WTM approach for 7th grader/ Truthquest users?

[Mom2MLA]

Help! I need some handholding as I try to incorporate the classical approach into our homeschooling journey. My kids love history. It is their favorite time of our HS day. We use SL and so we are quite familiar with the routine of history reading, related read-alouds, and correlating independent reading. We don't, however, regularly create any written documentation of what we've learned.

As I look toward next year, I feel drawn to a more classical approach. We will begin our study of world history then, but I fear a straight WTM approach in this area would turn history into drudgery and a source for complaining. The Truthquest guides seem quite appealing. It seems to be much like SL in implementation but with the added bonus of looking at history through a strong, God-centered lens. Yet, I really want that written documentation created through narration/outlining.

So my question is for those of you using TQ and utilizing a classical approach: Specifically, how do you incorporate the narration/outlining/timeline/mapping aspects of the classical method? Maybe there is nothing really to incorporate and you just follow WTM methodology? How does that look in practice? How often does your child sit down and produce something to put in his notebook?

I have two grammar stage dc (1/4th next year) and one logic (7th next year). I am most concerned about my 7th grader, particularly. Not only am I finding that she needs the reinforcement of processing what she's read/heard from her brain, to her fingers and then onto paper, but I would also feel more comfortable having some hard-copy product to document what we've covered. (Our notebooking efforts using SL have been sporadic.) So, if any of you have advice for me, I would truly appreciate it as right now I feel a bit overwhelmed with new curriculum and methodology choices that I can't seem to differentiate and/or blend, if that makes any sense.

Thanks,
Meredith

[Narrow Gate Academy]

This year we're doing AHYS1 with a 1st and 3rd grader. Whenever we hit a key event or figure that I want my children to remember, I have them do a narration. Both of mine narrate out loud to me and I write it down. I type our narrations up and we turn them into booklets for our lapbook. You could just as easily use them for copywork for the youngest, and dictation for the 4th grader then file the results in the folder. Most weeks my children only have 1 or 2 history narrations so that it doesn't become overwhelming.

For timelines, I made our own timeline notebooks, and we add in the figures from the HTTA cd whenever we discuss a person or event that is listed. For mapwork, we start with blank maps that I find online and just add to it based on what we are reading. For example, for American colonization, we had one map and we marked each colony as we came to it (Jamestown, Plymouth, Maryland, etc.). For the French and Indian war, we are going to map who claimed what land before the war started, locations of key battles, and who claimed what land afterwards. Again, we don't do timelines or mapwork every week just when we hit topics that I want to emphasize more.

Overall our output is 0-2 narrations a week, a new timeline figure every 1 or 2 weeks, and mapwork whenever it is applicable.

If you want you're oldest to do some outlining, I would suggest using one of the spine selections from TruthQuest. You can also have her do written answers for the thinkwrite questions or have her write 1 or 2 short papers a month comparing or contrasting two people or events or during some further research on something that interests her.

HTH