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Mackfam
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| Posted: Jan 31 2012 at 4:03pm | IP Logged
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From our master thread - High school essay course using Chesterton. {Reminder: These essays come from G.K. Chesterton's book, Tremendous Trifles, available free for ereader/Kindle}
Our first attempt at Ocular Athletics
Mackfam wrote:
Essay for this week: A Piece of Chalk
** Everyone read the essay independently: 15 yo, 11 yo and me. We discussed it - together and individually. Very natural discussions - mostly reflecting on Chesterton's style with my 15 yo, and her impressions. My 11 yo was more concrete in his observations. (I think it would be enjoyable to read some of these essays aloud, don't you?)
** We have really enjoyed spinoff conversations from the essay:
~ Do animals have a soul? (11 yo very interested in this question)
~ Why is England a piece of chalk (archaeological composition of England)
~ Poetic contents of one's pocket, and in particular the poetry of the pocketknife (a poem my children would like to write)
** From the essay, we enjoyed hearing about Chesterton's preferences for brown paper, and the reasons why he preferred using brown paper, and we had some great discussions about white chalk on brown paper as it relates to sketching/drawing.
** Both kids got out brown paper and white chalk and decided to see the striking nature of white on brown paper for themselves (mental note: I'm almost out of brown kraft paper pads....order more since they both really enjoyed using it again today.) My son chose to draw the soul of a moth.  (this was inspired from Chesterton who chose not to draw nature, but rather, the soul of the cow that was passing in front of him.)
** HIGH SCHOOLER: chose topic of her essay -- but she won't tell me what it is. |
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All are welcome to join in the discussion!
1) READ THE ESSAY
2) Add to this thread any observation, enjoyable discussion, question, natural spin-off or rabbit trail that introduced itself by way of this essay.
3) Encourage high schoolers to model an essay based on Chesterton's essay.
4) Idea: In the essay, Chesterton hints that he would like to have written an epic poem on the subject of the contents of one's pocket. Investigate epic poems. Have younger children write a poem (not an epic one unless they just feel inspired!) based on the contents of their pockets!
All discussion and further sharing is encouraged! 
{MODERATOR NOTE: Though this topic originally began in the high school forum, because of the wide range of ages and interest in those participating, this series may move to the Living Learning forum. }
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Jen Mackintosh
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Mackfam
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Mackfam wrote:
** Both kids got out brown paper and white chalk and decided to see the striking nature of white on brown paper for themselves (mental note: I'm almost out of brown kraft paper pads....order more since they both really enjoyed using it again today.) |
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I meant to mention that a brown paper bag works just fine to illustrate this effect, too. A white oil pastel would work, too, if you don't have white chalks.
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Jen Mackintosh
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Grace&Chaos
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My oldest dd and I read the essay last night. She had three major topics she wanted to touch on:
- How the cycle of just about any exploration always ultimately comes back to nature or natural things. This really prompted a nice little discussion about science and discoveries and how we treat our Earth.
- She really latched on to the significance of the color white as purity and symbolizing God and goodness.
- Lastly, she also found the idea of sitting on chalk very interesting. Except, her focus was on paying attention to your surroundings and available resources.
We're going to try writing a poem today after the white on brown bag sketch. I have a feeling I have an environmentalist on my hands 
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Jenny
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JodieLyn
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 starting with a disclaimer.. my son's scout troop just had a "class" on guns and safety in a developing sense (how guns changed with safety innovations)
So I read this outloud to make it more readily available to some of my younger children and struggling readers. And it did hold their attention once I got their attention.. it may not have been the best day/time but waiting for that means it's more likely to be skipped than anything.
They enjoyed the parrallels between the sand in the sahara, saltwater in the middle of the sea and the chalk that he's sitting upon. My very literal 11 yr old made sure that I said he was *sitting* upon the chalk.
We did touch on if animals have souls. And talked a bit about how humans are animals in one sense but that we're made in the image of God and have souls and how God put us over the animals. And this is where my 13 yr old remarks that God gave us guns, and that's corrected to God gave us the ability to invent guns. And a small discussion about the projectile weapons through the ages. (arrows were before guns etc)
I helped it along a good bit this time. Discussions here are complicated with too many leaders correcting each other and no one wanting to follow  but this actually went pretty well all things considered.
