A couple of blog posts you really shouldn't miss this week:
The Deputy Headmistress at The Common Room has started a series about the Charlotte Mason approach to composition. This is not just theory; the DHM has a whole lot of years of experience with this, both ups and downs.
The latest Seven Quick Takes post on Afterthoughts has a couple of good links to challenging articles. Plus a cute baby goat.
That's all for now! (Really, there's enough in there to keep anybody busy for awhile.)
Showing posts with label composition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label composition. Show all posts
Friday, March 13, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Paraphrase of Bacon's "Of Beauty" (Lydia's Grade Eight)
This is Lydia's (uncorrected) paraphrase of "Of Beauty" (also called "Of Virtue"), by Francis Bacon.
Virtue is like a gem...better showcased in a plain ring than a distracting one. Virtue does better in a pretty person, but not a young, undignified person. And one that is dignified rather than cute and delicate. Usually perfect people have pretty much no virtue. Like nature was trying just to get the job done fast, instead of being a perfectionist. They seem pretty amazing, but they're kinda boring. And they tend to be more interested in learning how to be perfect than virtue. But not always. Augustus Caesar, Titus Vespasianus, Philip le Bel of France, Edward the Fourth of England, Alcibiades of Athens, Ismael the Sophy of Persia were all great guys, while still being very handsome. Generally peoples features matter more than the color of their skin in beauty, and gracefulness trumps features. That's the best part of beauty...because no photo can capture it. You can't see it when you first meet the person. However, no one is perfect. Everyone has flaws. Nobody can tell whether Apelles or Albert Durer was more of a perfectionist. One of them used geometrical proportions, the other one would take the best part out of everyone's faces and put the all together, to make perfect, flawless people. But these pictures only pleased the painters. They're great, but they're made wrong. If you look carefully they're weird, but altogether they're perfect.
If it's true that beauty is mainly grace, then no wonder younger people are more beautiful than old people, because no young person can be beautiful without special reason. Beauty is like fruit...it can be corrupted...AKA it can rot. When you are young, you are not as pretty as when you grow older and more beautiful and virtuous.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Composition lesson: Omit Needless Ofs, and an essay by Francis Bacon: "Of Expense" (Lydia's Grade Eight)
PART ONE:
Part of a chapter from Sizzling Style, by William Bernhardt. Only people who have spent as much time crossing out prepositional phrases as Lydia has will fully appreciate this writing advice. According to Bernhardt, the majority of prepositional phrases are excess baggage. If you can identify and mentally cross them out (as any student of The Easy Grammar Plus will be able to do), you can often omit them, or replace them with adjectives or other single words. Top offender, says Bernhardt: the word "of."
PART TWO:
"Criticise the following passage from Bacon's Essays, and, after putting the meaning shortly in your own words,show how it treats all of the aspects of the subject." (Studies in composition: A textbook for advanced classes. By David Pryde, 1871) (The text here contains only the first two-thirds of Bacon's essay. Although the whole thing is not long, the last third is the most difficult and so I am taking Mr. Pryde's advice and shortening the assignment.)
"RICHES are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions. Therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion; for voluntary undoing, may be as well for a man’s country, as for the kingdom of heaven. But ordinary expense, ought to be limited by a man’s estate; and governed with such regard, as it be within his compass; and not subject to deceit and abuse of servants; and ordered to the best show, that the bills may be less than the estimation abroad. Certainly, if a man will keep but of even hand, his ordinary expenses ought to be but to the half of his receipts; and if he think to wax rich, but to the third part.
"It is no baseness, for the greatest to descend and look into their own estate. Some forbear it, not upon negligence alone, but doubting to bring themselves into melancholy, in respect they shall find it broken. But wounds cannot be cured without searching. He that cannot look into his own estate at all, had need both choose well them whom he employeth, and change them often; for new are more timorous and less subtle. He that can look into his estate but seldom, it behooveth him to turn all to certainties. A man had need, if he be plentiful in some kind of expense, to be as saving again in some other. As if he be plentiful in diet, to be saving in apparel; if he be plentiful in the hall, to be saving in the stable; and the like. For he that is plentiful in expenses of all kinds, will hardly be preserved from decay."
Part of a chapter from Sizzling Style, by William Bernhardt. Only people who have spent as much time crossing out prepositional phrases as Lydia has will fully appreciate this writing advice. According to Bernhardt, the majority of prepositional phrases are excess baggage. If you can identify and mentally cross them out (as any student of The Easy Grammar Plus will be able to do), you can often omit them, or replace them with adjectives or other single words. Top offender, says Bernhardt: the word "of."
