Catherine Posted May 8, 2012 Share Posted May 8, 2012 (edited) A bit of background: this child has some mild learning issues. He is definitely 2e and his biggest challenges have been math and writing. He still struggles to copy accurately, but we've moved on. I've walked him through a summary of a book or story before, complete with outline, but I was amazed when he saw the assignment in his book to make one and he did it completely on his own! Then he wrote the summary (typed) from this outline. I am SOOO proud. He has come so far and can really write beautifully now. So here is his summary, uncorrected or edited (we will of course do that next : ) THE AENEID It’s the end of the Trojan War. All of Troy is burning. Aeneas is carrying his father out of the city along with his son, Iulius. Aeneas is worried because his wife told him to meet at a tree just outside the city, and she wasn’t there. Finally, Aeneas decides to go back into the city to find his wife. After a while, Aeneas finds her ghost who tells him to go find another home. Then the Trojans travel to the island of the harpies for supplies and are greeted by the harpies. The harpies steal the food right from the Trojans’ mouths. The Trojans respond by chasing the harpies away, but one remains, Celeano. Celeano the harpy tells them, “Why do you scare us from our homes? You will find your home when you eat the very tables from which you eat upon. Now go.†At the island of the giant Polyphemus, they find a lost Greek who the Trojans take pity on him, and take him on their voyage. Aeneas travels to the island of Dido and falls in love with her. Soon, Dido finds she loves him too. After a very long time, Aeneas has to leave, and Dido kills herself because she thinks he doesn’t love her, but he really does. When Aeneas finds out that Dido killed herself, he goes back and gives her a proper funeral. Soon they travel to Latin territory and find that they have to fight the Latins. Aeneas senses that death is near, so he travels to the underworld to see his father one last time before he dies. He goes to the underworld and sees dead friends from war that all beg him to give them proper burials. He then crosses to the other side and looks for his father. He finds him near one of the three rivers of the underworld, the river of resurrection. His father points out many famous men like Octavian (a.k.a Augustus Caesar). Finally Turnus, the king of the Latins, declares war on the Trojans. Camilla the Amazon warrior joins the Latins and is killed. An arrow wounds Aeneas, but Venus gets an herb from a mountain and heals Aeneas with it. Turnus is killed, and the Trojans make peace with the Latins. Please give any pointers or guidance that seems appropriate. I am just so thrilled that this child has made so much progress. Edited May 8, 2012 by Catherine change formatting of summary to show paragraphs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Create Your Ritual Posted May 15, 2012 Share Posted May 15, 2012 Catherine I just wanted to say that I thought he did a great job. You said he completed it on his own, and was able to tell the story from beginning to end without losing his way. That is great! What are your plans for his writing this coming year? I would say he is doing a WWE higher level summarizing above and so he would be ready for narrative work. If he likes this type of fictional work then something like CC Fabl/Narrative or CW Aesop/Home would be great. If he would rather work on scientific & historical narratives then WWS would be the way to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catherine Posted May 15, 2012 Author Share Posted May 15, 2012 He'll be 11 in June, and officially sixth grade in the fall. I'm planning to try WWS in the fall. Do you think he's there yet? I haven't used this writing plan for my older two-with my eldest, I didn't start homeschooling him until seventh grade, and I used a combination of homemade TWTM, IEW (a little), Jensen's, and he's taken a CC writing class and another lit\writing course. My middle did IEW in depth for 2 1\2 years, then TWTM-style summarizing, analysis. This child is a bit more inclined to creative writing. Do you think WWS is right for him? WWE surely has helped him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Create Your Ritual Posted May 16, 2012 Share Posted May 16, 2012 Well no one is really there when it comes to WWS until you dive in. ;-) He would enjoy most of the summarizing as it is quite interesting. Lots of neat excerpts that he probably hasn't read. I think the skills taught in WWS are really good and we are finishing up on our last month with ds9 and dd11. When you say CC do you mean Classical Composition like I mentioned above? Have you tried that? Fable & Narrative are really quite neat when it comes to teaching descriptive writing and figures of description for style along with retelling 'creative' stories as opposed to historical or science writing that WWS primarily uses. We liked both of them so for the first 6 months of WWS I did both and then had to set down CC as the WWS work really picked up in the last half of the year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catherine Posted May 16, 2012 Author Share Posted May 16, 2012 Ha. CC means community college, classical composition, and Christian content!! I tried CW with my oldest for a short period of time, but in the end we decided it was just not for him. Maybe I chose the wrong level, because it had a good bit of grammar that was all review. He did a class online that he didn't like at all so we dropped it after a few weeks. CC wouldn't have worked for my two olders, who are definitely math\science types that are NOT into creative writing. I may check it out for this one, as he's not so into math, and does like story writing much more than his brothers. Thanks so much for the idea! I'm wondering if Evan Moore daily paragraph editing would work for this age. Any thoughts on that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Create Your Ritual Posted May 16, 2012 Share Posted May 16, 2012 I don't have an opinion on the Evan Moore workbooks! Hopefully someone else can chime in with that. ;-) Good luck with the coming year though! I honestly think both CC/CW and WWS are great programs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
................... Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 I think he did a great job too!! Now I know what the Aenid is about! For real. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fluffybunny Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Which version of the Aenied did you and he read? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catherine Posted June 8, 2012 Author Share Posted June 8, 2012 Well, he read most of In Search of a Homeland, by Penelope Lively, and then wanted to change to another, and I happened to have The Aeneid for Boys and Girls, by Alfred Church. Then we RA In Search of a Homeland. So he had plenty LOL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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