APPENDIX F

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS

In teaching composition, more depends upon the teacher than upon the text. The first aim of the teacher should be to make the child take the work naturally, as if it were a part of his pleasurable, every-day living. At home he lives actively; he often carries to school an unwilling or passive mind. At home he takes part in the social life and talk of the family; he asks questions, finds out facts, makes things with his hands. At school he often feels a sense of isolation. There are certain things which he must learn all by himself; he can not ask help, for instance, from the boy whom he was helping in a game in the schoolyard five minutes before. (See "School and Society," John Dewey.)

If the teacher makes the composition work a part of the daily living of the pupil, the latter will reflect in writing his interest in talk. He can be shown that he is making something when he constructs a composition, just as much as if he were making a box. And in time he will feel a pleasure in expressing himself through words as well as through deeds. Further, composition will help him to organize and generalize his life. It can largely do away with the isolation he feels, can help him socially, give him an idea of general responsibility, an interest in others, an impulse to help others. This is achieved not so much by writing as by criticizing. The child is led to criticize his own and his friends' composition. Mary tells George where she thinks he could improve his work by changing the title, or by adding something to the end. All the children work

together at improving John's theme. John will not feel hurt at their suggestions; he will simply realize that he is being helped. It is only when John is twenty and in a college class that he resents criticism.

The first step, then, is for the teacher to get the pupils to take writing as a matter of course. The ideal would be to spend from a half to three-quarters of an hour a day on the subject. Compositions may be written in class, or subjects may be assigned for outside work. The former plan trains the pupil to do his work quickly. Occasionally the subject should be given him just before he writes to insure spontaneity; again, it should be assigned a day or two in advance to give him time to think over the matter. Sometimes one method should be used chiefly with a class, sometimes the other. The teacher should be always ready to help by asking questions and offering suggestions.

Ideally the pupils should write one composition a day; yet it is impossible for the teacher to correct all these. The teacher should criticize in writing at least one composition a week for each pupil. The paper on which the composition is written should have a wide margin. On this the teacher should put, in red ink, the suggestions for rewriting, making on the outside of the composition a general summary of the criticism. Then the pupil should rewrite in accordance with these suggestions. Too much insistence can not be put on this matter of rewriting, for by it the pupil learns more than he does when he writes the original composition. But more can be done by oral criticism than by written criticism. The teacher should read aloud every day, or two or three times a week, some of the best and some of the worst compositions, and lead the class to criticize them.

Criticism should never be discouraging. All that can be said in praise of a composition should be said. Even when there is absolutely no good point in it, the teacher should

put his remarks in some such way as this: "You can turn this into a good composition if you will make the following corrections." Further, criticism should be constructive. Never tell a pupil he is wrong without setting him right, or else putting him in the way of finding out for himself the remedy. Moreover, the teacher ought not to try to accomplish too much at once; it is enough to call the child's attention at first to one or two of his gravest faults, weeding out the others as time goes on. It is well, sometimes, in writing down criticism to correct a fault, especially if it be a bad mistake in grammar, without calling the child's attention to it. The great necessity is fluency and the power to construct; if we find too much fault with the child, we prevent these powers and destroy his interest.

There follow four specimen corrected compositions, two of which are perhaps worse than many which most eighth grade or first year high school teachers receive. The first is bad because the child has chosen too large a subject, and a title which is even larger than the subject. The result is that he writes about two or three disjoined topics, and errs in unity. It should be treated as follows:

MY VACATION

I

One day last summer when our Sunday school had their picnic out in Kankakee a party of men and women got into a sail boat and went boatriding. They had not got more than half way out when the boat upset and the people fell in. One was a man from Chicago who owns a red automobile. He was arrested once for rid

Your title is too large; you talk of only one day of your va cation.

"School" is singular and "their" is plural.

You say too much about this man. You are not writing about him, but about the accident in general. You should treat only one subject in your composition.