Beginners' Book in Language Part 28

stories and as a prelude to the work of the next weeks.

It depends very much on the cla.s.s whether teachers will read or freely retell the stories and other selections in the book or whether they will utilize them for reading lessons or for study recitations. With many cla.s.ses it will be decidedly best for the teacher to read or reproduce the stories and selections. See Notes 1 and 9.

=Note 34= (page 64). A number of possible exercises suggest themselves here. Thus, several lesson periods might profitably be devoted to each pupil's explaining how to make a toy or other Christmas thing. If correlation with manual training be possible, pupils may actually make toys, Christmas cards, New Year's cards, and calendars. This may be handled dramatically. Pupils may play that they are a band of fairies going to Santa Claus to offer their services in the great toyshop. One pupil is Santa Claus. He asks each pupil to _explain_ what he can do in the way of making Christmas things. Then he puts them to work. See the game in section 67.

=Note 35= (page 67). Teachers who preserve the best riddles will find them useful means of stimulating subsequent cla.s.ses to their best endeavor. A riddle book may gradually be made by a teacher's successive cla.s.ses, each cla.s.s contributing its best. Only worthy pieces of work may be included. Thus a school or a schoolroom tradition in English may be made to grow up, whose educational value would be not inconsiderable.

=Note 36= (page 67). An exchange of papers, or the correction of each paper by a small group of pupils working as a team, will often prove desirable.

=Note 37= (page 69). Very incidentally during the study of the poem, use the word _stanza_ to designate each of the three large sections of it, and call attention to the interesting fact that every line of poetry begins with a capital letter.

=Note 38= (page 72). The teacher may read or tell the cla.s.s the Spanish fairy tale "The Three Wishes" (see Wiggin and Smith's "Tales of Laughter," Doubleday, Page & Company). The story of Midas should be postponed until the fourth grade. See "Oral and Written English" (Ginn), Book One, page 100.

=Note 39= (page 74). The last lesson period preceding Christmas may be given to the teacher's reading aloud "A Visit from St. Nicholas," by Clement C. Moore.

=Note 40= (page 75). Dictate twelve dates, one in each month. Remind the pupils of the spelling of _February_ and of the fact that the names of the months begin with capital letters.

=Note 41= (page 75). Let children of foreign parentage tell about their unusual customs. Let them realize, as they tell about their home traditions, that they are making a most interesting contribution to the cla.s.s entertainment.

=Note 42= (page 78). Pupils will enjoy and profit by a pantomimic presentation of the scene, as a preparation for the real dramatization.

Let one pupil show how Jack slowly and painfully rose from the ground.

Let another show the alarmed mother, another the wise doctor. Then ask each actor what the person represented might have said. See Notes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 27.

=Note 43= (page 80). Other subjects will readily suggest themselves: as, a toboggan party, making an ice rink, trapping for muskrats or rabbits, fishing through the ice, ice boating, visiting the museum, visiting the zoo, visiting the botanical gardens, visiting the aquarium, a cla.s.s dance, a cla.s.s workshop for making things of wood, paper, or cloth.

The meeting may be presided over by a member of the cla.s.s. Set speeches should be required and order maintained. The discussion should not lapse into undirected, fragmentary conversation. It is not enough for a pupil to say, "Let us go to the museum next Sat.u.r.day afternoon." The speech should say when and where the cla.s.s is to meet, how long it is to stay, what it is to do when it reaches the museum, who the leader is to be, whether the teacher is to be invited, and why this plan is preferable to the others proposed.

For seat work the cla.s.s may make a picture book of winter fun, using colored crayons. An opportunity will here be incidentally offered to impress pupils with the fact that _if they could only write their thoughts_ they might now make a real book about winter fun, and not simply a picture book. The promise may be made that as soon as they learn to write their thoughts well, they will be given a chance to make books.

=Note 44= (page 81). The moment a word is misp.r.o.nounced in the story-telling or other exercises, it should be added to a list kept on the board. Pupils will soon become alert for errors of this kind. From such a small beginning may well grow a cla.s.s language conscience, a cla.s.s pride in its English, and thus finally an individual conscientiousness in the use of the mother tongue.

=Note 45= (page 83). Freely rendered after Chance's "Little Folks of Many Lands." Other books containing suitable material are Andrews's "The Seven Little Sisters" and "Each and All," as well as Peary's "Snow Baby"

and "Children of the Arctic." Some Eskimos do have houses of wood, mainly driftwood, but others do not. It is with these latter that the present lessons are concerned.

