Practical English Composition Part 2

_Monday_

Discuss Sections I, II, and III of this chapter. Send the cla.s.s to the board and dictate the model as an exercise in spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. Review last week's work.

_Tuesday_

Recitation on Notes and Queries.

_Wednesday_

Oral Composition: i.e., each pupil will bring to cla.s.s his news article--not written but in his head--and be prepared to deliver it to the cla.s.s as if he were a reporter dictating to a stenographer or telephoning his report to his paper.

_Thursday_

Profiting by Wednesday's discussion, the pupils will write their articles and hand them to the teacher, who will proof-read them and return them on Monday.

_Friday_

Public Speaking--Organize the cla.s.s as a club. Let the officers arrange a program consisting of declamations, debates, essays, dialogues, etc.

This day may also be used for the reading of the best articles that members of the cla.s.s have written.

VII. Organization of Material

After you get your story, you must decide on a plan for its discussion.

This will depend largely on its nature. Indeed, the plan and the style of any piece of writing are to the material as are the clothes to the body. They must fit the body. The body determines their shape.

The model in Section IV is a bit of exposition composed partly of description and partly of narration. Its framework is as follows:

Par. 1. The "Four W's": Who=hundreds of people; What=handiwork in snow; When=yesterday; Where=Brook Avenue near One Hundred and Forty-ninth Street.

Par. 2. The Exterior of the House.

Par. 3. The Interior.

Par. 4. The Architects.

VIII. Some Possible Subjects

1. The Gas Engine that Jack built.

2. A Profitable Garden.

3. How a Boy earned his Education.

4. A Cabinet.

5. How to bind Books.

6. Stocking and keeping an Aquarium.

7. How to build a Flatboat.

8. How to make Dolls from Corn-Husks.

9. Metallic Band Work.

10. A Sled made of Ice.

11. Silk Culture.

12. Chickens.

13. A Good Notebook.

14. A Sketch-Book.

15. A Successful Composition.

16. Skees.

17. A Paper Boat.

18. Toys made in the Manual Training Rooms.

19. A Hat.

20. A Dress.

21. The best subject of all, however, is none of these, but one that the pupil finds himself.

IX. Suggested Reading

Elbert Hubbard's _A Message to Garcia_.

X. Memorize

A PSALM OF LIFE (_continued from Page 7_)

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act, act in the living Present!

Heart within and G.o.d o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us, We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

TO TEACHERS. At this point a review of Chapter V, "Proof-Reading" and Chapter VI, "The Correction of Themes," of _Practical English Composition_, Book I, will be found an invaluable exercise.

CHAPTER III

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES

"Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime."

LONGFELLOW.

I. a.s.signment