Charlotte Mason-Style Oral and Written Narrations
Another way we assess kiddos through Heart of Dakota (HOD) is with Charlotte Mason-style oral and written narrations. Written and oral narrations CM-style look very different from child to child. This is different than written narrations done classical style, which result in more of a summary. (In other words, most kiddos’ narrations will look very similar when done summary-style). These are two different types of narrations. One is a summary, with certain key points being required. The other is a true written narration CM-style. In a CM-style written narration, the child sifts and sorts through information. The child chooses what to write about and borrows words and phrases from the author to write in the author’s style. This is the opposite of having certain key points that MUST be included for the narrations to be “correct.”
Charlotte Mason-style narrations do not have answer keys.
In this way, a classical style summary can have a specific answer key. A CM-style written narration wouldn’t even know where to begin with an answer key. Instead, each child draws out or seizes upon different points to express within the narration. This is why in HOD’s guides, we may ask leading questions to get the child thinking about what he/she read. However, we leave the sifting and sorting up to the child as far as what to write and how to write it. The key idea within our guides on written narration days provides parents with a summary of the reading. This way, you can see if your child is on-topic in his/her narration. However, it is not intended that the child include all those points in the key idea within the narration.
Children should practice both summary style and descriptive style narrations in upper guides.
We do have children practice orally narrating in both summary style and descriptive style in our upper HOD guides. This is because it is important to have a balance of both styles of narrating. But it is important to understand the two different styles of narrating, as there is much more to narrating than simply summarizing what was read. Otherwise narrating in general can quickly become an exercise in outlining key points and will lose much of what makes CM-style narrating meaningful.
Summarizing goes hand-in-hand with outlining.
Since summarizing lends itself well to outlining, and these skills are both important, we teach these areas through Rod and Staff English in conjunction with science or history passages that are more factual. This is because a summary lends itself well to being written from just a portion of a book, while a written narration is instead intended to pull from a more continuous ongoing story, rather than just an excerpt. So, we tend to use ongoing books for written narration practice. This is because the knowledge gained as the child continues reading the same book, provides insights that can then be drawn upon and pulled together as connections when writing the narration.
Summarizing and narrating are two different skills with two different styles.
This process requires a different set of skills than those required to write a summary from a passage plucked from a source, where the goal is a summation of the key points in the particular excerpt or passage instead. We delineate that summarizing and narrating are two different skills with two different styles. It is important to note that narrating CM-style is a very different skill from summarizing or outlining. I do skim the text as my child is orally narrating to me, holding the book in hand. This helps me see if the child is including ideas, names, places, etc. from the text, but it also shows me that the connections are those which the child has made.
Blessings!
Carrie
