doesn't change anything act like the six-year-old and ask her what every odd word means. You should get some synonyms or at least more of herself shining through that way.

There's an idea. Thanks

Don't read it to her or retell it to her. Have her summarize the story in a few sentences.

 

Say, "Tell me the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears."

 

Let her tell it first, then have her write it down sentence by sentence.

 

This will force her to come up with her own words.

I'll do that. I've not thought about narrating things she knows well.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

A large part of the classical method is narrating aloud when young and retelling in writing when older. Dd has never gotten this concept. Out of frustration I ditched narration of history in 2nd grade.

 

But she still has to do it with her writing curriculum. This week the story is Belling the Cat. The first sentence of the model is:

 

Her sentence:

 

All she has done is drop two words from the original. I've modeled a retelling in "my" own words and now she is writing my words. Which is what she does every time she has to do this.

 

I keep thinking when she is more mature she will figure it out. But that is not happening. We are both frustrated and hate writing with a passion now.

 

Please help me to help her.

 

ETA: If I go through all the steps "what happened first, what happened next..." I get memorized story.

 

I'm working hard this year to teach my kids outlining and narration skills. It isn't something they've mastered before. I find that it is easier to summarize when there is a longer passage.

 

So working with my youngest (8 yo) I would tell him that I'm going to read a paragraph and he has to tell me in one sentence what happened. I might tell him that he gets 10 words.

 

I've just found that if the piece being summarized is too short, it is hard to come up with a narration that doesn't repeat everything.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Can't remember where I heard this, but ask her to change her audience. I think it was either SWB or in the CW stuff. Belling the Cat uses some more refined language. Ask her to change the story as if she were telling it to a six-year-old. If she doesn't change anything act like the six-year-old and ask her what every odd word means. You should get some synonyms or at least more of herself shining through that way.

 

I have had my kids retell stories using their stuffed animals or puppets or Playmobil figures. I think this helps to free them from the specific language of the story.

 

Also, while I know that there can be many retellings of a story like Cinderella or Belling the Cat (some just general retellings, some huge reworkings or satire), for my kids it is often the first time they've heard the story. So I think it is harder for them to pick out the parts that are essential and what is just stylistics.