As our children move into middle and high school, we can ask them to write in various styles and genres. Join us on today’s podcast to learn what we can do as teachers to support them in their Composition lessons while not diminishing their unique voices.
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Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)
ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List
ADE Poetry Scansion Additional Exercises
Emily
Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I’m Emily Kiser and I’m here with…
Liz
…Liz Cottrill…
Nicole
…and Nicole Williams.
Emily
Charlotte Mason says, if we would believe it, composition is as natural as jumping and running to children who have been allowed due use of books. They should narrate in the first place, and they will compose later readily enough. But they should not be taught composition.
As we have discussed over the past few episodes narration forms the foundation, and is really the training ground, for composition. But as students move into middle and high school, they are asked to do more. Nicole, can you tell us what Composition looks like at this level?
Nicole
Yes. So in Form 3, Composition expands to many new forms. Students are still going to write straightforward narrations and short essays, but they’re also tackling narrative and descriptive poems, often in the meter of the term’s poet, which they were doing some of in the previous form, but often tied to history or current events.
They may write ballads on heroic deeds or historical events. They are, you know, as I read these things I think, scenes for a play inspired by literature or history. They aren’t narrating the scene, they are writing the scene for the play.
Emily
And you question the current events. Hello, I’m thinking of “Charge of the Light Brigade”. That was a current event at one time, right? Like a lot of poems come from things that…
Liz
They have a lot more fun with their current events when they make it into a poem.
Nicole
Letters. Now they already wrote some letters in the last form, but now they are going to write letters both real and imagined. Such as from one literary character to another. They’re also going to write dialogues. Again, this isn’t narration on dialogue they read. They’re going to write the dialogue or conversation between historical or fictional figures. Still subjects such as current events, nature observations, History, Plutarch, Geography…they all provide the subject matter. Even their Sunday readings at this point may lead to a composition topic. Recitation continues to feed their writing voice, and prepared Dictation and Grammar lessons support spelling and punctuation and increased awareness of sentence structure.
Then in Form 4, the variety continues. Students begin to work at greater length at this point and some new forms of writing appear. They may write essays “in the style of” an author studied that term. And this is the first time they’re going to write summaries of readings, which seems a little like narration, but maybe they’re…
Emily
More honed.
Nicole
Yeah, maybe closer to that original full text.
They’re going to write diary entries “as from a historical figure”. I liked that one. They may write orations or speeches modeled after examples in their studies and more advanced verse forms such as blank verse or heroic meter now. It’s very exciting.
This is also a time when analysis and creativity often blend. Students may be asked to imagine a conversation between, I saw this example, “between Cromwell and Christian from Pilgrim’s Progress” or to compose a ballad about a current event. Throughout both forms Charlotte Mason still warned against correction or instruction, however she does clarify that exercises in Scansion are necessary at this point.
Scansion is the act of scanning a line of verse to determine its rhythm. Students are now required to write verse in that scans, she says, right, such as a poem that scans, meaning they must follow the guidelines for whatever type of verse they’re composing.
So by the end of Form 4, the student has an impressive toolkit, the ability to write in multiple genres, adapt their style to match an author’s, compress an idea into a clear summary, and even develop a topic at greater length. They’re really doing some stuff at this point.
Emily
Well, as far as the lesson format goes, this is the turning point here. Form 3 actually has a lesson time for Composition on the timetable. In Form 3, it’s once a week for 30 minutes. Form 4 has 40 minutes once a week. So these lessons are for their writing apart from the narration, of course, that just occurs during their other lessons. They can also be used for writing delayed narration, which this is the first age that they are asked to read something and then two days later write their narration on it. And that is just stretching their intellect and memory much more.
Oral narration, however, I just need to underscore this, is never given up entirely. Forms 3 and up were to write at least two written narrations a day. And you said they have at most three book lessons a day. So maybe they would write all of them, but not always, right?
Nicole
Meaning, sometimes they would say an oral narration, they wouldn’t just not…
Emily
Correct, of course they’re narrating every lesson. Yeah.
