The method of narration articulated by Charlotte Mason is a powerful tool that involves children retelling what they have learned in their own words. Students tell back the content of what they have read, seen or heard. This actively engages their minds in the process of assimilating knowledge, making connections and cultivating language skills. Narration is dynamic and grows in complexity as students grow, meaning that as students enter higher grade levels and encounter subjects that have dense prose, we need to understand how to modulate our use of narration to fit the needs of the texts they read. When we think about science, we can see many benefits of using narration as it fosters active engagement with scientific ideas, strengthens memory retention, and has students using the language of science in their retellings.
Mason reflects, after years of implementation both in homes and schools, the result of narration for students:
“Oral teaching was to a great extent ruled out; a large number of books on many subjects were set for reading in morning school-hours; so much work was set that there was only time for a single reading; all reading was tested by a narration of the whole or a given passage, whether orally or in writing. Children working on these lines know months after that which they have read and are remarkable for their power of concentration (attention); they have little trouble with spelling or composition and become well-informed, intelligent persons.” (Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 15)
Narration is a curious tool for the educator, since it is fairly expansive in its forms and uses. As we endeavor to look at narration from the perspective of its application in science, we must understand that narration can be of different sorts and utilize different thinking processes. Students can draw, dramatize, describe, discuss, or diagram. They can evaluate, compare and contrast, list, question, and chart. If we view narration as a means of assimilating knowledge through actively retelling in any number of ways. When we first learn narration from Mason’s writing, we tend to lock into a mode of simple retellings of narrative texts. But as we work with students at older ages and grade levels, these more complex thinking skills can and should be incorporated into their retellings.
I think it is helpful to visualize narration as situated on a spectrum from memorization on one end and summary on the other end. Narration fits somewhere in between these two. What exactly narration is can be differentiated from the two alternatives. When a student encounters the text, their narration is not a rapid memorization of the text. True, memory plays a significant role, but we are not listening for a word-for-word memorization of the text. Similarly, narration is not mere summary. A student who shares, “the text basically says such and such,” has not actually narrated. There is no rich retelling of the text, but a boiling down into something that is too distilled. Within this range from memorization to summary, there is much scope to develop cognitive and affective skills in students’ retelling.
To spell this out further, I think it instructive to look at Mason’s thoughts in her third book, School Education. Here she develops the basic method of narration within a school context. She insists upon a single reading of the text with full attention:
“The simplest way of dealing with a paragraph or a chapter is to require the child to narrate its contents after a single attentive reading,––one reading, however slow, should be made a condition; for we are all too apt to make sure we shall have another opportunity of finding out ‘what ’tis all about.’” (Charlotte Mason, School Education, 179)
One reading! That’s it! Notice how sensitive Mason is to the pacing this requires. In some cases, one can take on an entire chapter of material, but in others a paragraph only. She also uses the word “slow,” which indicates that at times the density of materials requires deliberation and concentration. If students expect that they can wait for a second reading, their ability to attend at the initial reading decreases. In fact, waiting for a second exposure to the materials – which may feel like a means of reinforcing learning – is not nearly as effective as learners might think. The authors of Make It Stick point out that singular readings followed by retrieval practice is the optimal process for learning. “Today, we know from empirical research that practicing retrieval makes learning stick better than reexposure to the original material does” (Make It Stick 29).
Continuing on with Mason’s more elaborate thoughts on narration, she writes:
“There is much difference between intelligent reading, which the pupil should do in silence, and a mere parrot-like cramming up of contents; and it is not a bad test of education to be able to give the points of a description, the sequence of a series of incidents, the links in a chain of argument, correctly, after a single careful reading.” (Charlotte Mason, School Education, 180)
What we find here is a recognition that the older student reads texts of different sorts. There are philosophical and political treatises, chronicles of historical events, and descriptions within scientific texts. The way we narrate these kinds of texts can take the form of outline and description.
“But this is only one way to use books: others are to enumerate the statements in a given paragraph or chapter; to analyse a chapter, to divide it into paragraphs under proper headings, to tabulate and classify series; to trace cause to consequence and consequence to cause; to discern character and perceive how character and circumstance interact; to get lessons of life and conduct, or the living knowledge which makes for science, out of books; all this is possible for school boys and girls, and until they have begun to use books for themselves in such ways, they can hardly be said to have begun their education.” (Charlotte Mason, School Education, 180)
The simple narrations of the elementary years are but the beginning of the ways we can utilize the power of narration. Students who are able to be tested in their telling back by incorporating these thinking skills become powerful learners. It matters not what books are placed before them. They apprehend not only the contents of the text, but also have the means of working with what they are acquiring as they are assimilating it.
