It has always been a chore to get Amelie to do her writing assignments for me. Well, I've been reading a new book on the classical model for education that says that from 1st to 4th Grade, creative writing IS difficult and that the process of formulating thoughts and getting them down on paper is separate, and something that only comes with time. So, they stress that in the early grades, you can use the narration technique to teach kids how to think through what they want to say and the parent copies that out for them.
Well, I did that the other day, with this result.
I asked Amelie to read a chapter in her history book and summarise it, for me to write out. This is the result. Not bad in my opinion!
After the battle which the Persians and Greeks had made, that time was the most wonderful time in the history of Greece, perhaps Europe. That time was called the Golden Age, from 480 to 430 BC. The city of Athens had been burned down by Xerxes, king of Persia. But the Athenians went back and built the city again, this time much more beautiful than the old one had been. They built a temple in houour to the goddess Athenia. In the middle of the temple there was a statue of the goddess Athenia made out of pure gold. But a man named Phidiaz carved a picture of himself and one of his friends on the statue of Athenia. When the Athenians found it, they were so mad that he had drawn a picture of a human being on a goddess, that they put him in prison, and there he died.
Pericles wrote the first history of the world; about faraway lands such as in Egypt and other lands in Africa. There was a disease called a plague that killed people like poisoned flies. That disease came upon Athens and the Athenians died by the thousands. Pericles nursed the sick. But he soon caught the plague and died.
This happened at the end of the Golden Age, which has been
called in honour of the greatest man, the Age of Pericles.
