Composition with an Eye toward Development

Some professors wonder why educators even teach spelling instruction because of spell checkers. Hopefully, their students will not become sign makers (or cake decorators or church secretaries or ...) when they grow up.



While Pamela lags her peers in writing, she has come far. At least, she self-corrects spelling and grammar. She cares about how she writes for she changed grey to gray and was to were in her latest written narration of Fog Warning by Winslow Homer. She enjoys typing on Skype with my husband Steve through my account. The other day I found this exchange:

Tammy: I will buy a pizza today.

Stephen: ha ha

Tammy: I said Buy a Pizza today.

While I do not teach composition, I do assess what Pamela types. The first sentence is perfect. I have never corrected her writing with a red pencil as my English composition teacher did in high school, and Pamela can still write a perfect sentence. What a feat for someone who struggled with verb tense in her late teens! When Steve did not take her seriously, Pamela added emphasis with I said and by capitalizing buy and pizza. I love how subtly she made her point!

Pamela could improve upon that second sentence by adding punctuation, I said, "Buy a Pizza today." But, I do not plan to draw attention to it. Who wants to chat if someone turns everything into language arts lessons? Charlotte Mason's method works on composition without constant correction. The living books we read have many examples of dialogue. The copywork in her commonplace book has quotations. I need to teach her to enclose partial quotes in quotation marks and capitalize the names of countries, which I will incorporate into her studied dictation.



One sentence cracked me up! Commonplace books are basically written scrapbooks of items a person finds important. Pamela turned her old copywork book into a compilation of lists. In this one, Pamela summarized an episode of WordWorld which she watches at my parents' house: Frog helps Bug figure out a rhyme.




Dialogue is part of our recent studied dictation. While the swan dictation has no quotes, the one about Michael Faraday does. I can overlook the misspelling of Ribeau (a French surname) and massaging (a tricky word with French roots). Our next dictation will focus commas and capitalization for quotations.

Because of Pamela's aphasia, I tabled written narrations until this year. I am not alone in waiting for the right time developmentally. One mom at the Living Education Retreat shared that her teenager with autism struggled with writing. She found a therapy that helped him with his oral narration, and she had him spend a year retelling everything. Now, he is writing wonderful narrations with more confidence.

Early is not necessarily better! A recent study analyzing the lives of people over an eighty-year period concluded that, "Early school entry was associated with less educational attainment, worse midlife adjustment and, most importantly, increased mortality risk”. Why? “Most children under age six need lots of time to play, and to develop social skills, and to learn to control their impulses. An over-emphasis on formal classroom instruction—that is, studies instead of buddies, or staying in instead of playing out—can have serious effects that might not be apparent until years later."

This is exactly what Charlotte Mason stated over a century ago! It is why I am a purist in trying to apply her educational ideas before I try others.

It is why I trust recitation of nursery rhymes and Bible songs for children under the age of six. They need to play with words rather than endure formal lessons.

It is why I have not abandoned penmanship (even cursive) in the era of keyboards. Brain imaging reveals that "in children who had practiced self-generated printing by hand, the neural activity was far more enhanced and 'adult-like' than in those who had simply looked at letters." Cursive offers even more benefits: "multiple areas of brain become co-activated during learning of cursive writing of pseudo-letters, as opposed to typing or just visual practice" and "cursive activates areas of the brain that do not participate in keyboarding."

It is why Pamela and I write our own copywork, which John Piper chose as the number one technique for reading and understanding the Bible. The article on cursive noted that "writing letters in meaningful context, as opposed to just writing them as drawing objects, produced much more robust activation of many areas in both hemispheres."

It is why I do hardly any lessons on composition, which Mason discussed in her final volume. The building blocks of composition lie in memorizing beautiful language, reading living books, retelling them in your own words, copying your favorite turn of phrase, and writing passages from dictation. But, above all, oral narration is the foundation of written narration. Uncorrected, uninterrupted oral narration!

Here are my favorite quotes from Mason on the topic of composition in the elementary years:

Children of six can tell to amazing purpose. The grown-up who writes the tale to their 'telling' will cover many pages before getting to the end of "Hans and Gretel" or "The Little Match Girl" or a Bible story. The facts are sure to be accurate and the expression surprisingly vigorous, striking and unhesitating....

