Saturday, September 17, 2011

LTW Journal 9/18


We have been bogged down in Invention.  I am surprised.  I would have predicted slow and muddy progress through Arrangement or Elocution, but not Invention.  We're creative at our house, right?

In Lesson 2, students are asked to list twenty affirmative, twenty negative and twenty interesting points about their issues.  My students had a hard time!  Their issues this time are taken from government and politics, so it may have been subject matter, but they even struggled to find twenty things in favor of 'their' sides.

In order to list sixty different points on an issue, you have to know it very well.

We reviewed the questions to ask several times.  Each time, the girls went back to researching answers on their own, but still came up short.  Finally, we all sat down together and worked as a team to put twenty things on each list. (20 on Aravis' affirmative, 20 on her negative, 20 on her interesting; 20 on Mariel's affirmative, 20 on her negative, 20 on her interesting.)  We were stuck in Invention for two weeks!

Also, I failed to notice that Lesson 2 Invention is an *introduction* to the Five Topics and questions.  I got a bit discouraged that the girls weren't embracing these new tools.  But we are going to handle each Topic in detail in future Invention lessons!  Note to self:  do more than just scan the Teacher's Guide.


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