PART TWO:
"Criticise the following passage from Bacon's Essays, and, after putting the meaning shortly in your own words,show how it treats all of the aspects of the subject." (Studies in composition: A textbook for advanced classes. By David Pryde, 1871) (The text here contains only the first two-thirds of Bacon's essay. Although the whole thing is not long, the last third is the most difficult and so I am taking Mr. Pryde's advice and shortening the assignment.)
"RICHES are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions. Therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion; for voluntary undoing, may be as well for a man’s country, as for the kingdom of heaven. But ordinary expense, ought to be limited by a man’s estate; and governed with such regard, as it be within his compass; and not subject to deceit and abuse of servants; and ordered to the best show, that the bills may be less than the estimation abroad. Certainly, if a man will keep but of even hand, his ordinary expenses ought to be but to the half of his receipts; and if he think to wax rich, but to the third part.
"It is no baseness, for the greatest to descend and look into their own estate. Some forbear it, not upon negligence alone, but doubting to bring themselves into melancholy, in respect they shall find it broken. But wounds cannot be cured without searching. He that cannot look into his own estate at all, had need both choose well them whom he employeth, and change them often; for new are more timorous and less subtle. He that can look into his estate but seldom, it behooveth him to turn all to certainties. A man had need, if he be plentiful in some kind of expense, to be as saving again in some other. As if he be plentiful in diet, to be saving in apparel; if he be plentiful in the hall, to be saving in the stable; and the like. For he that is plentiful in expenses of all kinds, will hardly be preserved from decay."
Monday, October 22, 2012
Dollygirl's Grade Six: Plans for Tuesday
Basic Bible Studies, page 25: Yesterday we read what the prophet Isaiah said about the coming Messiah. Today, read Luke 2:25-32, 36-38. What did Simeon and Anna say when they saw the child Jesus? Listen to “Simeon’s Lullaby,” by Wendy & Mary.
Shakespeare: Cymbeline, continue Act II, Scene IV. Iachimo reports back to Posthumus. Oops--we forgot about this one. Dollygirl was fighting a cold today and we didn't get to every subject.
Dividing fractions: Work through this word problem found here: "Cassie's bird feeder holds 1/2 of a cup of birdseed. Cassie is filling the bird feeder with a scoop that holds 1/10 of a cup. How many scoops of birdseed will Cassie put into the feeder?" Minds on Math 8, page 89, word problems 16, 17, 18, 19. Now write your own problem.
Science: see Monday.
Copywork: Einstein quotes.
French
Poetry
The Hobbit: Chapter 10, "A Warm Welcome"
Skills & Crafts: work on Dollygirl's dollmaking project.
Grammar & composition: Write Source 2000, sections 311 and on. As an example of recalling information, list in sentences the six levels of thinking. No? See the example in the book about the 1985 Live Aid concerts. What is the difference between recalling and understanding? Your writing assignment for today: write a paragraph describing what Grandpa told you about V-E Day in 1945. Use as many concrete details as you can remember. We didn't get to this, since we read extra in science and did extra sewing as well.
Shakespeare: Cymbeline, continue Act II, Scene IV. Iachimo reports back to Posthumus. Oops--we forgot about this one. Dollygirl was fighting a cold today and we didn't get to every subject.
Dividing fractions: Work through this word problem found here: "Cassie's bird feeder holds 1/2 of a cup of birdseed. Cassie is filling the bird feeder with a scoop that holds 1/10 of a cup. How many scoops of birdseed will Cassie put into the feeder?" Minds on Math 8, page 89, word problems 16, 17, 18, 19. Now write your own problem.
Science: see Monday.
Copywork: Einstein quotes.
French
Poetry
The Hobbit: Chapter 10, "A Warm Welcome"
"The lands opened wide about him, filled with the waters of the river which broke up and wandered in a hundred winding courses, or halted in marshes and pools dotted with isles on every side; but still a strong water flowed on steadily through the midst. And far away, its dark head in a torn cloud, there loomed the Mountain!"
Skills & Crafts: work on Dollygirl's dollmaking project.
Grammar & composition: Write Source 2000, sections 311 and on. As an example of recalling information, list in sentences the six levels of thinking. No? See the example in the book about the 1985 Live Aid concerts. What is the difference between recalling and understanding? Your writing assignment for today: write a paragraph describing what Grandpa told you about V-E Day in 1945. Use as many concrete details as you can remember. We didn't get to this, since we read extra in science and did extra sewing as well.
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