Finally, in the highest forms, grades 10 through 12, Charlotte Mason allowed that students do need some definite instruction in Composition. We’ll be sharing what this looks like on the podcast today.
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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
Finally, we’ve reached the forum with some definite teaching in Composition. She said “some teaching in the art of Composition is advisable, but not too much, lest the young scholars be saddled with a stilted style which may encumber them for life.” It’s pretty severe. So before we talk about what this definite teaching looks like, Nicole, would you tell us what kinds of writing students in Forms 5 and 6 do?
Nicole
Yeah, these have been years for honing skills and broadening application without abandoning the natural development that has brought them this far. So assignments might include essays on significant questions of the day or ideas from the term’s work. A precis, which is a concise, accurate summary of a longer piece. “Times Leader” is what Charlotte Mason called these. These are opinion pieces modeled on the editorial pages of the Times. They could write those. Speeches for delivery on a particular occasion or in defense of a position. Occasionally they could write debates, or maybe that’s like the intro for the debate because the debate’s more fluid, right?
And then still narrative verse and ballads often tied to current events. I loved your point of the Light Brigade in the last episode. That just really is an inspiring idea to me, I guess. And then now, you know, they started letters in Form 2 and then they were writing letters, maybe even to characters that they didn’t know. They were having to make that up in Forms 3 and 4. But now they’re going to write letters to publications, bringing their voice into the public conversation. That’s a pretty big deal.
Liz
So when you said the Times, you meant the London Times.
Nicole
Yeah, the Times Leader was opinion pieces.
Emily
We would call them op-eds, right?
Nicle
Yeah, yeah.
They also may be assigned to write lines of verse which must scan on abstract ideas or on current events. By this stage they’ve already practiced Scansion, we hope, in Form 3, analyzing the rhythm and meter of a line of verse and should be able to apply those skills well at this point. If they haven’t, they can probably pick it up pretty quickly if they’ve been reading poetry for a while. And so when writing in the style of a particular poet, they follow the conventions of that poet’s form, maintaining both the rhythm and the structures, they’re like the rules to these poems.
And then again, all this work is undergirded by a steady diet of reading that shaped their style and their other things like their Grammar, and they’re not doing a lot of the things like Dictation and stuff like that anymore. Am I saying that right?
So a lot of that is formed in those earlier years, but they’re using it now. So they should have pretty good mechanical skills by this time and be able to represent themselves well, whether it’s more of a creative piece, you know, like we talked about the letters between two characters, that are in two different books, or it’s this op-ed piece.
Emily
Well, the weekly format, they still have a weekly Composition lesson, but it actually decreases in time. It’s down to 20 minutes once a week. Of course, they’re still doing their written narrations at least two per day, which is the majority of their book lessons. They’re reading and discussing various kinds of writing and use those as models, right? Like you mentioned, essays, they would be reading essays and then asked to write them. So they still have models for these things in front of them.
But that can be more drawn out. How does so-and-so make his point in this essay? Drawing their attention maybe a little more overtly than we have possibly done in the past. So we would be reading over their writing and Charlotte Mason says a point or two might be taken up in a given composition and suggestions or corrections made.
So this is not bringing out all our red pens and marking up everything in their writing that needs improvement, but she said with a little talk, right? So we’re just starting to draw their attention to what they can improve and give them again the inspiring idea with a little talk. This is an oral lesson. That’s it. We’re not tearing their papers to shreds, but just choosing one or two things to draw their attention to and ask them to improve upon.
So we largely trust that they have found their unique writing voice by this time from the copious amount of literature that they’ve consumed so far. And again, style cannot be taught. So our criticism must focus on the mechanics of writing. That’s the kind of things that we’re going to be working out. Hopefully they’re writing a complete sentence. That’s the mechanical thing that you say. This is actually a sentence fragment. You need to finish your thought or any complete thought here.
So our objectives are the same as in the earlier forms, drawing upon their habit of attention and their imagination, their free and fluent expression in the written form is what we’re after.
So our teacher prep now, we have a little more definite work to do than we have thus far. We need to read their writing, right? A lot of times it’s not going to be in the moment or directly after. They’re going to use their time in their Composition lesson and we’re going to have to read it outside of that time.
And then we just are needing to identify what’s the biggest problem or what’s the biggest thing that they can do to improve, the most important thing they can do to improve a correction. And then we just talk over those points a little. So that could happen in their English Language lesson, maybe. It could happen the next week in their Composition lesson. We don’t have specific guidelines, so there’s just freedom for us to work on that as we will.
Nicole
I’m also thinking that a student who really takes an interest might be writing some of these things outside of lessons because they’re interested in that.