Inspirational vs Disciplinary Subjects
The next idea we must delineate pertains to the nature of different subjects. Some are what we might call inspirational, meaning they are rich in ideas that are generally delivered in a literary form. For example, history tells stories about people and events from the past. Other subjects are disciplinary in nature, meaning that there is a focus on developing skills. Grammar and mathematics are two such subjects where students are trained to identify parts of speech or to work mathematical problems.
Over the years, I have developed the view that subjects tend toward either an inspirational or disciplinary nature. While literature is predominantly inspirational in nature, there are times when literary texts are analyzed for characterization or plot devices. The analytical tools are, of course, disciplinary in nature. So we can say that there are moments within inspirational subjects where skills are developed along disciplinary lines.
Mathematics, which tends to be highlighted as the chief disciplinary subject, can be a highly inspirational subject. There ought to be times when mathematical ideas are explored for their philosophical and aesthetic inspiration. For instance, I have led students in a discussion about the nature of the number zero. Zero means nothingness, and we delight in the idea that there is no place in the universe where zero exists, and yet everywhere in the universe, zero exists.
What we mean by subjects tending towards an inspirational or disciplinary nature, then, is that by and large, the mode we are operating in is one or the other. Even when we incorporate disciplinary or skills-based elements into inspirational subjects, or explore living ideas within disciplinary subjects, each subject can be generalized as one or the other. This is helpful because it shows us the modes we ought to operate within for each kind of subject. For instance, in inspirational subjects, we will largely be reading texts that are literary in nature, while in disciplinary subjects, we will be learning skills to accomplish certain kinds of work.
With this background in mind, we should note that science has both inspirational and disciplinary aspects to it. Charlotte Mason quotes Sir Richard Gregory, a leading British astronomer and scientist in her day, “The essential mission of school science was to prepare pupils for civilised citizenship by revealing to them something of the beauty and the power of the world in which they lived, as well as introducing them to the methods by which the boundaries of natural knowledge had been extended. School science, therefore, was not intended to prepare for vocations, but to equip pupils for life” (Philosophy of Education 222). For Mason, science contains both living ideas as well as techniques and methods that are carried out in field study and the laboratory. It contains a rich history that ought to be accessed through texts of literary quality. Yet science also contains the language of mathematics to calculate measures and processes.
Because of the dual nature of science, we need to expand our notion of narration beyond what we might consider the basic retelling of a narrative. In certain moments, there are narratives of great scientists whose stories tell of significant breakthroughs and advances in science. These moments will call forth a very recognizable type of narration as is found when a young child retells a tale from a story book. Yet there are other moments when a text delves into the intricacies of chemical change, the structures within a cell, or the formulas that are applied to motion. These cause the young reader to slow down and take in smaller portions at a time. Thus, the narrations become much more focused. They must assimilate the technical terminology fitting to the subject. They must be able to reproduce calculations that are properly formatted according to the conventions of a given scientific field. In such cases, there are moments when narration involves listing, outlining, defining, describing, illustrating and diagramming. These acts of knowing, then, form the means by which students assimilate and work with what they are learning.
A science curriculum that has become well loved amongst classical as well as Charlotte Mason educators is the Novare series written by John Mays. It’s a series of science texts that is sensitive to the dual nature of science by including sufficient historical context, that students can pick up on the narrative of science, while also cultivating the skills required to use mathematics, the language of science. I think it is instructive to consider some of the pedagogical principles Mays lays out, since they are in alignment with what we have described about the developing role of narration for older students in more technical subjects like science.