Two or three points are important. Children in lB require a quantity of matter to be read to them, graduated, not according to their powers which are always present, but they require a little time to employ their power of fixed attention and that other power which they possess of fluent narration. So probably young children should be allowed to narrate paragraph by paragraph, while children of seven or eight will 'tell' chapter by chapter. Corrections must not be made during the act of narration, nor must any interruption be allowed....

Children must not be teased or instructed about the use of stops or capital letters. These things too come by nature to the child who reads, and the teacher's instructions are apt to issue in the use of a pepper box for commas....

As the object of every writer is to explain himself in his own book the child and the author must be trusted together, without the intervention of the middle-man. What his author does not tell him he must go without knowing for the present. No explanation will really help him, and explanations of words and phrases spoil the text and should not be attempted unless children ask, What does so and so mean? when other children in the class will probably tell....

But let me again say there must be no attempt to teach composition.

P.S. For a modern look at Mason's ideas, try to get a copy of Dr. Jennifer Spencer's dissertation: "Self-Made Writer: A Grounded Theory Investigation of Writing Development Without Writing Instruction in a Charlotte Mason Home School."

Hope and Faith

A Facebook friend posted a link to an article about Representative Gabby Giffords' road to recovery since being shot in the head last January. The first minute-and-a-half of the radio program compares an interview with Gabby four years ago to her reading from her husband's new book. Her halted delivery reminded me of how Pamela reads. The description of Gabby's expressive language reminds me Pamela's road to language:

• "It's very difficult to carry on a conversation. It becomes very one-sided."
• "Her language is still halting — mostly one- or two-word thoughts."
• "We can have a conversation — it's difficult for her. She struggles; she gets frustrated."
• "Now, Giffords speaks in full sentences, according to Kelly. The challenge for her, he says, is stringing those sentences together."
• "Language recovery has come slowly."
• "I've come to learn that your brain can rewire itself to some extent. And she can find where those words are now located."

Isn't it amazing that a gun shot to the head causes the same kind of challenges Pamela faces with autism and aphasia?

While Giffords goes through hours of rigorous speech therapy every day, Pamela and I both burned out on it. Unlike Giffords who has already mastered the language once, Pamela is still building language from scratch. Giffords has been at it for less than a year; Pamela has been at it for twenty!

Last week, we were doing "exams" as I posted earlier. Our exams look very differently from what is usually done in this No Child Left Untested world because exams are basically narrations. I ask her to tell me about a topic, and Pamela shares what she knows. This exam is on mythology. Because she is not ready for the book listed for the year we are doing for CLUSA, I substituted an Ambleside Online book we have never read: Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Wonder Book.

I asked Pamela to tell me about her favorite story of the two we read last term, but she wanted to narrate both. The text of the two narrations are quite different and I have been pondering why. The story of King Midas was less complicated than the story of Perseus and Medusa: it involved fewer characters, fewer changes of scenes, and fewer plot developments. It had more of a repeated narrative (much like fairy tales). She could personally relate to the realistic elements of "The Golden Touch" while the story about Medusa contained far more fantasy. Pamela has an interest in children and the character of Marygold captured her imagination from the very beginning.

Pamela's knack for calendars and anachronisms came to light here. Hawthorne stated that Midas had turned a book into gold, but Pamela knew that the story was set in "B.C. times" and, therefore, he must have turned a scroll into gold. She may have trouble fully expressing her thoughts, but her chronology is superior to one of America's great authors.

Many years ago, before I learned other ways to approach language deficiencies, I drilled speech anomalies to the point of killing any joy Pamela felt in sharing her thoughts. Now, rather than stop her in the middle of a narration, I patiently listen because I know that recitation, copywork, studied dictation, and living books are more respectful ways to address grammar and speech glitches. All I do in the context of a narration is rephrase what she said to matching closely what she said in more correct English.

In the video, I edited out the long pauses between Pamela's initial sentences. I am not the most patient person, so, during this exam, I am knitting socks to prevent myself from jumping in too soon. When Pamela finally ran out of things to say, I probed a little further through declarative language. Asking questions that are too specific with clear right or wrong answers box her into a corner. Making declarative comments gives her aphasia a little wiggle room. I was fairly certain Pamela remembered Medusa's snake hair, so I guided her to it through declarative language. I reworded myself to give her a couple of opportunities, and Pamela didn't catch my drift until I asked about what animal her hair was like. You can see by her body language that she is quite confident in this process and she does not feel pressured or frustrated.