=Note 46= (page 86). It is advised that, as pupils suggest improvements, each account be rewritten by the teacher. The improved account should be placed on the board beside the original, so that the differences may be apparent to all. Teachers should guide in these criticisms and reconstructions, but very gently, leaving pupils free to suggest and change, making them responsible for the improvement, putting nothing down that does not appeal to the cla.s.s, thus _confronting the pupils with the problem of making each account better_ and permitting them to feel and to enjoy the full challenge of this problem.

=Note 47= (page 89). Parents may be invited to hear the cla.s.s recite poems. This will give an occasion and reason for reviewing the poems learned during the year.

=Note 48= (page 96). It seems inadvisable, in the present state of conflicting usage, to follow the greeting of some letters with a comma and of others with a colon. Not only may this arbitrary distinction prove embarra.s.sing when a writer does not wish definitely to commit himself as to whether his letter is strictly business or merely friendly, but it also compels the teaching of two forms where one will do.

=Note 49= (page 97). Since the question may arise, why the subject should not become a matter of cla.s.s discussion, it is advised that emphasis be placed on the fact that each pupil would probably prefer to talk the matter over with the teacher privately. Few pupils would like to announce publicly their desire to be postmaster, but all would be willing to tell this wish to the teacher alone. All these individual conferences, however, would be impracticable for the reasons stated in the text. There thus arises a real occasion and need for the personal letter from each pupil to the teacher.

=Note 50= (page 97). This will probably prove the strategic time for a conference between the teacher and each pupil. The letter written by each pupil alone should be made the occasion for this meeting.

Sympathetic, constructive suggestions by the teacher, covering letter form (just taught) as well as the capitalization and punctuation of sentences, will do much toward giving letter writing a promising start with the cla.s.s.

=Note 51= (page 103). Some of the best letters, as well as some of the poorest, should be utilized for criticism, in order that pupils may appreciate the excellence of the best and, on the other hand, may have ample opportunity for constructive, improving work in making over the poorest. See Note 20.

=Note 52= (page 106). This exercise involves, of course, the description of each pupil by himself. It is suggested that the spirit of play and fun be permitted to permeate the exercise, in order that wooden descriptions, mere catalogues of qualities, may be avoided.

=Note 53= (page 109). A committee of pupils, or several committees, may profitably be appointed to see that each pupil rewrites and copies neatly his sketch of himself. The committee would have charge of the making of the book after each sketch has been finished. During this work the need may arise of learning ways of lettering book t.i.tles. Then and there the teacher should study t.i.tles of books and articles with the cla.s.s and inductively teach the rule that the first and every important word in a t.i.tle should begin with a capital letter.

=Note 54= (page 113). Do not hurry in these critical exercises. Continue each one as long as the interest of the pupils will permit.

=Note 55= (page 114). If pupils manifest a desire at this point to talk about ponies, horses, goats, chickens, ducks, pigeons, rabbits, or other domestic animals, this desire should be utilized for a series of exercises similar to those about dogs.

=Note 56= (page 116). Pupils should arrive on their bicycles in animated talk, should dismount and lean the bicycles very carefully against the tree. Then they should step cautiously into the boat. When the boat leaves sh.o.r.e, the boy in the stern is sitting half twisted around and talking to his dog, while the other boy is seated squarely, well braced, so that he may row with steady strokes. Two girls may play the story as if it were about two girls.

=Note 57= (page 116). Repet.i.tion in these dramatizations must always have a clear and justifiable purpose that pupils understand. For instance, having a new audience (the pupils from another room or a visitor) would usually const.i.tute a good reason for a second performance. Then, repet.i.tion before the _same_ audience might be justified by the endeavor to improve the playing by introducing more action or more speech and thus achieving a better representation, which the cla.s.s recognizes as desirable. But every wise teacher knows that the play must stop before it has lost its savor. See Note 5.

=Note 58= (page 118). If this exercise is to reach the maximum of profit for the cla.s.s, it will include constructive work in word study, variety in expression, expansion by happy additions of words and sentences, contraction, rearrangement, combination of sentences, shortening of sentences, the striking out of needless _and's_, as well as attention to mistakes in grammar. Only one critical question should be considered at each reading.