Mays is a big advocate for retrieval practice. At a number of points in his book From Wonder to Mastery, he reiterates the value of regular retrieval practice. For the younger years, narration is a natural practice as the texts we can access retain a narrative flair and literary quality. For instance, students can cultivate wonder by reading nature stories such as That Quail, Robert by Margaret Stranger. There are fascinating books that are image rich and accessible to young readers such as A Drop of Water by Walter Wick or the books in the “Scientists in the Field” series. There’s a wonderful series on the history of science called The Story of Science produced by the Smithsonian and written by Joy Hakim. All of these prepare elementary and middle school students for learning science alongside subjects such as nature study which gets them outside observing the natural world around them. Mays includes a list of books by great naturalists that likewise will expose older students to a rich world of authors who observed the natural world and wrote their findings in a literary style (see From Wonder to Mastery, 49).
As proponents of retrieval practice, the methods that Mays advises for science teachers are in the main quite sound. Jason Barney in A Classical Guide to Narration spells out the connection between narration and retrieval practice.
“Retrieval practice is not just what you do in studying for a test, though it is the most effective way to do that. It is the process of learning itself because it requires your brain to re-access the neural networks that were originally lit up as you were attending to that material.” (Jason Barney, A Classical Guide to Narration, 33)
And this is exactly what narration is, a process of “re-accessing” the material. And what this looks like in science is lots of regular short reviews. The ideas and calculations of science require effort and practice on the pathway towards mastery. I really like how Mays recommends an atmosphere of mastery. He writes, “Every single day in your class should be a mastery experience for your students” (185). Thus, taking moments to do short-form narrations of scientific concepts goes a long way towards shaping and molding students in the ways of scientific thought.
An Example Lesson from Novare
I think it is helpful to see how one would use narration with an example from an actual text. The following image is from page 107 in General Biology published by Novare (this is one of the pages from their sample pages available for free preview at Classical Academic Press).
Looking at this passage, you can see how the text already breaks the content down to small and accessible episodes. I would provide a “small talk” by listing the four reactions on the board. We would read carefully and closely the first paragraph one time and then turn the book over. My narration cue would be simply to say, “tell me what you recall about glycolysis.” One student might share that it means “sugar breaking” and that a small amount of ATP is released. Then I call for another student to add more to the picture, and that student says that a six-carbon molecule is broken down into a 3-carbon molecule. Another student might say that an electron is carried by a molecule, but can’t remember the name. Then the first student remembers that it was a NADH molecule. By this point, much of the paragraph has been narrated by what we would call a string narration. Now I can have the text turned back over, and I ask the students, “what did we miss?” They can see that the 6-carbon molecule is a glucose molecule and the 3-carbon molecule is an acid. In a few minutes we have accomplished a great deal to assimilate the knowledge of glycolysis and can move to oxidation of pyruvate.
Another narration technique we could use is to spend a few minutes closely observing the illustration at the bottom of the page. After those few minutes, we turn the text over and take out our white boards and dry-erase markers. I ask them to draw the illustration labelling as many items as they can remember on their own. Then I have them compare their illustration with their table partner, filling in any information they left out. Again, in very short order, they have assimilated a considerable amount of knowledge in a short amount of time.
Taken all together, this page might take an entire 45-minute lesson to get though all four reactions and the illustration. The next lesson begins with some guided questions to recall details from the text and the illustration, which might come in the form of a short quiz taking five to eight minutes. The retrieval practice is challenging but reinforces much of the information they need to know about how cells create energy.
Hopefully this deep dive into narration as it relates to science helps you deepen your understanding of the method of narration. Even if you don’t teach science, the skills described here are easily applicable to other subjects that contain detailed prose. The point is that narration is a sophisticated tool that can grow in complexity and nuance as students rise through the grade levels.
Training the Prophetic Voice by Dr. Patrick Egan is a must-read for classical Christian educators seeking to build a robust rhetoric program. Grounded in biblical theology, this insightful book provides a framework for developing students’ prophetic voices – the ability to speak with wisdom, clarity, and conviction on the issues that matter most.
As an experienced educator, Dr. Egan understands the vital role rhetoric plays in shaping the next generation of Christian leaders. Through time-tested principles and practical guidance, he equips teachers to cultivate students who can articulate the truth with passion and purpose.
Whether you’re looking to revitalize your existing rhetoric curriculum or lay the foundation for a new program, Training the Prophetic Voice is an invaluable resource. Discover how to empower your students to become effective communicators, courageous truth-tellers, and agents of transformation in their communities and beyond.
Order your copy of Training the Prophetic Voice today and unlock the power of your students’ voice in your classroom.