I will close an excerpt from the final page of Giffords' book, written and read in her own words and voice: "It's frustrating, mentally hard, hard work." Fortunately, we have learned to find joy, hope, and faith in this journey toward language.

Gorgon's Head. They had. He had a pierce. They had sword. They had cut your head. They had a fighting with kill Medusa's head Medusa's head was wicked. They had a shoe. They fly away. They had a horse, had a wing. Was cut. Medusa's hair was cut. Alive. Snake. Die. Medusa's head turn to stone.

Do Golden Touch: King Midas had a little girl named Marygold. They turned into gold. They had a strangers. They had rose turn into a gold. Scroll turn into gold. They cannot read. The stuff breakfast turn into gold. They cannot eat. They feel sad. They count the money. Marygold turn into statues. Feel sad. They had the water. They get rid of the gold. Marygold turned back to normal.

Assessing through Narration

Every day of the conference featured keynote speakers, who provided a broad overview of the theme of the conference (assessment). The breakout session speakers delved into the details and gave practical applications of Charlotte Mason's principles.

Thinking about assessment (page 6) is challenging in a “no child left untested” world, which is much like the educational reforms Charlotte Mason faced in her day. To educate all elementary school children inexpensively, England developed six standards of education that covered reading, writing, and arithmetic. The Elementary Education Act of 1870 offered a series of grants to schools based upon student performance in tests that assessed these standards. This method of doling out money to schools became known as “payment by results” (*ahem*, does this sound familiar?). At the time, Charlotte was teaching young children at the Davison School in Worthing and was pioneering a girls’ school. She must have witnessed first hand how the precursor to standardized testing affected children and teachers.

On Wednesday night, Dr. Jack Beckman, Associate Professor of Education at Covenant College, spoke on the topic, "From Enigma to Educationalist - Assessing Charlotte". In my narration of his talk, I am going to begin at the end to remind everyone of an important point! Reality is fixed and objective, but is interpreted by subjective knowers. I, one knower, sat in a frigid auditorium (on about five hours of sleep the previous night) and heard the same presentation as other knowers. The fixed reality of the talk will be available online in the near future. Because I am subjective in my interpretation and may have made errors in my notes, I might unknowingly misrepresent his talk. Thus, this narration is my take on what was said, not an exact transcript!

Jack Beckman began his talk with a practical example of assessment. In one of his classes, he gathers a collection of items for his "Beckman Box": he puts photographs, pictures, and objects that have meaning to him. Then, he asks the students to assess his life by writing an obituary. Because he is "dead" to them, they must immerse themselves in the clues he left behind in his box. With these objects, the students try to describe him and begin to analyze the meaning of the items. When they put all of the knowledge of him gleaned through his objects into a narrative, they end up evaluating what kind of man he was.

Comparing these obituaries to fixed reality, Dr. Beckman finds them to be authentic, but not perfectly accurate. When they encounter gaps, the obituary writers rely upon imagination to make sense of the objects. The students who have prior knowledge (i.e., have attended his classes previously) are often more accurate because they fill the gaps with what they already know.

He mentions the British historian Richard Evans, author of the book In Defence of History, equating the work of a teacher assessing a student to that of a historian. The subjective knower attempts to describe a fixed reality and must become immersed until a narrative becomes clear. The knower might need to rely upon imagination to make sense of the details.

One thing any person with prior knowledge of Jack Beckman ought to expect from one of his lectures is a richer vocabulary. In this case, he chose two German words, which I imagine relates to the fact that Richard Evans specializes in German history. I made a connection to one of the words he shares, verstehen, which means to understand: my German mother dolloped us with tongue-lashings in her native tongue that always ended with an emphatic "Verstehst du das?" (Do you understand that?). The second word, erklären, needed more explaining (pardon the pun, for it means to explain). Apparently, these competing concepts of assessing history have been and still are rigorously debated.

You may be asking what history has to do with assessment. When assessing a student, a teacher must gather the student's work (narrations, nature notebooks, copywork, studied dictations, handicrafts, etc.) and become immersed in better understanding the student. With the student's work in mind, the teacher tries to describe the student and begins to analyze what the student knows, strengths, interests, and weaknesses. A student with a consistent error in math needs targeted lessons, while a student with major gaps might need a complete review (however, if all of the student's work is slipshod it could be related to attention or accuracy). In this way, assessment affects lesson planning. After gleaning enough knowledge about the student, the teacher ends up evaluating the student's abilities.

