Perfecto Timing!

Tonight I responded on our local Cm list about how composition cannot be taught. Charlotte Mason contended that if children read enough literature and have models for writing, they will learn to write. And they will write better if it is about their interests. (I will post the quotes at the end here.)

Anyway, I responded with a post about how that has been true here- that both my boys are proficient writers and I have seen all sorts of influence in their writing- L. M. Montgomery, JRR Tolkein, CS Lewis.. as well as Dave Barry and John Erickson of Hank the Cowdog.

Well, after I posted that my 16yos came into the kitchen and said-

"May we cast away our timer for the evening?"

What eloquent language! Really they wanted to play Vg without it.. sometimes this is necessary for an RPG or creative game... but they are out of free days for the week.

But, he proved my post's point! I heard shades of JRRT there, and he commented on that as well as he has been reading a lot of LOTR today.

So, with such a delivery of poignant eloquence, I of course said YES! :)

And, here are the quotes the friend on the list put up- Charlotte Mason on the subject of composition--

"Composition in Form I (A and B) is almost entirely oral and is so much associated with Bible history, English history, geography, natural history, that it hardly calls for a special place on the programme, where however it does appear as 'Tales.' In few things do certain teachers labour in vain more than in the careful and methodical way in which they teach composition to young children. The drill that these undergo in forming sentences is unnecessary and stultifying, as much so perhaps as such drill would be in the acts of mastication and deglutination. Teachers err out of their exceeding goodwill and generous zeal. They feel that they cannot do too much for children and attempt to do for them those things which they are richly endowed to do for themselves."

"... for all their work lends itself to oral composition and thepower of such composition is innate in children and is not the resultof instruction."

"...From their earliest days they should get the habit of reading literature which they should take hold of for themselves, much or little, in their own way. 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."

"But let me again say there must be no attempt to teach composition. Our failure as teachers is that we place too little dependence on the intellectual power of our scholars, and as they are modest little souls what the teacher kindly volunteers to do for them, they feel that they cannot do for themselves. But give them a fair field and no favour and they will describe their favourite scene from the play they have read, and much besides."

"...the point to be considered is that the subject be one on which, toquote again Jane Austen's expression, the imagination of the childrenhas been 'warmed.' They should be asked to write upon subjects whichhave interested them keenly."

"Forms V and VI. In these Forms some definite teaching in the art ofcomposition is advisable, but not too much, lest the young scholars besaddled with a stilted style which may encumber them for life. Perhapsthe method of a University tutor is the best that can be adopted;that is, a point or two might be taken up in a given compositionand suggestions or corrections made with little talk. Having beenbrought up so far upon stylists the pupils are almost certain to haveformed a good style; because they have been thrown into the society ofmany great minds, they will not make a servile copy of any one butwill shape an individual style out of the wealth of material theypossess; and because they have matter in abundance and of the bestthey will not write mere verbiage."