What curricula includes narration with specific questions?

[Sarah0000]

I'm looking for any type of curricula for any subject that includes a lot of hand holding for narration, such as what questions to ask and after how long of a passage, preferably incrementally increasing in expected outcome.

I've read a lot about narration including the book Know and Tell. I've seen examples of what a typical narration is for a beginner and what a student should be able to do after a few years. I feel like I need more hand holding for the first year until the habit is formed. Is there anything like that?

[Syllieann]

The wwe workbooks ask specific questions and build up to narration.  You could skip all the other stuff.  Or just try the samples and see if that is enough to get things up and running.

[Sarah0000]

Thank you both.

The WWE samples will help me, I think. I looked through level 1 and level 2 and I am seeing how to slowly build up this skill by merging simpler responses into a more complex response. Its actually sort of like what we're doing in writing by turning a simple sentence into a super sentence.

I think I also need to look at the length of the passage. Too long and I get "I don't know." Too short and I get exact regurgitation. I also noticed that he can give me a very good narration of a Magic School Bus episode or a free reading book but not from our history reading. I'm going to try switching to science narration instead and see if he improves.

[Lori D.]

A bit different than what you are looking for, but Sonlight LA does have questions about their dictation passages (which are pulled from the readers and read-alouds). The questions are grammar-based and specifically LA-based, and the passages tend to be 2-3 sentences long (early elementary grades) to a paragraph long (later elementary grades). 

Specifically re: narration lengths and questions, one thing we did informally that was helpful was remembering/summing up with read-alouds. As we prepared to start the next chapter, I would feign forgetfulness and ask something like, "Now what happened last chapter?" or "Where did we leave our characters from last chapter?" or "What was the big thing that happened last time we read? And what do you think the characters are going to do about it this chapter?" Not a full-fledged narration response, but it worked in a similar way of kids summarizing what they saw as the key event. However, it sounds like your DS is already doing great with remembering from your readers and read-alouds.

Edited August 29, 2018 by Lori D.

[Kfamily]

I have a free PDF about narration at my website and I include some ideas for scaffolding too. If you'd like to download it, it's titled: Narration: An Art and a Skill and can be found at my website: A Mind in the Light.

ETA: Also, all of the guides that I write include narration prompts. 

ETA2: This file was a lot of work for me, so I usually take the direct link down after a bit. It's still at the website, so you can still access it.

 

Edited August 30, 2018 by Kfamily

[Sarah0000]

We rotate between SOTW and Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans as our history spines. I have picture cards for SOTW that I printed off the web that we use to refresh our memories of past readings. 

[Sarah0000]

4 hours ago, Kfamily said:

I have a free PDF about narration at my website and I include some ideas for scaffolding too. If you'd like to download it, it's titled: Narration: An Art and a Skill and can be found here: A Mind in the Light.

ETA: Also, all of the guides that I write include narration prompts. 

 

Thank you! This looks great.

[Sarah0000]

Thought I would update...

We went through the WWE1 samples and I read through the A Mind in the Light resource. Right now I am reading aloud a chapter book with longer chapters (Five Children and It). After the chapter I ask him to tell me the main events while I jot down his notes. Then he makes sure everything is in order and includes everything important and there's no extraneous detail. Then he dictates a paragraph summary using the notes then copies what I've written. After some practice with this I plan to see if he can write the sentences on his own from the notes I write. 

This is going well. The longer chapters actually make it easier to have enough to tell back and it's easier to identify what's important to include from a story. But this is just one type of narration and I think probably primarily useful for getting him over that hump of writing more original work independently. 

Some sources say that simply regurgitating what was read is not suppose to be the main point of narration; that narration should be a critical thinking skill. I'm fine with simple "telling back" for now for the purpose of building confidence with writing. Is that all WWE does though? Or any of the other programs that include narration, like W&R? Should narration as a critical thinking skill (I'm guessing this would be like what's asked for in Suppose the Wolf Were an Octopus) at first be left completely oral or with guided projects or writing assignments, or do people who use this kind of narration go straight into writing it down and working their kids toward writing these independently?

[PeterPan]

https://mindwingconcepts.com/blogs/news/29759873-looking-at-expository-discourse-across-the-grade-levels 

https://mindwingconcepts.com/blogs/news/101708225-analyze-a-narrative-writing-sample

I'm gonna toss you out an idea that is answering the question I don't think you knew you had.   You're needing to know what the stages are of narrative development and how they bridge from narrative to expository discourse. So that 1st link shows types of expository writing you might be interested in teaching at some point and the 2nd link shows the stages of narrative development. And what you'll find then, at least with this coming (MW/SGM) is they've linked the two so you can see easily how teaching narratives (for fiction) does indeed promote expository writing and the skills do transfer over!

So just in general, we're going to let narratives be pretty free form and just generally appropriate for retelling through about 3rd, and then as the dc is ready we're going to bring in concision, figuring out what the point was, and beginning to explore dialectic level and rhetorical devices. (beginning at the end, emphasizing details to show a moral, changing the setting, etc.) That age is variable, and some kids just go through all these stages naturally and beautifully on their own, with just the most gentle prompting. Some kids need a lot more hand-holding. If the dc has EF issues (executive function) due to ADHD, ASD, whatever, then yes I'm going to expect more hand-holding. 

What you're doing sounds really good and it sounds like you're finding the amount of support he needs to succeed, which is perfect. I'm not sure his age, but I would not worry about transitioning to summarizing unless the dc is around 4th grade age. Until then, I think a natural narrative development, where he's expanding the setting/character description, making clear what the problem was and what the plan was to solve the problem, showing the sequence of actions, and so on is just totally appropriate. The more language the better. If he's not getting it into his *own* words, that's something to work on. You'd like to see him being more and more able to transition from telling lots of actions to listing the most important actions. That's not so much a summary (which could involve even more concision) so much as seeing what is important to the whole story. (detail vs. whole thinking) 

The charts I'm linking you to are nifty because you then see how his narratives, and where he's at with narrative, leads naturally to what expository structures he's ready for. It's what SWB has in WTM, but it happens so naturally there and seamlessly that you don't necessarily get it all nicely listed out like this. For my ds, who has SLD Writing and some other disabilities, having this breakdown to make the steps more clear is helpful.

So no the basic purpose of narration is DEVELOPING NARRATIVE LANGUAGE. At a point, summarizing will be developmentally appropriate.