Sharing some written work

I'd like to share with you what my daughter wrote today. Please know this is not a boastful type of brag, but a genuine "wow, look what my daughter did today" type of mommy brag. Since I am pretty much homebound and without adult interaction much of the time, you are the lucky ones who get to hear it. :-)

This might also be considered a mini commercial for our writing curriculum, Institute for Excellence in Writing, or IEW. I am so thankful the Lord brought us to this curriculum at this juncture in our homeschool journey. It is a curriculum that teaches writing skills using models, so from the very beginning students don't need to worry about what to write but are simply taught how to write. Once these models are practiced and retained, they become automatic and then older students can spend all their time on what to write because they already know the how. Make sense?

We are currently learning how to write short narrative stories, and the model we are using for this is the fable. First we learned how to break the fable down into its three main parts (characters/setting; conflict/problem; climax/resolution/epilogue) and made an outline of these parts. Then today our daughter put the original fable away, looked at her outline, and re-wrote the fable from her notes. She was required to add in the "dress-ups" that she's learned, those elements of style that tend to "dress up" our writing, making it fancier.

Here is her fable (the Fox and the Crow), minus a catchy title which we haven't come up with yet. She did this 100% on her own, and you can tell that she likes adjectives!

Once there was a black crow perched on a leafy branch in the dewy sun of the morning, with a big yellow delicious piece of cheese in her beak. Along came a fox trotting through the forest. When he saw the piece of cheese in the crow's beak, he drooled and licked his lips. The fox craved the cheese and said to the crow, "Good morning, you look very beautiful today!" The crow smiled but didn't say anything because of the piece of cheese in her beak.

Then the sly fox said, "How black and glossy your feathers are." The crow puffed up with pride. Then the fox pleaded, "I'm sure your voice is even more beautiful than your feathers. Please just sing a few notes for me." This pleased her and the poor crow opened her mouth to sing. The piece of yellow cheese dropped down to the open mouth of the waiting fox. Then the fox gobbled up the cheese and said, "Ha! That was very delicious cheese, but your song was ugly. Remember, watch out for flattery." And with that, the fox walked off into the sunny forest.

The crow was left behind on the branch of the tree, starring into the forest. Then she flew over into a bigger tree where she had a large stash of nuts and cheese. "Well, at least I have more cheese," she gloated, "but that selfish fox did teach me a lesson. Beware of flattery."

We need to work on alternate ways of beginning a sentence other than with the word "then", but I thought it was a wonderful start!