Famous Men and outlining?

[Lemonade]

Have any of you had your middle school students practice outlining as they read the Famous Men of Middle Ages or Greece? It seems as though it would lend itself to that quite well since the readings are already divided into segments with Roman numerals.

I'm asking because my son has had a lot of difficulty in outlining with Classical Composition. Plus, he often reads his history book with less attention to detail than he should. On the other hand, I don't want to turn one of his favorite subjects (history) into a chore, either. Perhaps I should have him pause after each section and narrate orally first, and then outline it in writing on occasion? Or perhaps I should leave well enough alone

Thanks in advance!

[momgineer]

Are you using the study guides? They do a great job of helping students identify important information. I may be way off base but my gut says it is more important to be able to find and identify key concepts rather than outline entire passages. My oldest is a 4.0 college student who graduated honors from Kolbe and she never outlined texts. I also feel that 4-6th grade is too young to worry about outlining. Maybe in 7-8th when they do the Mills books, but even then the study guides help so much. Really, the outlining in Fable is meant to help the student study the fable from a composition viewpoint not to help them pick out key concepts in a history text. Plus the blank outlines in Fable are so arbitrary and frequently not how I or my daughter would break it up. I just feel they are not necessarily meant to totally outline by themselves in 4th grade. Doesn't the DVD and online class help them fill in the outline? I guess I feel outlining is not the same as note taking and I certainly don't stress over it in 4-6th grade. I trust the MP lesson plans and study guides and they don't require outlining. It seems to me outlining is a homeschool trend- perhaps started by a popular curriculum and now everyone feels they need to do it? Or perhaps I am totally missing the boat. I'm certainly interested in seeing other replies.

[MyLittleWonders]

My current 8th grader is using Famous Men of Middle Ages, mostly to work on skills rather than content (he has not done MP in its entirety, but we have added more and more each year). I felt he really needed to solidify things like outlining before tackling high school (mix mostly of MP and Kolbe). It works really well. Sometimes I'll have him just do a one-level outline of every paragraph for a given section; other times I have had him read a section (how it is broken into section I, II, and sometimes III for some chapters), and tell me how many main topics he can find, and then we work on outlining each main topic in that given section. It's been a great practice for him. Some weeks he then has to take his outline and turn it into a written narration.

I plan on doing something similar with my rising 6th grader next year. He will be using MP much more in line with how it is written, but it is a great text to use for outlining. He has not outlined anything from Famous Men of Rome this year, but simply used the student guide. But I regret not starting the skill earlier with my eldest. It really does help with reading comprehension and ordering their thoughts.

[Lemonade]

Momgineer,
Yes, I am using the study guides. I should have been more clear, but I am speaking of trying this next year when my son is in 7th grade and doing Famous Men of Greece. In his English text (R&S), there were some lessons on outlining and it was *really* beneficial, but it was just early in the year and no more lessons like that are in the text. I felt like it was a gentle and effective way to teach outlining and will benefit future writing and comprehension. I'm unaware of this as being a trend, as I am a new homeschooler. Like you, I have older children (one in college), and I keep a pulse on what is (and what is not) going on through that.

MyLittleWonders,
Thank you for sharing details of how you've done outlining. We tackled both Men of Rome and Middle Ages this year. I don't know what a "level one outline" means, but only know how to have ds outline per the instruction in his R&S english text. For each paragraph, he jotted down key phrases. Then, turned those into an outline. Next, turned the outline into a paragraph summary. He did great with this, but as I said above, it was just once this year in the text and I feel he needs to do this a little more often to get solid with it.

[KF2000]

Lemonade,
I have an noldest child in eighth who I assigned outlining chapters when she was in sixth grade. That year we used a history text that did not have any supporting materials, so her assignments would be to read and outline each chapter. The content was a bit of review for her, so it gave her a good chance to really focus on outlining. I did not see it as a trend, but rather an important way to see how to orderly structure information in a written work.

She did well that year, and I felt it helped her feel comfortable with the process and the reason for it. Fast forward to this year. Now she is using a religion textbook that is new to us. In the second book, the first chapter she read, but did not understand well. She thought it was a lot of random concepts thrown together for review at the beginning of the book. I encouraged her that there was more organization than she realized. So on her own, she decided to outline it to help her "see" how the information was related. It really did help!

So I agree with you about the need, and think that your idea for next year sounds reasonable, and age-appropriate. I would not take the fact that outlining is not specifically listed in any MP assignments outside of Composition as a sign that it is unnecessary. Quite the contrary. I would say that any of the skills children are learning in Classical Composition are fair game for us as parents and teachers to pull out and encourage our students to do in their other subjects for further reinforcement....especially the ones with which they struggle so they can have more practice, or, even better, when we recognize how appropriate those skills are for something else they are doing.

And yes, Rod and Staff has an excellent explanation of outlining....my oldest learned in her fifth grade book, which was what helped her be ready to do it regularly in sixth grade.