Sometimes, historians bump into gaps of knowledge. For example, not much is known about Charlotte Mason's life from 1878 to 1889. The historian must imagine what she might have done. We know that, during this period, she wrote her geography book about the forty shires of England, lectured on home education, and published the first volume of her six-volume series. She left no diary or memoirs, so we imagine she must have spent this period traveling, reading, pondering, and thinking through her philosophy of education. Likewise, we find gaps in our knowledge of our students.

When we view Charlotte Mason, we must assess the person she was, fully alive and human (susceptible to foibles like the rest of us). We assess her writings for they say much about the person she was. While we are tempted to put her on a pedestal, it is important to compare her ideas to what science has revealed about the neurology of learning.

Narration was Charlotte's greatest tool for assessment. Narration is knowledge touched with imagination. When we narrate, our mind force requires attention, assimilation, retention, and reproduction. Dr. Beckman closed with seven principles of assessment ala narration. I am sure the details here are sketchy because he flew through this point. So, beware of mental fog permeating the following list:

* Narration is holistic for it includes personal and prior knowledge. The narrator creates something new.
* Narration is open in its interpretation of knowledge. The narrator provides informed opinion.
* Narration is thinking made tangible. The narrator reveals thinking to the teacher in a concrete way.
* Narration reveals knowledge instead of ignorance (except for the occasional howler).
* Narration accounts for natural development of thinking skills. The teacher sees progressive understanding (not oppressive expectations).
* Narration shapes instruction due to diagnosis of errors.
* Narration unfolds instructional criteria to determine future curricula.

In short, teachers are historians when it comes to assessment, which requires a teacher to gather, immerse, describe, analyze, and evaluate. Narration gives teachers a more authentic and more accurate glimpse of a student's thinking than standardized testing.

Narrations as a Form of Speech Therapy

Oral narrations are a wonderful way to do speech therapy. After we read a passage from a book, Pamela narrates what she read. This was and is very difficult for her, but she has improved over the years. After she does her narration, I open the book and ask her three "therapy" questions to practice the language structures she is learning that week.

Narrating books is much more interesting than canned speech therapy exercises. As we read from several books a day, Pamela has many opportunities to practice the art of speaking during the day. Some books are above her reading level, but she still finds ways to narrate. I remember reading biographies about autistic people who were bored silly in school because they were secretly reading, but still being taught their alphabet in class. I never want to underestimate Pamela, and I want her to tackle to our rich literary heritage. I would rather err on the side of going above her level, rather than dumbing down her material, and I assume that, if she understood nothing, she would balk and have meltdowns every time we open a book. As she continues to seem eager for reading, I hope I have found a proper balance between easy and challenging books.

We just finished reading Mary Emma and Company by Ralph Moody, the fourth in a series about Ralph's family. I believe this is right at Pamela's reading level. I asked Pamela to narrate what she remembered from the book and this is what she said:

Ralph has a new house. His father died. He is in heaven. Ralph said, "Goodbye, Colorado! Hello, Massachusetts!" He has a stove. It got burned. They can make a better stove. It is beautiful.

Mother has some laundry. She can wash some clothes. Grace is helpful. Mother can dry clothes. They can fold clothes. They can make money.

Ralph saw a fire. A bridge was broken. He saw a fire chief. A fire chief can chop wood. Ralph got bridge logs.

A May basket is for church. It has some flowers. Grace got a basket. A basket is beautiful. A note is for happy Mother's Day. Mother is happy.

Pamela's narration seems immature. When she was four-years old, her developmental pediatrician told us she might not ever speak, much less read or write. On top of having autism, she has syntactic aphasia, or "difficulties in using words in the correct order and/or forms for effective communication" (page 3 of Teaching Language Deficient Children). Pamela, like others with aphasia, drops little words such as prepositions, conjunctions and articles: years ago she might have said, "fire Ralph" for "Ralph saw a fire." Her brain is not wired to spot grammatical patterns and apply them. For example, three weeks ago, she could not string together these words: "does not have any." Up until this point, she could manage, "has no." Last week, I introduced the new phrase into her multi-sensory language activities through written stories, listening and repeating, oral and written narration, copywork, and dictation. Now, she can say the phrase smoothly, but it will take another week or two for it to become part of her daily speech patterns.

When put in perspective, Pamela’s oral narration of Mary Emma and Company is absolutely fabulous!