And then Form 4, they might have up to four book lessons a day. And so if they’re writing at least two, there would be at least one that was an oral narration. So the majority, but not all, lessons are going to be written narration. There’s still going to be room for oral narration.
And then Charlotte Mason is adamant that until the student begins noticing a need for critique and revision of his work, we still do not do any formal teaching or training of Composition. We have our students read essays. They read letters and of course they read lots of poetry and they get their understanding of these forms pretty much organically, without us pointing out the characteristics of what makes an essay an essay, right?
Liz
Right.
Emily
We do however, as you said Nicole, start training them in verse scansion at this level but that occurs during their Grammar lessons, right?
Nicole
Yes.
Emily
So it’s not part of that Composition time but it’s aiding their ability to do the Composition prompts that Charlotte Mason laid–
Liz
Composition time is just when they get to practice what they’ve been learning in Scansion.
Emily
Yeah, or put it into practice as they write a poem that scans in the meter of Tennyson or whatever it is.
Okay, so yes, they’re composing their own verses that must scan. And then apart from their narrations, Charlotte Mason tells us that at this level, she said, “they should only be asked to write upon subjects which have interested them keenly”. So the topics of the compositions that we set for them are becoming a bit more abstract than in earlier forms. Now we’re kind of starting to bridge that idea of you’ve got a blank page before you, right? A little more just instead of retell this or tell me what you know about this, they’re having to do some more abstract thinking and so they need to write on things they’ve actually had time to think about.
Liz
Yes.
Emily
So I think that we’ll talk about in a minute but it is a responsibility we have as teachers to consider that as we set these.
So the objectives for Composition are developing the habit of attentive reading. So they’re using their attention to read and that is coming out in their composition and also to express their ideas clearly and fluently to communicate well with writing.
So our teacher prep, as I mentioned, is to take some care to select writing prompts that they’re going to be excited about, right? I think this is such a core idea at Charlotte Mason. We’re never trying to catch kids up about what they don’t know how to do. We’re trying to give them opportunity to show what they can do, right? And it’s the same here as we’re helping them develop their composition skills. So we need to set questions on topics that they’re interested in.
And then also our teacher prep is we need to include Scansion in our Grammar lessons.
Nicole
Yes.
Emily
And if you don’t know what scansion is, as I did not until my husband wrote a teacher resource for us and I read through it and learned it myself, we do have one available on our website.
So as far as that we have the Scansion Manual and then now some additional Scansion Exercises and we do have our Composition Planner that can help you with all of the list of things so you don’t have to pause this podcast and try and take notes. This can help save you the effort.
Nicole
Yeah, this is just the highlights; that includes pages of prompts and ideas.
Liz
Basically it tells you everything we just said.
Emily
And more. So what are some challenges of teaching composition at this level, Mom?
Liz
Well, there’s so many, probably. Nicole’s always thinking of those children that are just coming into the Charlotte Mason way of doing school, maybe at 12 or 13 or 14 years old, and they haven’t had years of narration. And I guess I would just encourage you to start with the oral narration, but don’t overlook the written for very long time, because they will catch on quicker than a six-year-old will. And so they will catch up.
And I don’t think there’s any reason to hesitate on Composition because you don’t have to have narration skills to be able to try to write. Basically, they’re given this 30 or 40 minute lesson at this age. It’s a time limit. But in that time for once, for the first time, they’re kind of set free to roam where they will and put their ideas on paper. And a lot of them take to it quite readily, especially boys who are perhaps reluctant…I shouldn’t…some girls are also very reluctant to write, but…it is helpful, I think, sometimes when Nicole said have them write about a character, have them write about what they don’t like about a character or, you know, because teenagers love giving their opinion on negative things.
Emily
(Laughs) Being critical.