AMDG,
Sarah

[momgineer]

This is why I was interested in other replies. Apparently it is a popular thing these days. I just thought it was an IEW thing as I never saw outlining as a form of note taking anywhere else. I asked my 16 yr old who has gone to a rigorous college prep public school since 8th grade if they taught outlining as note taking and he looked at me like I had three heads. He said they use outlines to help compose essays and research papers. They also have to do reading journals in AP history. Reading journals are just taking notes on important information, but it is not required that they do it in outline form or that they outline every single paragraph. My oldest (college sophomore) had a psychology professor tell the class they had to take notes a certain way (not outline) because studies have shown that it is the best way to learn the material. My daughter hated it. She figured out he did not collect notes so she went back to taking notes her way which involves multiple color pens, using a mix of printing and cursive and lots of sketches. She is very visual and using different colors and different handwriting styles helps her organize the material in her mind much much better than an outline would. I'm being one of those stubborn moms who thinks, "I never learned that and did just fine. My kids never learned that and are doing much better than fine. I'm not sure why I would bother now." I just can't imagine how much time that would add onto our school day and how much they would start to hate history.
But, like always, I'm filing this idea in the back of my mind because maybe one of my younger children will end up needing this type of instruction.
Now I'm curious: is outlining as note taking (as opposed to an essay writing tool) taught at Highlands? If so, when and how is it taught and how is it used after the outline is made?

[pschaeffer]

I do want to say that we decided to take out the outline form in Classical Composition. Having the form already there for the student made things more confusing, not less so, since it wasn't apparent what the main and subordinate points were. Hopefully that will bring less confusion. Students will now be able to outline at their level--if they only see main points, they outline main points. As the year goes on, their outline can become more and more detailed.

We believe that outlining is a great skill, hopefully leading to the mental skill of being able to pick out main points as the student reads any text. If you see the need for extra practice (beyond Classical Composition) in your children, a text like Famous Men of Greece or the Mills books would be a great place to start.

Regards,
Paul

[pschaeffer]

Outlining as a note-taking tool is not taught systematically at HLS. Some teachers put outlines on the board as a way to teach concepts in an organized fashion, and some prefer to lecture so that the students have an opportunity to practice pulling main concepts out of a body of information.

Both have the goal of passing on information. Some subjects lend themselves to one system or the other, and we give our teachers the freedom to use the aids that they see fit.

[KF2000]

When I assigned my oldest to regularly outline her history book, it was really to do two things: to help her become comfortable with outlining, and to give her a history assignment that would make her spend more time thinking about the material rather than just reading quickly through the chapter. On this last point, it was in the absence of a student guide, like what MP offers for each of its texts. So I do not see it as a necessary part of every year's history study. Even in our example, she did it that one year, became very comfortable with it, and now has that skill at her disposal for whenever she needs it (such as she discovered in religion).

We hit on that particular method of reading material closely, and outlining it, because it was included in the Rod and Staff English assignments we were already doing. There was good explanation, good practice, an better yet, sample "answers" included in Rod and Staff so that both she and I could get a clear idea of how to do it. The TM was invaluable for me for this, as it showed me what to expect from her. So we did it first in grammar in fifth grade, then the next year, focused on it in history.

Granted, there are as many ways in which students can learn to take notes, and organize their notes, so that they retain the material. I was always told not to take notes on every thing a professor said in class, but there I would be, essentially transcribing the whole lecture. That was how I learned...I needed to do it. But my husband never took a single note, only sat in class, did his readings, and then closely read the chapters before an exam....yet we both did very very well in school. So yes, there is room for variety.

I have hit on this method with my kids because it was in our english books, so I could teach it well. And it has worked with one...we will see how it goes with others! I will say, it has made my teaching of outlining in Classical Composition much better. And we like the forms! I will miss those! It was helpful to say, "ok, there are three main points to the whole story....so what do we think each of those main points is?" Then we would do the same within a main point....."This main point has four subpoints....can you find the first one? Any details for that first one? What is the second one?" Etc.

What is going to replace the form? Just blank lines?

AMDG,
Sarah

[Melisa Burke]

I have to say that I will miss the forms in Classical Composition as well. I thought they were very helpful at this early stage of outlining.

Melisa

[Lemonade]

Momgineer,
I take notes as you described your daughter does, as it is all about the visual for me. I guess my original question should have been more clear, though, as to intent. I really want him to have more practice with outlining for the purpose of helping with writing later on. A side benefit, I believe, would be increased comprehension. I suppose, though, that any note taking, much as your daughter does with color, drawings, etc., would be helpful if he so chooses. His default is to do things as quickly as he can, though. Thank you for sharing your experiences, as that helps me sort through things.

KF2000,
You've explained exactly what I was thinking and also how I got here (with the 5th grade R&S text). Unlike you, I did not find benefit with the forms of Classical Comp. As Paul explained above, every lesson we found that how my son and I would have divided it would be different from the form. Yet, I felt we had to fill in all the lines, so I never felt like we "owned" our outline, if that makes sense.

At the end of the day, I believe I will tread very lightly next year and perhaps have him choose one Famous Men of Greece story, when we do the 5 lesson review weeks, to outline and then summarize in a paragraph. That would be about once per month, so not too overwhelming and he would not lose the skill and practice of outlining that I felt were so beneficial, it would also be more fun for him if I let him choose.

[MyLittleWonders]

Lemonade,

To clarify (sorry for not being clear), when I said I had my son do a one-level outline, I meant only finding the main topic of each paragraph. So, in those cases, he'd just be using Roman numerals I, II, etc. At other times when I'd have him outline the section, he'd usually come up with 2-3 main topics, plus a few subtopics for each main topic (so, A, B, C ...). My brain works in a very linear method and it makes sense to teach that kind of formal outlining. We've also done IEW type key word outlining, but at least my eldest prefers traditional outlining.

[tanya]

Hello.

There are now just blank lines in the Outline section of the Fable Stage. That gives the student more freedom to form his outline independently without being tied to a certain number of points or sub-points. This will allow students to work with a really detailed outline or a simpler outline if they aren't ready for so much detail yet.

Regards,

Tanya