Fable composition

[chenruyi]

I am posting my daughter's writing of fable paraphrase

Sometime, she likes to expand the story beyond the plot. She did not follow the suggestion of Anemographia, Dendographia, Ethopoeia. Shall I allow her to freely expand any details that she would like to go ahead?

Any advise? How to expand the story and add more parts that describes details?




Here is her sample story in Lesson Two



In a pasture one summer's day, a grasshopper was leaping around, chirping and singing his most cheerful song. " Summer is a perfect time to play " said the grasshopper pleasantly.



An ant walked by, carrying one piece of corn to his burrow with great effort. The grasshopper gave the ant a quick glance.

" How do you do!" He greeted the ant " It is a fine day, isn't it? Why do you care to work in the field instead of chatting with me?"



"I am busy collecting corn for the winter" The toil made the ant out of breath,but he managed to talk, "For your sake, I think you'd better stock as much food as I do"



The ant's suggestion did not seem to please the grasshopper, he sniffed at the ant disdainfully, " I don't understand why you should bother about the winter. The meadow has a lot of food for us all, eat whenever you like. You don't have to toil and moil in this way. " The grasshopper hurried away impatiently as if it was not worth noting the ant's response. He sang his merriest song again.



Winter finally came. It became bitterly cold. The rain and sleet beat down on the ground. The grasshopper searched from place to place, but still failed to find one piece of grain to eat.



The rain froze upon him, covering him with a coating of ice. The grasshopper was trembling because of hunger. The only comforting thought that entered his head was that on so stormy a night the ant would be eating food in their snug den. They would not go out in such weather. The grasshopper realized that he was nearly going to die. He groaned:" It is best to prepare for the days of necessity."

[Abigail Johnson]

Hello and thanks for posting!
It looks like your DD is doing a wonderful job of capturing everything in the original, and not leaving out details I would require my learner to use the stipulated figures, in order to develop those creative avenues, even she is demonstrating creativity in other ways.
Also, it is completely acceptable to add one's own perspective to the stories. That may mean adding a bit here and there, because what paraphrasing really is, is internalizing the essentials of a story's plot and retelling it in one's own words, as each individual sees the story playing out the imagination. Thus, do not be concerned if extra embellishments to the plot are added here and there; that is a GOOD sign. However, for effusive writers sometimes we do have to remind them that if their embellishments obscure the point of the story, it's time to get out the red pencil. ;-)

I would encourage your daughter, as she completes more lessons, to get completely away from the original language expression of the story. One good example that I run into every year is the specific phrase "toil and moil." It's odd enough to hear that it really sticks out as being an expression used in the original, so encourage your daughter to come up with her own expression of what toiling and moiling means. For instance, "Why are you pushing yourself to exhaustion?" or "Come be festive with me, dance and sing! Don't do so much back-breaking work!"
This right here is the gem of Fable & Narrative, to take a specific set of vocabulary, understand the ideas behind the original words, and retell those ideas, not using the original words. Now, obviously, this does not mean we ban the word "Ant" or "Grasshopper," but we are looking for the student's own expression of the idea. Variation of vocabulary and sentence structure is the first step, then true paraphrasing is the final effect.
Happy Writing!

[chenruyi]

Hello Abigail,

Thank you for your feedback and instruction. My daughter loves your feedback to her. Both of my children love the fable stage writing work book designed by memoria press. I ask them to use their own words to retell the story. For homeschooling children, Do you know is there any forum of memoria press for children sharing their writing together and learn from each other's feedback?

Thank you

[tanya]

Hello.

I'm not Abigail, but we don't have a forum where children can share their writing at this time. It would take quite a bit of monitoring, and we just don't have the capacity for that right now.

Tanya

[Abigail Johnson]

Hello!
Just slogging through my inbox from the weekend! I second Tanya, that we do not have a forum for "sharing." Just considering this, it would, from my perspective as an online teacher, open up a lot of possible paper sharing that, although meant in the best possible way, could end up encouraging some negative effects, such as "borrowing" too much from shared content. We would never do this with Math problems in the R&S book, and that probably applies to CC lessons as well, for the sake of integrity.
In a class or co-op, or around the kitchen table, this is part of the supervised learning process (hence the instructor is going to know if all of Susie's paragraph ends up reworded and inserted into Marta's paper.) So, to have an unsupervised sharing forum, or one with so many examples that one parent cannot keep track of them all, would harm the transparency of the writing process.

Of course, using other stories and content, not from the lessons, and sharing them with friends is a great idea, and is lots of fun. By the way, even the lessons themselves these make fabulous presentations for grandparents and non-student family members and friends, letting them see the wonderful writing your students are developing. HSLDA has essay competitions and creative writing competitions that would be wonderful to look at as well, to integrate that writing competition with your CC curriculum lesson.
Blessings,
Abigail