Emily
That’s so true at this age, right? Yeah, they’re making decisions about what to do with their free time.
And then also part of our prep is we need to give them the scope for all these different kinds of writing. So that does take a little preparation on our part. We need to, you know, come up with some ideas and we have a Composition Planner that is full of them that kind of details what was assigned and gives some ideas for those. So you can use that as a resource.
My husband Jono Kiser also has given a workshop at one of our past conferences called A Point or Two of Correction and Critique and it literally is how to help your students become a better writer, but in Charlotte Mason’s style.
So that’s it. I mean really we think okay some definite teaching but really it’s just still a little bit…
Liz
Vague? And that’s what drives moms crazy. They want a step-by-step guide. When she says a point or two, I just want to make a point or two. Because moms often feel like they don’t know what to correct. You know, like this feels like a big mess to me. Sure. So I think you’re helped by her advice to just correct one or two things, because just find one thing that’s wrong with it or two little things…see what their biggest problem is. Is their biggest problem that they keep forgetting to use punctuation or paragraphs or is it that they keep switching from past tense to present tense or something like that? Just pick one thing or two things.
Emily
And I would say spelling is probably not going to be the biggest thing, right? We live in the 20th century and spell check abounds, much to my dismay sometimes, because I really am writing the correct word that my computer doesn’t think I am trying to say. But really, some kids are just not going to be natural spellers and they’re done with that at that point.
Liz
But my point about the point or two that you might just select one or two things is that then give them time to practice that. Like don’t use every single lesson to critique. Let them work that out. And you can even keep pointing it out. Like are you confused about what I mean by this? You know, I’m still seeing you do this. Could you try really hard today to correct that problem?
One thing she points out somewhere, I’m sorry, I don’t remember exactly where I read this, but I always remembered that she said, usually by this age, kids are starting to really care how they’re coming across. So it’s not as daunting as it is to a 13 or 14 year old. When you have a 16 year old who knows maybe they’re headed for college or really wants their writing to be better, they’re gonna be much more open because they know a lot more about words, they care a lot more about words.
If you don’t know what kind of things to correct, you know, there are writing guides out there that can help you. But I think some of the best things are some of the things that Jono brought out in that, is it readable? I mean, is this making sense? And if it isn’t in some place, why is that? So just hone in and say, I’m with you all the way till this part. And then tell me what you were trying to say here. Could you rewrite this so it’s more sensible?
So that might be a help in some way. I mean, there are Grammar handbooks when it comes to mechanics, moms are always very concerned about the term paper. And I think that is a good thing. You know, they ask me…
Emily
Oh yeah I meant to say that. One of the things you need to go over.
Liz
Yeah. So a research paper. There are lots of guides out there free online for how to do a research paper. Just follow the steps.
Emily
And the biggest thing is citation and learning how to do works cited, so yeah.
Liz
Yep. And that information is all out there.
Nicole
Yeah, I use a generator.
Liz
And when I, when they say 20 minutes a week. So that gives you a clue right here that they might be working on something for several weeks running, you know, and a research paper might take a whole term or two terms, maybe one term of doing the research and another term in writing it or something like that.
And Nicole mentioned a precis and that is an unfamiliar word to a lot of people, but basically it just means an abstract or a summary like when you read a formal journal entry there’ll be a one page summary that tells you what that article is going to be about. They have been reading essays and so they understand what they’re after here. If you just google online how to write a precis there will be two or three things come up that will give you the steps. It’s really a wonderful tool. It will help them tremendously in later research and stuff. If you can read a 10,000 word essay and distill it down to 300 words for your own use, you know, that’s going to be very helpful.
Take someone like Francis Bacon that they commonly read even in ninth or tenth grade. He’s super organized and his essays aren’t super long. The language is difficult sometimes, but you can still see how he makes point one, two, three. And that helps kids a lot too.
I don’t know, can you think of any other…?
Children who maybe come to 10th or 11th grade who still have struggles with spelling and things like that that might be benefited from Dictation, even though Dictation is not on the schedule, you might want to include that for a year or so to help your child, you know, make some progress in spelling better.
Emily
If they have not been…
Liz
…if they’ve never had it.
Emily
I’m thinking of when I said earlier, like we just need to give it up. It’s like if they’ve been doing dictation since 3rd grade they don’t need any longer. They’re just not going to be a speller, guys. And it’s okay.
Liz
And even Mason acknowledged that some people are not spellers.
Emily
So true.
Thanks for tuning in as we have progressed through Composition lessons across the forms. Next week, we will turn our attention to some practical questions we often hear. We hope you’ll join us next time, as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method and conclude our series on Composition.