I also talked a bit about how the essay started with a story line and then detoured to the pocket poems and then back to the storyline and then detoured to the next thing etc but starting and ending with the same story.
I may have my oldest try and do some writing tomorrow. Maybe the others I will ask to write a sentence about something like the sand in the sahara since they liked those ideas so well. That will be a small enough something for the younger kids to start with.
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All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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Shari in NY
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I read the essay outloud yesterday, too. I think it helps with Chesterton. Even my highschool aged guys have trouble with some of his sentences. We then played with pastels on brown paper bags. They could draw anything they wanted but not landscapes! We had roses and white hot stars and an angry red devil but no one attempted the soul of a cow! Today we write!
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Kristie 4
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We also read the essay yesterday- out loud and silently by different folks. I am at a bit of a loss though how to write with this- my ds17 just sort of looked blankly (and he likes to write) when I told him to think of an idea and model it after the essay (and we have done lots of imitation in the past)>
Any ideas about how to get this moving?
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Kristie in Canada
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Mackfam
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Kristie 4 wrote:
Any ideas about how to get this moving? |
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Here is what my dd has done, Kristie....
She read the essay once and we discussed it. We identified the main theme of the essay easily and we all discussed the many enjoyable tangents Chesterton took. Then she read it again, this time she kept a small piece of paper and a pencil next to her and she counted the number of times Chesterton took off on a side topic. She counted 7 side topics. We noticed that each time Chesterton leaves the main point and wanders away, he always wanders back, so we envisioned a picture of his essay, and then my dd drew it on a piece of paper:
The brown line through the center is the main idea. And the blue line is his wandering through the essay. This isn't scientific, or super analytical, just a picture to help her model the essay.
If you look at the picture, you can see a clearly defined and enclosed space between the blue wandering and the brown line....this is where Chesterton talks about an idea....like the time he went on and on about how white is a color, not necessarily the absence of a color. That IDEA would fit in one of those spaces. So, for Chesterton's essay, along the brown line you would write the main idea or topic of the essay, in this case: A Piece of Chalk. And inside each of the 7 spaces you'd write the wandering idea he wrote about.
Now, we could have mapped out Chesterton's essay, but our goal was to model it, not to analyze Chesterton. So, she drew this map and it's to serve as a basis for her essay. Along the brown line she'll write the main topic of her essay, which is: A Square Hanky. ( - that just cracks me up!! I said, "choose an object, any object, that you have DEFINITE OPINIONS about." She almost chose a pocketknife, but said she had more opinions about her handkerchiefs!! ) So....with the main idea thread down the center, she's just going to do a stream of conscience thing....listing everything that comes to mind as she thinks of a square hanky. From those tangential topics she'll choose 7, just as Chesterton's essay had, and fill in the bubbles on the piece of paper. With a map that's modeled after Chesterton's essay, she'll write.
She's writing today, but we have 2 big dogs and a big cat to get to the vet so I'm betting she may not get far....although....this could provide some meat for her essay!
I don't know if she'll do this every time. She has never modeled an essay of hers off of another person's essay, so she thought this might help her map out a model of the writing without being restrictive or becoming too formulaic (which she resists in her writing), but giving her a visual picture. I'm eager to see how this develops. I can see her eventually becoming more comfortable with this idea and just reading the essay a couple of times and picking up a pen and writing.
Not sure if this little "map" helps or not Kristie, but I thought it was a neat idea she had so I thought I'd share.
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Jen Mackintosh
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Kristie 4
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Thanks Jen! That really helped. And what really helped was reading out my kids some of the essays from 'Ocular Athletics' (thanks so much Shari  ).
They, and I, have been happily writing for over an hour!!
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Kristie in Canada
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Shari in NY
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Glad to be of help, Kristie! I want my guys to love Chesterton so I don't have a lot of rules for these writings. Last year there were NO rules! But this time I asked for three paragraphs on any subject that they could tie back to the original essay, no matter how slender a thread . Joe really couldn't think of anything he wanted to write about so I told him if he wrote an epic poem on the contents of his pockets he could get by with two stanza. He definately had the most fun with this and commented a couple times how much fun it was and even read his poem outloud after supper. Very unusual behvior for this 15 year old boy! Thanks again, Jen for getting this started! 