=Note 59= (page 120). Nine pupils may work at the board at the same time, each writing one of the nine sentences.

=Note 60= (page 123). Teachers will arrange matters tactfully, that every pupil may receive a letter from one of his cla.s.smates. Pupils may write more than one letter if they wish, but the postmaster should accept no slovenly mail.

=Note 61= (page 124). It is recommended that this correspondence be permitted to continue as long as pupils take pleasure in it. There should be allowed great freedom of content. Let pupils tease each other, poke fun at each other, even ask silly questions. See Note 2.

=Note 62= (page 125). p.r.o.nounced s[=e]'r[=e]z, pr[=o]-sr'p[i]-n[_.a_], [_.a_]-p[o]l'[=o], pl[=o]o't[=o].

=Note 63= (page 131). Since the next dozen lessons or more a.s.sume the spring-time as their background, it is strongly recommended that the room be fittingly decorated. If a cla.s.s excursion could be made into the woods or to a river or park, it should be done. Some time during this group of lessons dramatization may take the form of playing that the schoolroom is a meadow or a wood in which pupils wander about picking flowers, seeing birds and animals. These they describe to the cla.s.s.

=Note 64= (page 133). By seeing written products grow in clearness, force, interest, beauty, and language effectiveness as the cla.s.s faces the problem of improving them, by seeing the better word displace the good and the phrase of color the colorless one, by watching the vague thought give way to the vivid thought, pupils will be impressed as in no other way with the fact that the first draft of any written expression, brief or long, is merely the first draft, merely a basis, a beginning, a preliminary sketch, for the finished written composition. See Notes 7 and 20.

=Note 65= (page 141). By having another pupil stand before the cla.s.s and speak for the pupil who is a bird, flower, or animal (replying, for instance, "No, he is not a dandelion" or "Yes, he is a sparrow") the game _I am not_ is easily transformed into the game _He is not_.

Similarly, the games _He has not_ and _He does not_ may easily be devised.

=Note 66= (page 143). A cla.s.sroom correspondence, that is, a cla.s.s exchange of riddles through the cla.s.s post office, may be desirable at this time.

=Note 67= (page 149). The playing of this story, the preliminary pantomime, the discussion before and after, the playing by different groups in friendly rivalry, may well occupy several English periods.

=Note 68= (page 150). It is recommended that a real spring festival be held. See Percival Chubb's "Festivals and Plays" (Harpers). A committee of pupils may be appointed to take charge of it.

=Note 69= (page 151). During the telephone game the teacher may now and then take the receiver and show what clear, polite, efficient telephoning is. In fact, the entire game may be played between the teacher on the one side and different pupils in succession on the other.

=Note 70= (page 152). Sending by mail may not seem advisable in some schools; but if it is decided on, it should be preceded by an exercise on the writing of addresses.

=Note 71= (page 153). The writing of the t.i.tles _Mr._, _Mrs._, and _Miss_ should not be made the object of any extended drill at this time.

Pupils should know how to write them for the purposes of the present exercises and of a few of the succeeding exercises.

=Note 72= (page 154). While some pupils are copying at their desks, others may copy at the board. The latter will write copies for cla.s.s criticism. Then other addresses, supplied by the teacher, may be written from dictation or copied, other pupils now writing at the board.

=Note 73= (page 155). It will be delightful to decorate the schoolroom for this lesson and the lessons immediately following. Pictures of wild animals, of trick riders, of circus parades, should be hung on the walls. It would be the best of good luck if a large circus poster could be obtained and fastened on the front wall. See Note 26.

=Note 74= (page 156). In many schools the making of the book will be doubly enjoyed if the carrying out of the plan is put in charge of several committees of pupils, after the work has been initiated by the teacher.

=Note 75= (page 157). A committee of pupils, or several such committees, may now take upon itself the work of helping in the improvement of the remaining circus stories, their final copying, and their arrangement in the book. The whole cla.s.s may be divided into six or eight small groups for this cooperative work. The teacher, apparently in the far background, is in reality in the thick of the work. See Note 79.

=Note 76= (page 159). A march may be played while the parade is on its way around the room. Let fun and play abound. Let pantomime be as extravagant as these dictate. The parade may well precede as well as follow the making of riddles. In fact, there might be an alternation of making riddles with marching, a short march following each half-dozen riddles.