Help me understand outlining in SOTW 4 Activity Guide

[Julie in MN]

Help me understand outlining in SOTW 4 Activity Guide. We have just completed chapter 4, so we've been doing this for about 2 weeks. (We are using the activity guide alongside MFW year 5.)

 

Anyways, I like using the activity guide this year & am excited about some of the new skills & methods we are adding to our day. But the outlining is just not getting through my brain.

 

In the first chapter of SOTW 4, the outline is of 2 paragraphs which are about 2/3 of the way through the chapter. By chapter 4, the outline is longer, but it just doesn't "feel" like a true outline of what was presented in the chapter. It "feels" more like a worksheet to fill in various facts that were in the chapter.

 

I can understand if the outlines are not covering the complete chapter yet, since we are early in the year. Maybe they expand to the whole chapter later in the year? However, they don't seem to be teaching outlining of any certain section of the chapter, either. The answer key "looks" like an outline -- with topics & supporting facts. However, it doesn't "look" like an outline of what the chapter covered, to us...

 

Can someone explain how they look at these outlining lessons, so I can explain it well to my son? He starts to think in terms of outlining the first paragraph or at least the first major idea in the first group of paragraphs, but by the end he decides he just needs to find random details to fill in the blanks...

 

Thank you for helping me :001_smile:

[Rhondabee]

You have summed up quite well why I personally really dislike the "outlines" in SOTW-4. I constantly have to feed my dc (5th and 8th) the question that isn't asked at the end of the half-line. And quite frequently it is necessary for me to look at the answer before *I* can figure out what the author of the outline intended a particular point to be about.

 

One thing that has helped the past few weeks (we are on Ch.28 now) is to go over the discussion questions with my boys while they each have a pencil and their outline. Usually the questions are phrased so that they roughly correspond to the outline. Occasionally I will still have to say, "OK, see on your outline where it says..." and then they "get it". (And, occasionally, I still have to tell them what to write - LOL!) But, filling out the outline while doing the discussion has been helpful.

 

I would really recommend teaching outlining from another source. (Maybe a 4-5 paragraph encyclopedia article if you have encyclopedia's at home?) Or, choosing a 4-5 paragraph section of a SOTW "story" to outline.

 

I really only use the SOTW outlines for those chapters that are "skim-through" chapters. IOW, it's nice to have been exposed to it, but doubtful it will ever come up in their everyday lives (or be followed up on in another chapter). For chapters/stories I think are important to really learn, we outline another source, then use SOTW to help make it more "human".

 

hth!

Edited March 9, 2009 by Rhondabee

[Julie in MN]

One thing that has helped the past few weeks (we are on Ch.28 now) is to go over the discussion questions with my boys while they each have a pencil and their outline.

 

Yes, we've done that. But it just doesn't ring true to "outlining" the organization of the chapter. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one confused on this.

 

Any others find this teaches formal "outlining"?

[cbollin]

I saw them as one way to learn how to take notes of the lecture of the chapter. When we did those outlines, I had memories of exactly how my 10th grade World History teacher taught us. So, the outlines seemed normal to me. I didn't have an expectation that the kids would understand the half lines without some assistance. So, in my odd perspective they are outlines for taking notes in a lecture. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

I'm the total weirdo I guess. My kid needed the structure in the outlines in SOTW vol 4 to help her talk about the main points and not get bogged down in every detail. It helped her to learn to listen for important points in the chapter. In other words, she had the outline in front of her while I read out loud from the book. Filled it in as we went, and then used it for reference to have out loud answers to the Review questions. Or as Rhondabee did, we'd review to the questions/answers if we got stuck on what might be a key point to remember and write down.

 

 

Julie, you might turn to week 20 of the 1850MOD manual and take a look at where the outlining is leading up to. It's about being able to provide a written narrative summary of the chapters and to include more details than what they've been doing prior to now. You'll want your son to be thinking how to write a big picture summary of the chapter that is somewhere between Sonja and Alida quality.:lol:

 

-crystal

Edited March 9, 2009 by cbollin
typos

[Julie in MN]

I'm sure I'm not making sense (except maybe to Rhonda, who must think like me :) ).

 

 

Okay, the SOTW-4 Activity Guide outline for the chapter we just read starts with:

1. China faced 3 problems (found in paragraphs 5-7)

2. The Taiping army did 3 things as it marched north (found in paragraph 18)

and so on

 

 

My son was able to find the information, but I didn't feel they reflected an "outline" of the text we had just read, which to me would be more like like:

 

1. Intro about wars between rich & poor (first 2 paragraphs)

 

2. Quing dynasty info (next 2 paragraphs)

 

3. Changes in the country of China causing a very poor class (next 3 paragraphs)

 

4. The emergence of Hong & his beliefs (next 4 paragraphs)

 

5. The early actions of the God Worshippers (next 3)

 

6. The politics of the Taipings (next 3)

 

7. Conquering Nanjing & Shanghai (next 5)

 

and so on

[cbollin]

Julie,

 

Once again you and I don’t think alike and represent a range of ideas. I like that about us. :001_smile:

 

I can’t speak for what SWB’s intention was. I’m not that smart. I can only tell you how my oldest and I saw these outlines and our assumptions and why it worked for us.

 

We didn’t view them as a way to outline the writing of the chapters (or almost as a way to diagram the paragraphs themselves.)

 

We saw them as a way to bullet point some ofthe major facts that were taught in the chapter and the major stuff that we “should†retain.

 

I don't know if that would help your son to understand what one other kid and mom did.