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Kristie 4
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My daughter LOVED this essay- she is still writing and has covered a page and a half in very small print! She wrote about a pencil, and really captured the feeling of the essay!
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Kristie in Canada
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Mackfam
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Kristie 4 wrote:
My daughter LOVED this essay- she is still writing and has covered a page and a half in very small print! She wrote about a pencil, and really captured the feeling of the essay!
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How exciting!!!  That's great, Kristie!
I wanted to encourage y'all - if your children would like to share their essays here I think that would be wonderful! Having said that, some children are very protective of their work, preferring to keep it private. And that is also to be respected!
This is an invitation with no pressure!!!! If a child would like to share, let's do that! I'd love to cheer them on! If a child would like to keep an essay or poem private - wonderful! I'm still cheering!!!!
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Jen Mackintosh
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Kristie 4
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What I really liked about this project was that 'I' even wanted to write it (and did). I would almost rather do anything than write an essay (toilet cleaning ranks in there easily), but this one was so much fun. I must admit my English profs weren't quite this interesting
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Kristie in Canada
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Mackfam
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What an enjoyable week with A Piece of Chalk - whether you just read the essay along with us, or chose to follow it with some writing and rabbit trails!!
We found it delightful to think about chalk, brown paper, sitting on rocks (which are chalk) and not looking past the obvious gifts God makes available to us in nature. And Chesterton, as only he can do, invited us to see the usefulness and importance of simple, ordinary things that our eye and thoughts may normally look past. It inspired poems on pocket knives and pocket contents, and inspired us all to write and sketch with white, acknowledging white as a color. I really enjoyed our discussion and sharing here!
If you found yourself excited considering how Chesterton might treat the contents of his pockets, you might enjoy reading What I Found In My Pocket, chapter XV in Tremendous Trifles.
One of the reasons I love Chesterton is because you really can't over-think his humorous essays. And you don't have to over-think your writing either when you model after him - it should be fun, light, considerate, natural. You do get to exercise your eyes in seeing what you might normally look past, and in quite a delightful way, writing as Chesterton invites one to consider opinions and feelings they might have as yet discovered about the most trivial of inanimate objects about them. I feel stronger already having become ocular athletes with all of you!
Great week!
Next week, we're going to skip ahead a little bit and read The Perfect Game. I'll start a new thread Monday morning! (Heads up: Get out your croquet sets!)
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Jen Mackintosh
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Kristie 4
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oh FUN!
My kids play croquet all year round (in the winter they set up croquet mountains and tunnels) but for some reason have forgotten this winter.
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Kristie in Canada
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MaryM
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Mackfam wrote:
Next week, we're going to skip ahead a little bit and read The Perfect Game. I'll start a new thread Monday morning! (Heads up: Get out your croquet sets!) |
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Kristie 4 wrote:
My kids play croquet all year round (in the winter they set up croquet mountains and tunnels) but for some reason have forgotten this winter. |
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I thought we'd have to set up indoors ...with our foot and a half of recent snow, but that is a fun snow tunnel idea...
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Mary M. in Denver
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Mackfam
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MaryM wrote:
Mackfam wrote:
Next week, we're going to skip ahead a little bit and read The Perfect Game. I'll start a new thread Monday morning! (Heads up: Get out your croquet sets!) |
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Kristie 4 wrote:
My kids play croquet all year round (in the winter they set up croquet mountains and tunnels) but for some reason have forgotten this winter. |
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I thought we'd have to set up indoors ...with our foot and a half of recent snow, but that is a fun snow tunnel idea... |
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You know, I almost avoided this one because it's winter and I wondered if there would be too many dealing with snow to be able to set up croquet.....but it seems like so many of us are having such a mild winter I thought it might be possible. I guess we forgot to tell Colorado about the mild winter, huh? I'm so glad the snow tunnel possibility may work!
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Jen Mackintosh
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Kristie 4
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We are in Manitoba- winter is half the year. So the kids have to adapt!
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Kristie in Canada
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4Real Forums : High School Years and Beyond
Topic: CHESTERTON ESSAY - A piece of chalk