Liz
And also, even if you didn’t have that wonderful composition guide, if you have Charlotte Mason’s volumes, you can always…because I’m always asked, well, what kind of things? I would just say a variety of things. Don’t give them the same kind of thing every single week. And start making a page in your planning notebook and jotting down ideas. Because when the day comes, you don’t want to be trying to scratch something out, you know, at the last minute when your mind’s on a lot of other things. So write down some ideas ahead of time.
Nicole
I was thinking that those could come from some of the things the kids seem to be talking about–
Liz
Well, that was why I was saying if you have a really reluctant writing boy, have him write about his latest soccer game or something he’s really interested in that will help him to start feeling more comfortable about putting ideas down. He’ll have lots of opinions maybe about sports or other things. But also if you look in the back of volume 3, Charlotte Mason’s School Education, where she has sample exam questions, or even our Exam Planner on our website. Any of those.
Emily
Even in this section she gives lots of writing prompts.
Liz
She does in volume six. I guess what I’m saying is those are good ideas. You might not be studying Napoleon, just substitute Churchill or whatever you are studying in those questions because exams basically were the writing of compositions on things that they were assigned to do.
Emily
That’s true. Yeah, and that’s made clear in the notes of “composition as assessed not just in the subject of composition but throughout the whole exam”.
Nicole, I was thinking about when your son took Literature and Composition with Jono for the first time and he had to write, was it a sonnet?
Nicole
Yes.
Emily
And you were like he can’t do this. I never asked him to do it, right? But what did he do?
Nicole
Yeah, he did it. So he, we had never done Scansion because I didn’t know what that was and Jono would much prefer you have done that before you get to his class, let me tell you. But he learned it quickly through Jono because he had been reading a lot of poetry so that came quickly. So he had to use those rules for the sonnet and then rhyme, you know, certain ones and, and he did it. And my son’s severely dyslexic. I thought there’s no way he could do this. So maybe that’s something to keep in mind too, is that don’t underestimate their ability.
Emily
It’s kind of the balance of what mom was saying about, you know, like definitely give them time to do narration, but don’t neglect the composition. Cause we don’t know, they don’t know what they have in them.
Liz
I love it that Charlotte Mason actually waits till they have the skill to write comfortably enough, you know, but they’re becoming young people who have lots of ideas and opinions and they might even be contrary to yours. And the thing that’s valuable about composition over a regular written narration, which is just summing up what you have just read, they’re actually allowed to bring in their own thoughts to compare to other information they’ve gotten somewhere else and all that.
How much should we help our child? As Emily said Mason didn’t want us teaching them how to write their compositions, and it is a big temptation to interfere. Let them experiment. I mean, you may get a wide variety of kinds of writing. They’re practicing, they’re trying things out just like they might be doing in their wardrobe at this point in their life, right?
I have been told by so many Composition teachers that they can help a child learn how to do all kinds of things for writing, but no one can teach you your writing voice. And this is what they’re learning how to get comfort with at this age, is how to put down their thoughts. And this was a weekly subject, right? You already said that.
Emily
Yeah, once a week.
Liz
So let them struggle and learn how to do it and just be an encourager and don’t critique and hand them back to them. Make notes for yourself and work on their paragraphing or things that you think are important in the other lessons. But this isn’t a time to really be working so much on various forms and styles of essays. It is a time for letting them learn how to put their thoughts on paper.
And I just think, you know, some of you might be daunted by all the talk here about writing verse for this time. You might be shocked. When I first timidly told my son he was going to have to write whatever it was for Composition that day in verse, I was shocked at how he just readily said “sure.” And he did it, and that was even more shocking.
Honestly, reading poetry is the best help you can give a future writer, and the value of this Scansion lesson that gets tackled at this stage is…I don’t even know how to estimate how valuable it is because they’re really learning to analyze. The best authors that I’ve ever read were those who are extremely acutely aware of the sound of words as well as the content. So I just encourage you to dive in. Most kids think Scansion is great fun.
Emily
Next week, we will wrap up our look at Composition lessons and dive into the rest of high school lessons. In the meantime, check out our show notes for the links to all the resources we mentioned today. We hope you’ll join us as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.