 

-crystal

[SkiMom]

I also had a hard time understanding the outlining in the SOTW4 AG, which led to my general confusion about outlining all together! :001_smile: After much thought and lengthy discussions with another poster from this board this is how I came to understand it.

 

When when my ds learned how to outline from a composition (in R&S English 5) he was taught how to outline each paragraph for the main idea and the supporting points. As far as I can tell, the SOTW4 AG is trying to have the student outline the entire section of text, which is ultimately the purpose for outlining a composition. The problem for us was that we never had any direct instruction in how to make the leap from outlining every single paragraph to outlining larger amounts of text. I think that the SOTW4 outlining worksheets are trying to teach the student how to expand from a paragraph by paragraph style of outlining, to a more "ideas" based outline, without having them outline all of the ideas in the sections...KWIM? The partial outlines give the child the main ideas and has them find the supporting details. This gets them used to seeing what the main ideas in that section actually were. The great thing about the SOTW4 Activity Guide worksheets is that they doesn't expect the child to just to jump in and do the whole outline from scratch at this point. They gives the child part of the information which helps point them in right direction so that they can find the rest of the information on their own. I also think that this is going to be a process that takes time and the parent will really have to help them as they work through the outline worksheets

 

I have come to realize that outlining is a complex skill that will need to be developed over time. I am hoping that by working through Susan's Writing With Ease series my ds will learn how to find the main points in a larger piece of writing on his own. We aren't using SOTW4 this year. My ds is back to outlining on his own, and we are just doing it the way it is laid out for us in TWTM. My ds is in Grade 6, so I have him outline paragraph by paragraph looking for the main idea in each paragraph and finding several supporting details. For him that is enough right now. When he is ready I will expect more.

 

Anyway... I may be totally off base on all this but this was how I made sense of it all. HTH!

Edited March 9, 2009 by SkiMom

[amyco]

I did not like the outlines either. If you are following the WTM cycle with SOTW, that means an average 4th grader would be doing this. Yet, an average 4th grader probably hasn't seen much outlining work--in fact, outlining isn't recommended until 5th grade (logic stage) in WTM.

 

Most of the time my dd and I had no idea what they were talking about. After a while I just had her skip them and write narrations. It's very jolting to go from fun SOTW 3 activity guide to the SOTW 4 guide.

 

I do appreciate the idea behind the outlines, but as they are given, they did not work for us in the grammar stage.

[Rhondabee]

Julie,

 

Once again you and I don’t think alike and represent a range of ideas. I like that about us. :001_smile:

 

I can’t speak for what SWB’s intention was. I’m not that smart. I can only tell you how my oldest and I saw these outlines and our assumptions and why it worked for us.

 

We didn’t view them as a way to outline the writing of the chapters (or almost as a way to diagram the paragraphs themselves.)

 

We saw them as a way to bullet point some ofthe major facts that were taught in the chapter and the major stuff that we “should†retain.

 

I don't know if that would help your son to understand what one other kid and mom did.

 

-crystal

 

I agree with you, Crystal, that the outlines in the Activity Guide are basically meant to "bullet point...the major facts" - basically a formal way of taking notes. (Although it aggravates me to no end when the bullet points of the "outline" are not listed in the order they were presented in the story!)

 

My major agreement with Julie is that the primary purpose of outlining per WTM is *not* notetaking. The purpose of outlining per WTM is to analyze how expository writing is structured. Four years of outlining other people's essays, and eventually re-writing them, is practice for high school (expository) writing. This is why I would recommend another source than SOTW for outlining, anyway.

 

After so much narration-work, I can't imagine a WTM student not understanding how to write a narrative essay. And, narrative essays are not the main fare of high school/college writing. Expository essays are. A student who follows the WTM Logic Stage suggestions and outlines short essays weekly will develop an intuitive feel for how to structure an essay and for using a formal voice. Then, in high school, the writing recs will lead that intuitive head-start even further, showing further possibilities to consider, as well as pit-falls to avoid.

[cbollin]

ah. I see. I just figured that skill is covered in a language arts/writing program so I had different expectations of the outline worksheets. And then toward the end with writing from the outline, I saw lots of improvement in my 6th graders writing skills. Looking back on it, it worked over here, but only in the context of everything else we were doing.

 

Thanks.

-crystal

[Julie in MN]

Rhonda, so sorry you lost your post! But I think we're on the same page there. Outlining is an organizational and writing skill. Facts & recall are in a different category.

 

Wouldn't it be nice if Susan read this & explained what her goals with SOTW-4 outlining?!?!

[Colleen in NS]

The problem for us was that we never had any direct instruction in how to make the leap from outlining every single paragraph to outlining larger amounts of text. I think that the SOTW4 outlining worksheets are trying to teach the student how to expand from a paragraph by paragraph style of outlining, to a more "ideas" based outline, without having them outline all of the ideas in the sections...KWIM?

 

I am hoping that by working through Susan's Writing With Ease series my ds will learn how to find the main points in a larger piece of writing on his own.

 

Now that I've had a few months to think about this, I think WWE narration skills *will* help with this leap. By the end of WWE 4 the student is narrating from something like 12 - 15 paragraphs (which I imagine can be expanded as the child grows) - but it's only 3 or 4 major points. And if they're used to the question and answer discussion of WWE, then maybe the questioning/answering continues to help them find details to support those 3 to 4 points, in teaching 2 level outlining and so on?

 

I can't wait to go hear SWB in a few more weeks. I should write down all my writing questions in case she has a question period in her workshops. I think I'm doing pretty well now with teaching one level, paragraph by paragraph outlining - but I'm still uneasy about this business of outlining chapters.....