Written Narrations in Resurrection to Reformation
A fellow homeschool mom recently asked how she could help her children improve their written narrations. Her children had completed Heart of Dakota’s (HOD’s) Creation to Christ (CTC) and were nearing the end of Resurrection to Reformation (RTR). They seemed to be ‘stuck’ on editing their narrations. They just could not get past steps 1 to 3 of the Written Narration skills checklist. She also wondered how to improve their written narrations in RTR in general. She asked such a great question, I thought I’d share my answer here!
Students may not begin as strong narrators, but with practice and consistency they can become excellent narrators!
Well, there is much to say about written narrations! So, I’ll apologize right away for the length of this response! Writing good written narrations is a skill that is progressively worked upon and improved upon each guide. Carrie has given specific guidelines to follow in the daily plans of each guide, as well as editing guidelines to follow in the Appendix of the guides. These are our tools as homeschool moms to help teach our children to write excellent narrations.
I leaned upon these tools heavily to help my own sons, and gradually they improved their written narration skills year after year. By high school graduation, they were able to give oral narrations and write written narrations of many kinds very successfully! It has helped them tremendously in college! I just wanted to share this with you as an encouragement! Kiddos may not begin as strong narrators, but with practice and consistency, they can end as strong oral and written narrators!
Students need to be in the right target age range of the guide to be expected to follow written narration guidelines.
Ok, so how to go about this? Well, the first thing to do is to be sure to follow the target age range of the guide. Otherwise, expectations for written narrations may be off. So, students who are writing narrations in RTR should be ages 10-12 years old. If they are 13 or 14, the extensions must be added, and the extensions have additional narrations to be written.
In RTR, students should be reading the Reading About History books independently, silently in their heads.
Second, it is important to hold students accountable for the guidelines in the daily plans of the guides. These daily plans get more and more detailed, as more and more types of narrations are added to students’ repertoire. In RTR, students are to read the Reading About History independently, silently in their heads. This is important, as it produces better narrations at that age than reading aloud the material.
When being read aloud to by a parent, students are not holding the book focusing on the words and picturing the words in their heads, which negatively impacts their spelling in written narrations, for example. Likewise, when students themselves are reading aloud books that are intended to be read silently for narration purposes, it interferes with their comprehension, as they are busy thinking about how they sound as they read aloud, their tone, pacing, etc. It also takes twice as long as reading silently, which impacts retention and focus. So, the guideline of students independently, silently reading the Reading About History assignments is very important!
To prepare for writing a written narration in RTR, students should follow the guidelines to look back at the reading they just finished.
Third, to prepare for writing the written narration, students are to look back over the reading they just finished. Many times, the plans say to only look back over a portion of the reading (i.e. RTR’s Unit 17, Day 4). Or, the plans might give specific directions to narrow the focus (i.e. RTR’s Unit 19, Day 4) or to start the narration in a certain way (i.e. RTR’s Unit 16, Day 4). These guidelines are there to help students be successful. This is the thinking/mentally planning part of preparing to write a narration, and it is an important step.
Students should follow the specific guidelines for the number of sentences a written narration in RTR should be.
Fourth, there is a specific guideline for the number of sentences a written narration is expected to be. In RTR, the range is 8-12 sentences. This range is the right number of sentences for the target age range of RTR. Each guide this range goes up, so it is an important guideline to follow. If they cannot write 8 sentences – even 8 quite short sentences – they either need to be able to fairly quickly grow into that, or they should probably slow down to half-speed or even drop back a guide if they are too young or inaccurately placed.
If they want to write more sentences than 12, they shouldn’t. The skill is to sift and sort and choose what to share, and it is also to edit work carefully. If they are in the extension age range and wanting to write many more sentences, they are probably inaccurately placed and should move up a guide if able.
Students should read aloud their written narrations to begin to form the habit of self-editing.Â
Fifth, students are to read their written narrations aloud to catch any mistakes. They should do this with pencil in hand to edit mistakes they hear as they read. This is also an important step! Many mistakes are caught by the student this way, and it is the first step to self-editing. Furthermore, it encourages legibility! If students cannot read their own writing, we as parents should not be expected to read it either!
Parents should orally ask the provided questions each time in RTR.
Sixth, there are specific questions to orally ask students to be sure they include the main topic, the important things that happened, and a closing sentence. Our asking these questions each time helps students begin to remember them on their own. This means they will more than likely form the habit of including them naturally as the year progresses.
Parents and students should use the Written Narration Skills checklist for editing.
Seventh, the Written Narration Skills checklist in the Appendix is to be used for editing. I know you mentioned your kiddos are stuck on steps 1-3 of the Student’s List. If they are in the proper age range for the guide, you can expect them to be able to consistently do steps 1-3, as they are near the end of their RTR guide and they did CTC last year. (If they were new to narration, they might need more time for these skills.)
Progress should be made on the number of steps students complete on the Written Narration Skills checklist.
One of my sons, I remember, would NOT indent… ever. It drove me crazy! I finally told him I wouldn’t even look at his written narration until he indented his paragraphs. A few times of this response, and he began indenting every time. If you are having to say steps 1-3 every time to your children, it becomes more of a discipline issue than a written narration skills issue. Written narrations at this age should be moving toward being fully edited, with at least steps 1-8 being completed each time, unless children are new to written narrations, have special needs, or are not in the proper age range of the guide.
Phew! I know this got long, but I have always found when I require the above 7 things of my sons, their narrations can’t help but be good! They get tired of fixing so many things, and they begin to write narrations better right from the start. They also find their own style eventually, which is really fun!
Reference RTR’s Appendix for further helps on written narrations.
Finally, the RTR guide has some wonderful tips in the Appendix with sections titled Before Beginning Written Narrations, During the Written Narrations, After Writing a Written Narration, and Other Helpful Writing Tips.
In closing, here are a few blog posts Carrie wrote on this topic…
Hope something here helps! Just keep encouraging your children yet holding them accountable to the provided guidelines, and you will see improvement year after year!
In Christ,
Julie
